18mm HD 100° Wide Angle Lens for 17mm Thread Lens Backplane

(Context: this is a review of the 45x Neewer Phone Microscope lens - I know that in some situations, you can't see which item is being reviewed when there's multiple variations, so I'm adding this here to be explicitly clear). An incredible product for mobile photography! As a long-time DSLR user who worked with lenses covering micro 10:1 magnification up to 500mm telephoto lenses, I've been looking to move permanently to something smaller and more portable. In the past few years especially, phone cameras have become so good that I've been able to use it to replace the need to carry the heavy DSLR and lenses. Very recently, I decided to buy a 17mm lens holder that grips onto my phone, a few filters and a filter adapter ring, and I've been looking into lenses too. The one area which has been lacking has been micro. On the iPhone 17 Pro (and Pro Max), the 0.5x macro lens is really good, but it's no replacement for a true micro lens, so you can imagine my delight when I found this. Initially, I was very skeptical about the image quality - at such high magnification levels, you have to deal with variuos visual challenges, including chromatic aberration, extremely shallow depth of field, and most of all lighting. When the camera lens is almost touching an object, it tends to block out almost all external light. You might think "just do longer exposure", but you risk introducing blur, and also have to deal with image noise even if you manage to keep it perfectly still. Thankfully, it solves that last problem is a very effective way. The LED ring around the lens negates many of the problems associated with shaky hands on high-magnification lenses, allowing the phone to set the camera shutter speed to really high values to avoid blur. The lens is really easy to use, but you do need to use a 17mm threaded adapter for it to be effective (which Neewer also make). It's compact enough to fit in a pocket. In case you're wondering: Yes, this lens will work on the 4x camera lens of the iPhone 17 Pro, and that will still get you 48MP image output, or 12MP image output if using the 8x crop mode. I expect it will work on any phone camera. Something to keep in mind is that on the 4x zoom, the depth of field appears shallower, making it more difficult to get things in focus. I also found that it would crop the sides of the image in this scenario - you still get most of the image, but something to be aware of. If the 45x claim is to be believed, which I have no doubts about, that make this a 180x magnification when using a 4x lens, and a huge 360x magnification if using the 8x crop mode. The photos included in this review show the item without magnification, then on the 1x camera of the phone, and then on the 4x lens of the phone. All items were randomly selected as I felt them interesting subjects when viewed up close, and no affiliation or endorsement of any products or brands is implied.

Yeah it give a good view fits well to the newer frame.

As always Neewer products are well made and packaged. Sadly the item in the box was not what I ordered but a 105mm macro lens. Someone had stuck the wrong bar code label on the side of the box.

Just getting into wildlife photography, starting with my Samsung S23 FE. I ordered this macro lens when I realised my phone didn't have one. I am over the moon with the results. Very easy to use with the Neewer universal mount, and got wonderful pictures from the first time I used it.

Had high hopes for this lens, due to the price. However, I was disappointed with the chromatic aberration and softness at all parts of the image apart from the centre sweet spot. In addition, significant vignetting at far corners

I have a proper camera setup for macro, but this is so much easier and I can carry it with me on walks. Just remember you have to get the correct fittings for your mobile phone model.

Using the Neewer cage on my Samsung Galaxy S25 ultra I get vignetting on images taken in landscape orientation. This can be cropped or edited out in post but it is something you should be aware of.

Just the job Honey we shrank the kids