Hello everyone! Welcome to my review of the
Sandmarc Macro lens!
This review is divided up into a few sections
for which the timestamps are on the screen
right now and in the description, so you can
click through the video to find what you’re
interested in!
I should mention that this lens was sent to
me by Sandmarc for free, but in no way am
I obligated to praise the lens and not give
my honest opinion.
If you like this lens after this review, make
sure to use the link in the description to
order yours!
Let’s jump right in!
Sandmarc sent me the Macro lens, as well as
another case for the phone, which I'll also
review. The seperate case comes as the only
thing in the box. As for the other box, you
get the lens, its attachments, and an iPhone
case. When ordering your lens, the case is
the only thing that's different when
choosing your iPhone model.
You get a nice little pouch with the lens,
you get the clamp, the lens hood, as well
as a little microfiber cloth. Every accessory
can nicely fit in the pouch with the lens,
so it's very easy to carry everything you
might need when shooting.
As for the case that is included with the
lens, it’s a very, VERY sturdy one. It has
minimal flex since it’s made from hard plastic.
At first it kinda bothered me because it was
very hard to take it off the phone. Even though
the iPhone 11 Pro has a stainless steel frame
which is very resistant to bending forces,
I was still afraid I was going to bend my
phone. ,After a few uses though, the plastic
was already more bendy and it was easier to
take it off. Apart from that, the only thing
that kind of bothers me is that some parts
of the phone are not protected. But if you
don’t have a problem with that, or plan
on using this case just when shooting with
the lens, it’s a non issue. But, if you
don’t mind a bit of a bigger camera bump,
this case can really serve its purpose as
an everyday protection for your phone.
As I've said, Sandmarc have also sent me another
case seperately. This one is very similar
to the Apple’s official Silicone case both
from the outside and the inside. It is ruberry
on the outside, and on the inside it has a
very nice suede-like material. It also protects
a bit more of your phone compared to the case
which is included with the Macro lens.
As you can see, both of these are made very
precise to fit onto your phone and to fit
the lens correctly onto your cameras.
There are a few differences when screwing
the lens on. The silicone case has a bit more
throw. The Tele camera has more than a full
circle and the Wide has almost two circles.
While the included case has around half a
circle for the Tele and one circle for the Wide.
Here you can see all cameras and cases and
how much the lens screws on. Also, the clamp
which is included with the lens.
Another great thing is that both of these
cases are thin enough to support wireless
charging, making them suitable as a daily
accessory.
The different cases and the clamp don't influence
how near the macro lens can focus, since the
differences, if there are any, are very very
small.
The included lens hood doesn’t have any
threads and is simply put onto the lens and
held with the friction from the rubber inside.
It is a simple plastic piece.
One use for it is to protect your lens from
scratching. Since you’ll be getting very
close to your subjects, you can easily
scratch the lens onto the ground for example.
We will get into the focus distance later,
but the hood can serve as an exact measurement
on how far or close the lens can focus.
You can also use the hood as a light diffusor
for some stylistic shots. It nicely diffuses
even the flash from the phone’s camera,
which would otherwise create a weird shadow.
You can also play around with different light
setups and using the hood to shape the light.
The lens is fitted on either with a clamp
or by screwing it onto the phone case. I haven’t
noticed any major differences in the two approaches,
but if you’re taking photos or shooting
video with the lens, I’d probably recommend
using the case. With the clamp, the lens is
mounted slightly off axis. This doesn’t
degrade images at all, but if you’re planning
to shoot for some time and not just snap a
picture, it might be a better option to screw
the lens onto the case.
You can keep the lens mounted onto the clip
and keep the whole thing somewhere protected.
If you’re ever in a situation where you
need to quickly pull it out to shoot something,
it’s easy to do so. Either clamp the lens
onto your phone, or if you have the Sandmarc
case on the phone, unscrew the lens from the
clamp and put it onto your phone.
This might be a good approach because this
way you always have the clamp close by even
if you wish to take a macro photo with the
selfie camera for example. It also allows
you to mount the lens onto some other phones
without the official case with the mounting
threads. As I said, Sandmarc offers different
iPhone cases, but the lens will work perfectly
on literally any other smartphone!
The clamp itself is very nicely built, it
presses onto the sufrace with a lot of force.
It also has rubber inside so that it doesn’t
scratch your phone.
The lens itself is only 38 by 15
millimeters and it weighs
only 25.4 grams.
The lens has rubber caps for front and back.
The back one has a nice extension to easily
pull it off, but the front one is made very
tight. It being made from rubber, makes it
really hard to pull off the lens, since you
don’t have anything to grasp the lens with.
The easiest way would be to mount it onto
the case or the clamp and then taking off
the front cover.
As far as mounting the lens on different iPhone
cameras goes, here is what it looks like with
each camera, both in Photo and Video mode.
The cases don’t offer the thread on the Ultra wide camera.
Every example here is shot without moving
the phone and the subject, so that you can
really see all of the differences, mainly
in the field of view and the focus plane.
This is what it looks like when you mount
the lens onto the ultrawide. The camera is
so wide you see the edges of the lens. And
when taking a photo, the FOV is similar to
when you take a photo with the Wide camera
without the Sandmarc lens. Which explains
why the official Sandmarc cases don't offer
any threads on the Ultrawide.
If you’re looking to get to the subject
as close as possible, you’ll probably want
to mount the Sandmarc lens onto the Tele camera,
but I wanted to show you what it looks like
on other cameras, since I know that’s probably
what I’d want to know if I’m planning
on buying the lens.
Without the Sandmarc lens, the iPhone's Tele
camera's near focus plane is around 23 centimeters
away. With the lens on, it focuses just 18
millimeters away from the end of the lens,
and 3 centimeters from the phone's camera.
The wide camera can focus to around 8 centimeters
away, but with the Sandmarc lens, it focuses
to two and a half centimeters away from the
camera and just one centimeter away from the
lens.
The depth of field is really shallow. This
is expected by a macro lens, but unfortunately
this produces a small issue when shooting.
If you're planning on shooting handheld, you
will definately have some issues with framing
and getting the focus correctly. Bringing
your phone in focus will be a big task if
you have shaky hands. This can always be worked
around by using some sort of a tripod or a
stabilizer, or by shooting with higher shutter
speeds and taking multiple photos and then
deleting the ones which are not in focus.
Here are some test images taken with this
lens. In order for you to see the sample images
better, make sure to set this video to 4K
and watch it on a larger display. All the
images were taken with the stock iPhone’s
Camera app.
Even though photos will always be sharper
and have more detail than video, here are
some video examples as well.
Here is the difference between shots taken
with and without the lens. These images were
taken with the Wide and Tele cameras.
This way you can really see how
close to your subjects you can get compared
to the regular iPhone camera - without using
the Lens.
You can definitely tell that the lens is doing
what it’s supposed to properly.
As for the sharpness, it seems to be the same
throughout the whole photo. Overall, the
sharpness isn’t the best of the best, but
it’s quite good. After all, the best Macro
lenses for DSLRs can cost thousands of dollars,
and this is a ninety dollar lens for your smartphone.
You can always add a bit of sharpness in post, after all.
The hardest part is actually taking a sharp
photo handheld because the depth of field
is so shallow as previously mentioned.
As for the chromatic aberration, there doesn’t
appear to be a whole lot of it, even near
the edges. If we switch to an example of a
subject with the sun shining from the back,
we can still see there isn’t much chromatic
aberration.
There is a bit of distortion though. When
shooting macro, this isn’t really an issue,
but I thought I should mention it. There’s
no good way to test this because of the lens'
very near focus plane, but you can definitely
see some distortion.
I was also pleasantly surprised to see that
there is no vignetting at all. The center
of the lens and its corners are exposed the
same.
As for the bokeh, the lens has a really nice
bokeh, it almost looks like this was taken
with a cinema lens.
To conclude, I believe that this lens is very
much worth its price. I was blown away by how
close I can focus with the phone I carry in
my pocket. Professional macro lenses cost
as ten times as this one, and if you don’t
have a DSLR camera this lens is perfect for
you. Who knows, it might spark an interest
in macro photography, and then you can invest
in a professional camera body and lens. Overall,
I'd say this piece of gear is a very nice
bang for the buck, and you can expect to be
very satisfied with it if you decide to buy it.
And that’s it! If you have any questions
feel free to ask down below!
Thanks for watching and goodbye!
