Swarovski adapter gives iPhone camera mega magnification
The maker of binoculars and spotting scopes has a $145 adapter that turns your fancy smartphone into a camera with a supertelephoto lens.
- Shankland covered the tech industry for more than 25 years and was a science writer for five years before that. He has deep expertise in microprocessors, digital photography, computer hardware and software, internet standards, web technology, and more.
Let's say you're a birder who's jealous of all those awesome bird photos people take, but you don't want to fork over thousands of dollars for an expensive SLR with a huge telephoto lens.
Now there's a new option: use your mobile phone attached to a spotting scope or the eyepiece of your binoculars. That's the approach Swarovski Optik, a maker of binoculars and bird-spotting scopes, has taken with a new adapter called the PA-i5 for the iPhone 5 and 5S.
It's not going to produce results as good as, say, an SLR hooked up to an 800mm supertelephoto lens, at least judging by the LensRentals' Roger Cicala's 2012 test of an SLR with a different Swarovski adapter. He placed part of the blame on spotting-scope optics that are geared for the a curved human retina rather than a flat image sensor in a camera.
But it'll likely get you a lot of the way there for a lot less money: the PA-i5 adapter costs £113 in the UK and $145 in the US. Binoculars and iPhones are sold separately.
Swarovski promises it'll be good. In a statement, the company said, "Swarovski Optik binoculars and telescopes offer outstanding optical performance, and although they have been designed to be used by people looking through the zoom eyepiece, we are confident due to numerous tests that the smartphone lens works perfectly with our lens system and delivers exceptional image quality."
To use it, a customer must detach the eyepiece and mount the adapter in its stead. Then the iPhone attaches to it using an enclosing bracket. It may not get you into National Geographic wildlife documentary, but it could be good enough to help with identification, sharing, and memories.
