Whenever you stop by a 100-yen shop, it's kind of surprising how well-stocked their smartphone accessory section is. This time I went hunting around the 100-yen shop "watts (ワッツ)" to see if I could find anything article-worthy. Among the screen protectors and cases, I spotted this product.
It's a lens that lets you take macro shots with your smartphone. You clip it onto the camera part of your phone, and it lets you capture the kind of photos that the standard camera just can't pull off.
The back of the package has the precautions and supported sizes printed on it. There's a fair amount of room, so something like an iPhone should clip on without any trouble. Here's the lens after I pulled it out of the bag.
The body is a clip-style design with a cap on it. Pop the cap off and the lens is right there.
It's made fairly large, so even on the bigger lens of the iPhone 11 it's just barely usable size-wise.
This is how you clip it onto your smartphone.
Trying it out with the lens attached
First I took a normal shot with the iPhone 11 Pro. Even using 2x zoom, this seems to be about as close as you can focus before the standard camera gives up.
Next, here's the same kind of shot but with the macro lens attached.
I was able to get really close in on the subject. You can clearly make out the bumps and texture of the printed letters.
When I shot a wristwatch up close it looked like this. The standard lens can't capture this, and it gives off a kind of stylish vibe.
Heading outside, I tried shooting some flower petals. The result looked almost like one of those Mac wallpapers — a really clean image.
Leaves come out like this too. Every single line shows up cleanly.
When I pointed it at a metal accessory, the fine scratches really stood out.
And on an eyeglass lens, the tiny scratches showed up clearly.
When you're listing something on an auction site and you want to accurately show the damage on an item, this might actually come in handy.
For Instagrammable photos or auction listings
Shooting flower petals up close looks really pretty, so it's pretty fun being able to take stylish photos that look a bit different from what everyone else posts. It's also useful for capturing fine scratches when you're listing things on auctions, so it actually has some unexpected practicality. The price tag is only 100 yen, and you can use it just to mess around with, so I'd recommend it to anyone who's gotten a little bored of their usual phone photography.
