Beyond the selfie: Advanced accessories to improve your smartphone photography in 2016

Now that smartphones are by far the world’s most popular cameras, it’s worth looking at ways to make the most of, and even go beyond, their photographic capabilities. At CES this year, there was no shortage of smartphone add-ons that address one or another of the limitations of a phone’s camera.  
We’ve rounded up some of the best, and the most interesting  ranging from ones that cost a few dollars, to those that can cost more than your phone.

iBlazr 2 Wireless LED Flash

My personal favorite is the very slick little wireless flash from Concepter. It is an evolution of their first-generation model that plugged into your phone.

The new model uses Bluetooth to cleverly trigger the shutter on your phone directly from the flash  so you can use it wirelessly while still having it in sync with your phone. I

t also features a touch-sensitive back for adjusting the light temperature from warm to cool, by varying the relative intensity of its multiple color LEDs.


 This is a feature I wish my large, pro-level flashes had! The new model is priced at $59 when ordered directly from Concepter, a little above the original, but well worth it.

You can sync up to 10 iBlazr 2 flashes for a small studio setup My iBlazr 2 review unit paired flawlessly with my iPhone 5, but required a couple restarts to get it paired and connected to my Galaxy S6 Edge. That seems somewhat typical of Bluetooth accessories. In my experience, they are often a little harder to get working with Android devices, unfortunately, although it’s getting better.

Once connected, you can also use Concepter’s app to further customize your iBlazr 2’s output. The unit also comes with a small clip for attaching to your phone, and a white cover that can also serve as a mini-diffuser.

Obviously the iBlazr 2 is not going to throw a lot of light, or throw light very far. But for product shots, macro, and backlit portraits, it is a great assist. Using the app you can control up to ten of them at a time.

Add zoom to your smartphone with an add-on lens

There are quite a few companies that provide add-on lenses of various types for smartphones. I’ve been working with one of the better sets, from UK manufacturer Aukey.

They are solidly made and feature glass elements, while still not costing an arm and a leg. Using Aukey’s wide-angle lens I captured some images of Lenovo’s Suite at CES, that would have required a full-size camera otherwise (taking a panorama isn’t an option with so many people moving around)

For the most part, the lenses worked pretty well, with two caveats: First, if you don’t get a version with a case for your exact phone (Aukey sells one for the iPhone 6 series), the lenses are hard to align exactly enough so they don’t vignette. This was an issue with my Galaxy S6 Edge. Second, there is some loss of resolution (sharpness) near the edges, and the additional areas covered by the wide-angle do show some distortion.

 I think that if you had a perfect fit, then the distortion issue could be corrected with a profile for the camera plus lens in software, but I don’t know if there are any out there. For those who want to take this concept to the next level, and are willing to spend more, Zeiss and Fellowes introduced a high-end line of add-on lenses at CES. Available in Q2, they will come with a snap fit connector (only some phone models will be supported) to ensure proper alignment, and will feature Zeiss optics.

There are quite a few other companies that make various other alternatives, many of which are plastic and optically not as good as the Aukey or certainly the Zeiss. Although I called this section “zoom” to refer to the additional focal lengths available, none of the products I looked at are true zooms. Instead they are lenses of alternative fixed focal lengths.

Add-on cameras from Sony, Olympus, and now DxO Labs

Sony has released several models of its QX family of add-on cameras for your smartphone.

They all feature excellent sensors (the same as in their RX100 family), and a quality lens, but suffer from laggy performance due to their use of WiFi for camera control. They are also fairly large.

 Interestingly, none were on display anywhere in the massive Sony booth this year, so they may be phasing it out. The Olympus Air has a similar design, but is optimized for niche applications where remote control of a small camera and lens is needed. Unlike the Sony, the Olympus offers support for interchangeable lenses.

The newest, and slickest, entry in this market is the DxO ONE, from DxO Labs. It packs the same 1-inch format sensor found in the Sony RX100 III into a tiny package by making use of your iPhone or iPad as the viewfinder and camera control.

 By using the Lightning connector (required to use the device) to connect to your phone, and having its own microSD card for image storage, it achieves real time performance — making it much easier to use than WiFi controlled add-on cameras.

Bevel will let you turn your phone into a 3D capture device

3D scanner company Matter and Form has brought its laser-triangulation technology to a small accessory for your phone. When it ships later this year the $79 (pre-order price) Bevel will plug into your device’s headphone port and include an eye-safe red laser.

 The laser scans across one line at a time, so that to scan an entire scene you need to carefully move the phone along in a panning motion across the other direction.
One reason Bevel can be so inexpensive is that it uses your phone’s own camera to view the laser as it bounces off the subject, and then calculates the distance through laser triangulation.

That means that the device can’t sense glass, and is confused by mirrors, but it works well when scanning most other surfaces.

As a demonstration, Matter and Form’s staff created a 3D scan of me standing in front of the booth. The results looked as good or better than some of the ones I’ve had done at MakerFaire that used arrays of DSLRs – at least when looked at straight on.

I suspect that the product will show its limitations when you start to try to move around an object and create a full 3D model instead of just a depth map from one orientation, but it is much less expensive than any alternative I’ve seen.

Capture the action with Vyoocam

Smartphones are great for a lot of things, but getting mounted to your helmet, glasses, or handlebars to create action footage is not one of them.

The usual solution is to get a GoPro (or one of it competitors), but now Vyoocam offers an alternative. It is a small, wearable, video camera that connects to your smartphone using WiFi (it can also connect directly to a WiFi hot spot, but still needs to be configured using an app).

It is powered by an 850mAh battery that the company says will last over an hour. In addition, you can power it over USB using a battery pack. The Vyoocam can record H.264 video in either 720p or 1080p at 30fps, along with single-channel audio. The device weighs in at under 80 grams. There is also an SDK for developers on iOS and Anroid who want to use it as an additional camera in an existing application.

Today’s accessory is tomorrow’s smartphone feature

One of the most fascinating things about smartphone add-ons is how the best ones often turn into features in future models of the phones. So look for the most popular capabilities out of those we’ve discussed here to find their way into flagship phones within a few years. As an example, Google and Lenovo are already developing a phone with depth-sensing for shipment by mid-year.