Missing the Olloclip: Mobile Macro Photography Over the Years
I’ve been curious about photography since my grandfather showed me what I recall to be a Nikon camera when I was a child. I took a few photo classes as I got older, learned to develop film (film!) in a dark room which I very much enjoyed. The fascination reached its height in the early 2010’s when I got a Canon camera and several lenses and decided to do a 365 project, to shoot a photo a day for a whole year to help improve my photography.
This is also when I grew fascinated to macro photography; the super close up images of very small things. I just loved the entire worlds and detail that existed on such a small scale that it was hard to appreciate with our human eyes. While I got a macro lens for my large Canon camera, it was bulky and I didn’t always have it with me. So I searched around and found a macro lens system that would attach to the camera on my cellphone. It was called the Olloclip and I immediately fell in love with it. It was a piece of tech that allowed the creation of new art, my wheelhouse.
Recently, when I got a new phone after many years I looked to get a new Olloclip and found that they shut down the business. It must be so incredibly hard to keep up with the tech cycle of new devices every year, each with changes and upgrades to the camera system, where millimeters of changes meant a lens would not fit and thus not produce a quality image. I’ve heard of another mobile macro system called Moment which I might try, but I’m feeling some reluctance around the quality. There’s also an app I’m trying called Halide which has a macro mode, but I’m can’t see how it would match up to a true macro lens. Maybe some day phone cameras will be so advanced we won’t need lenses for shots like these.
For now, here’s some of my favorite macro shots over the years. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did in revisiting them for this post. These were all taken on Instagram, so if you’re feeling inclined, click through any of these images to say hi.
If you made it all the way down here, thanks for reading and taking a look at my photos. Do you happen to do macro photography on your phone? If so I’d love to see your photos as well as what you use for a lens. Thanks again and see you soon.
For a final little bonus, here is video using a macro lens showing how a snail explores exiting and entering its shell.