Spivo Travel Lens

Spivo has an awesome selfie stick (read the full review here.) but they have a few more cool items in their lineup. One of those is a clip-on lens for smartphones that acts as a wide angle AND a macro lens.

Spivo Travel Lens Overview

Spivo Travel Lens
Spivo Travel Lens

The lens comes in a small black hard-case with a zipper and a carabiner to clip the pouch to your belt loop or to your backpack or wherever. The front has a subtle dark gray logo on it. Inside the pouch, you have foam in one side of the case that fits the lens with the lens clip an in the other (top) half you have a net pocket that you can use to store the lens wipe, which is included.

The product itself is pretty simple and straightforward. The clip to attach the lens, the lens itself and the lens cap. The lens cap b the way is not a flimsy plastic bullshit but a really solid aluminum one. The lens is made of two parts – you can screw off the top part to transform from wide angle to macro.

Spivo Travel Lens
Spivo Travel Lens

Spivo Travel Lens Specifications.

  • Zoom factor: 0.6x
  • Two times more view
  • Material: Anodized aluminum
  • Tough and durable
  • FOV: 120°
  • Realistic perspective Glass: 5 elements 4 groups
  • Leading edge optics
  • Distortion < 1%
  • High clarity across image Weight: 31g (1.1oz)
  • Illumination: 100%
  • No corner silhouettes
  • Size: 35x21mm (1.3×0.8″)
Spivo Travel Lens case
Spivo Travel Lens case

Spivo Travel Lens Wide Angle

To turn your phones standard lens into a wide angle just clip on the lens and you get a bit more in your shot. The lens is not a drastic wide angle so it`s not like a GoPro field of view but it will increase the field of view to fit more into your frame.

I tested the lens with iPhone 6s that has a 73˚ FOV and the Spivo Travel Lens promises a 120˚.

Image quality is pretty decent and in some situations, it`s impossible to tell that there is extra glass in front of the lens but on some cases, you do see that the edges can be softer and have some chromatic aberration and barrel distortion but that is expected with pretty much very wide angle lenses. Here are some samples – straight from the phone, no post-processing has been done.

Spivo Travel Lens comparison
Spivo Travel Lens comparison
Spivo Travel Lens comparison
Spivo Travel Lens comparison
Spivo Travel Lens comparison
Spivo Travel Lens comparison
Spivo Travel Lens comparison
Spivo Travel Lens comparison
Spivo Travel Lens comparison
Spivo Travel Lens comparison

Spivo Travel Lens Macro

To convert the Wide angle lens to macro all you need to do is screw off the top part and you have a really powerful macro lens that has a 12x magnifying effect. You can get really really close to your subjects and get the smallest of details right in your frame. It`s really cool but I kind of get the feeling that being that powerful it becomes a bit of a gimmick that I personally wouldn`t use that much. To be fair, i`m not much of a macro photographer in general and mostly use wide angle and portrait lenses with my DSLR.

Having such a big magnification you need to really get close to the subject, like 5-10mm, and that means the phone itself might cast shadows on the object so you need to be aware of the direction of the light. Plus, you need to hold the phone really steady, I found that resting the phone on the table where the subjects where placed helped a lot in getting a clear shot and eliminating any blur coming from shaky hands. Plus, as the macro lens has a really shallow DOF (depth of field) meaning, the area in the image that is sharp is very narrow so you need to be precise in how close you position the camera.

Sample images are taken with iPhone 6s, no post processing (just resizing)

Spivo Travel Lens macro sample
Spivo Travel Lens macro sample
Spivo Travel Lens macro sample
Spivo Travel Lens macro sample

Spivo Travel Lens Conclusion

I like it! I think the wide angle is really useful and in some situations is absolutely fantastic. I was traveling in San Francisco and had it in my pocket and It allowed me to get some really cool shots in between the tall buildings for example. In closed spaces, this lens is really useful and I absolutely suggest you getting one. You have your phone with you pretty much all the time and instead of dragging around a DSLR with a heavy wide angle lens can be annoying, whereas taking the small Spivo Travel Lens with you is really easy. It`s small lightweight and has a solid lens cap to keep it clean. It will never substitute a DSLR with a high-quality lens but If you shoot a lot with your phone this is definitely for you.

Get it from:

Spivo.com