5 Of The Best Camera Lenses For Android Phones

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One of the areas in which modern smartphones have improved significantly compared to the early days is photography. Most phones come equipped with multiple camera lenses for versatility, and the lenses have become larger and good enough to take decent pictures. The best camera phones offer a versatile camera setup with multiple capable lenses and can take better-quality photos than your average smartphone. However, despite the improvements, there’s a limit to what a smartphone camera can do. That’s why buying one of the best clip-on camera lenses can help improve the quality of shots that the device can take. 

To help you find the best camera lenses, we’ve dug around the internet to find lenses that can elevate your Android phone’s photography game in an instant. Whether you’d like to take pictures with a wider or narrower view than what your phone is capable of, get better zoom for distant shooting, or add a bit of playfulness to make your pictures look unique, our guide to the best Android camera lenses will satiate your needs. Our methodology section at the end of the article dives deep into how we compiled this list, so you know we didn’t just pick the lenses randomly.

If you want a versatile value-for-money kit that offers a variety of options for just a fraction of the price compared to buying individual lenses and filters, look no further than Apexel’s $26 10-in-1 Phone Lens kit. As the name suggests, it has 10 different lenses, thus offering a cheap and easy way to upgrade your phone’s camera. However, some of the lenses are simply filters that you can use to add creative in-camera effects to your pictures. Specifically, the kit has four lenses that will come in handy in different scenarios and six filters for in-camera effects. 

Some of the key lenses available in the kit include a 0.63x wide-angle lens for capturing expansive views and a 15x macro lens for shooting close-up images. You also get a 2x telephoto lens for capturing objects at a distance and a 198-degree fisheye lens for pictures with dramatic distortion. For filters, there’s a CPL, radial, star, kaleidoscope, and flow filter. In addition to the assortment of lenses, the kit includes a wireless remote shutter, which can be handy for taking images of yourself from a distance.

Digital Camera World has put the Apexel 10-in-1 Phone Lens Kit through the test and has named it the best-value lens kit. The team lists its universal compatibility, wide assortment of lenses, and value for money as top reasons to buy it, although it highlights that the 2x telephoto and star filter lenses are the weakest lenses in the kit.

The Apexel 36X Telephoto Lens is perfect for anyone who wants to take close-up photos of objects that are at a distance due to its zoom capabilities. If your phone struggles to take images of objects far away, this lens could come in handy, as its 36x optical zoom can bring distant objects closer than they really are, making it perfect for taking pictures of birds, wildlife animals, and even artists performing on stage. This $70 lens has an all-metal mini-tripod stand, which is really useful because when you’re zoomed in on an object, camera shake becomes significantly pronounced, leading to blurry images.

Aside from telephoto pictures, you can also use the lens to capture cinematic stills and videos. An interesting feature of Apexel’s telephoto lens is that it doubles as a monocular telescope. Just attach the rubber eyepiece that comes with it to the rear, and you can get a closer look at distant objects. Using the lens shouldn’t be a problem, as it comes with a universal spring-clip mount that should make it easy to attach to any phone. In real-world use, Digital Camera World loves the 36x zoom, which it says is useful for videography and nature photography, although maintaining sharp focus on a distant moving object is a problem due to the narrow depth of field.

Moment’s Wide Angle Lens is a single lens that has an 18 mm focal length, offering a wide field of view. It’s perfect for specific types of photography that require fitting more of the view into the frame — you can think of landscape, architecture, and real estate photography. While it isn’t as versatile as the Apexel 10-in-1 kit that offers a wide variety of lenses, this is meant for those who understand what they need and only want to address a specific weakness of their phone’s camera. 

However, unlike other lenses we’ve looked at, there’s a quirk to consider when shopping for this one to make sure you get the right one to fit your device. It comes with either one of two mount interfaces: T-series for newer phones and M-series for older ones. Photography-focused YouTuber David Addison says the Moment Wide Angle Lens is a game-changer if your phone doesn’t have an ultra-wide lens, as it’s “a lot wider” than a standard phone lens. 

According to his review, there’s no jarring or fish-eye effect when using the lens, and the distortion is minimal. On the other hand, Digital Camera World says this lens has good build quality, offers excellent image quality, and is a great pick for shooting video. However, you may need a Moment case in order to use it, which is an extra purchase.

The Xenvo Pro Lens Kit offers two lenses for versatility: a 0.45x wide-angle lens to capture expansive views and a 15x macro lens for detailed close-up shots if you’re interested in macro photography. The 0.45x wide-angle lens offers a 140-degree field of view, which helps in capturing more of the environment or a specific object in the frame. For the best results using the macro lens, the company recommends placing the phone half an inch from the subject. 

The kit ships with a so-called GlowClip LED light that you can attach to your phone to illuminate the subject, which can prove useful in macro photography. The two lenses are built with glass for durability, and out of the box, the Xenvo Pro Lens Kit offers a lens clip for mounting the lens to your phone. According to Gear Lab, the Xenvo Pro Lens Kit is easy to set up and makes it easy to switch between the wide and macro lenses thanks to the integrated two-lens system. 

Tom’s Guide says the kit offers good image quality, a solid build, and handy accessories, but notes minor smudging at the edge of the wide-angle lens, a relatively high price, and two lenses as the biggest drawbacks. This kit costs $40 on Amazon, although has seen lower prices in the past, according to Price history, one of Amazon’s new useful features.

The 15x macro lens included in the Xenvo Pro Lens Kit is great for macro photography, but if you need to take it a notch further in shooting miniature objects, consider Apexel’s $96 3-in-1 Phone Microscope Lens Kit. The kit comes with three lenses, and all of them are targeted at microscopic photography. The only difference between them is the magnification level. The first lens is a 100x one, the second has 200x, and the third has 300x magnification, with the team at Apexel recommending 6-10 mm as the optimal distance between the lens and any subject. 

There’s a circular-shaped built-in LED light that surrounds each lens with adjustable brightness levels and a variety of modes to choose from. The LED lights help illuminate the object you want to shoot, which is important in macro photography, as placing your device closer to the subject can block light. The kit makes switching between the lenses easier by using a special mounting kit that attaches to the phone with a slide rail design for swapping the lenses. 

The clip for mounting the lenses is universal, so it can attach to any Android phone, and the slide rail design ensures you can properly align the clip-on lenses with your device’s camera. This is another camera lens kit that Digital Camera World vouches for, saying it’s easy to install, can fit most phones, and takes impressive microscopic stills. The only downside is that the clip mount might interfere with buttons on some phones.

To come up with this list of the best camera lenses for Android phones, we based our research on several factors. The first one was to determine whether the lens fits on most Android phones. The lenses we’ve selected are all compatible with most Android phones — and some can be mounted to iPhones — and they are easy to attach and remove. The second aspect that we considered was the actual functionality of the lens. 

For this, we relied on both our expertise and opinions from different experts who have reviewed the lenses. Image quality played a key role in whether we selected a lens over another, and we relied on expert reviews to determine whether a lens could shoot excellent images or videos. 

In addition to image quality, we made sure to include lenses and kits that can fulfill the needs of different types of users to keep the list balanced. We’ve included products that offer wide-angle, telephoto, macro, and fisheye lenses, either individually or as part of a kit that bundles a variety of lenses and filters for those who want a little bit of everything in a single package.