Moment’s new T-Series lenses are redesigned to work with modern smartphone cameras - The Verge

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Moment gave its new smartphone lenses thicker glass and bigger dimensions to suit our growing phone cameras.

By Wes Davis, a weekend editor who covers the latest in tech and entertainment. He has written news, reviews, and more as a tech journalist since 2020.

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Moment’s new T-Series lens collection.

Image: Moment

Moment is refreshing its whole lineup of smartphone camera lenses, which promise to improve your photography with custom glass that goes on top of your phone’s existing camera. The eight lenses in its new T-Series lineup rework each of the options in the company’s previous M-Series line with improvements like thicker glass for better optics and updated dimensions that reflect just how gargantuan the cameras on our phones have become since the M-Series debuted in 2017.

These are the lenses and their prices:

• Anamorphic 1.33x or 1.55x (in gold or blue flare variants) – $149.99
• Tele 58mm – $149.99
• Wide 18mm – $129.99
• Fisheye 14mm – $119.99
• Macro 10x – $119.99

Most of Moment’s current smartphone lens lineup was made at a time when phone cameras were much smaller and had fewer sensors, but things have obviously changed. The company says the thicker glass of its updated T-Series lenses will mean less chromatic aberration (the tendency of lenses not to resolve different colors to the same point) than before and that “additional elements” cut down on distortion and make for sharper edges in your images.

Moment’s new wide 18mm in use with its Mobile Filmmaker Cage with MagSafe.

Image: Moment

The company also increased its bayonet-style mount’s glass aperture by 20 percent to accommodate the new lenses and added sensor-shift stabilization. Moment says the bigger aperture lets in more light, reducing vignetting — that is, darkening around the edge of your shot and resulting in an overall sharper image.

It’s easy to see the appeal of adding an external lens to your phone. It’s amazing what manufacturers have managed to pull off with modern smartphone cameras, but they still have some limitations, often having only one sensor that handles darker indoor shots reasonably well (though this is getting better, too) — being able to slap external lenses on the “good” sensor is nice. Reviewers in the past have praised Moment’s lenses for having a much more professional feel than ostensibly similar cheap lenses you can find online. Our own Jake Kastrenakes showed just how good its M-Series lenses are compared to other options a few years ago.

Moment provided some sample shots from its lenses. We’ll see how they do when we get our hands on them and take pictures in less ideal environments and conditions, but all the same, the shots look great — particularly the macro ones.

New T-Series lenses will be compatible with its new, larger bayonet mount for all iPhone 13 models and newer, the Google Pixel 7 and newer, and the Samsung Galaxy S22 series and newer. The company says it will also keep making phone cases with mounts for its older M-Series lenses as new iPhones are released, but it won’t put out new M-Series-specific cases for new Android phones going forward — just the new lenses, I’m afraid. If that bums you out, Moment is kicking off a 120-day trade-in program where you can have your old M-Series lenses evaluated for store credit so you can buy the new lenses, so that’s something at least.

The new T-Series lenses are available for preorder starting today, and the company says they’ll be shipping “as soon as” September 7th.

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Moment’s new T-Series lenses are redesigned to work with modern smartphone cameras - The Verge
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