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HITCASE TrueLux Clip-On Camera Lenses -- DEMO & REVIEW
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Jun 22, 2024
Ever wish your smartphone or tablet camera was a bit more capable? Better telephoto, wide angle, wider angle, or even crazy close macro capabilities? That's the purpose of the HITCASE TrueLUX Clip-On Camera Lens system and it offers three different lenses and a cool clip so you can attach it to your laptop, tablet or smartphone! In this video, tech expert Dave Taylor of https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ tries out the macro, wide and superwide TrueLUX lenses with the OneClip and finds that there's a lot to like, but some hiccups and limitations you'll want to know about before you make a purchase decision. Find these all online at https://www.hitcase.com/
View Video Transcript
0:00
Will these clip-on lenses make your smartphone camera even better
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Let's check them out. Okay, got it
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Now, I am looking at these. These are the hip-case clip-on lens system
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and they actually are a pretty interesting idea. They're little tiny lenses that hook onto your smartphone
0:29
or computer or tablet via this, which is looks kind of like a clothes pin, but the idea is you
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screw the lens onto this and then you put this over the correct lens on your phone and then
0:43
your phone or computer or tablet gains additional range or capabilities with video or photos
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So let's start with this. This is pretty important. This is the one clip lens clip
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It's inexpensively priced. at 1499. It really does look kind of like a safety pin, but it does have a specific purpose
1:05
And then I have three different lenses, all three actually, from Hitcase. This is their
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TruLux lens system. So this one is the super wide, and they're all basically look the same
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They have different purposes, but each of them comes in a little carrying case, and then
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you pull the lens out, and that's the lens with caps on it
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So you can take both caps off and you screw it into the clip
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And now it's ready to roll. So now all you have to do is hopefully not do that
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It's a good beta test, right? So we'll try that again. And now just clip it onto your camera directly over your lens
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And so here now I have taken my iPhone 11. Pro, which already has three lenses, and I've added a super wide lens, which is what this is
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So we have a super wide lens, we have a wide lens, and we have a macro lens
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So let's start with the macro from specs. This gives you a 3x magnification and a 12 to 22 millimeter depth of field
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On super macro, it's really important to get things just the right distance
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So I found that when I'm doing macro photography, I have to really carefully move my phone back and forth
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And I show you examples of all of these in just a second Now the wide lens gives you a 120 degree field of view with a 27 millimeter minimum focus distance So that actually pretty
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nice if you're using like a Skype chat and you're using the webcam on your
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laptop. Something like this can give you a much wider field of view or
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actually maybe the person on the other side a wider field of view which is great if
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you have a multiple people in the conference room. Now to go to the logical
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extreme, that's this. This is the super wide lens and this gives you a 148 degree field of view
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which is pretty nice. It's a 16 millimeter minimum focus distance. So interesting stuff. Now, again
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on my iPhone 11, I already have a regular, a telephoto and an ultra wide lens. So this might not be
3:22
the optimal phone for testing this stuff out. But hey, I tried it out anyway. So let's start with
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Here are three photos just straight from the online. iPhone 11 Pro. This is regular and then this is telephoto and then this is the iPhone 11 Pro
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ultra wide. So now we're going to switch. I'm going to just use the regular iPhone 11 Pro camera
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and lens and then I'm going to use the TruLux clip-ons. So this first one is TruLux Super Wide. So
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you can see there's lots of range and lots of variation there. It's a little tricky to get this thing
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just so over the correct lens, but with a little bit of practice, it's easily done
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And of course, if you have a single lens camera, tablet, laptop, whatever, then it's super easy
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much easier to work with. But I thought, hmm, let's see, if I have a phone that has ultra wide and I have the
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TruLux lens that offers super wide, what happens if you put them together
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And that's how I got this photo. And it's not exactly crisp
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but I'm not sure what happened with the focus, but boy, what an interesting photo, considering I was just literally standing on the second floor of this coffee shop looking down
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I really think this is pretty darn interesting. Now, where it really got fun is with the macro lens, because of course you can hook on the macro lens, and then you can get super close to whatever your subject is
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So here's a couple of examples, and this is literally just a slice of bread looked at honestly almost like at a molecular level
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So this is a 3x magnification and I've gotten super close to the bread and who knew bread looked like some sort of setting out of a Dungeons and Dragons game
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Makes me not want to eat it Actually that is entirely false I did actually eat the bread when I was done and it still tasted good even after the pictures which was good So now the whole system the lenses the clip and everything they all waterproof
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They're made out of anodized aluminum and all of the lenses have anti-reflective and anti-scratch coatings on them
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However, I definitely recommend that you still keep them in their little carrying caps on both ends
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And of course, you could easily put multiple into a single bag
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or you can get a slightly bigger bag and carry all three. They are labeled, so you are not going to sit there and say
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uh, which one's which. So you will know with the clip, it's super easy to work with
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One cool thing is hit case. They're a phone case company. No big surprise
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In 2020, they'll be introducing phone cases that have built in support for the lenses
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That's going to be way easier because as far as I can tell from their prototypes
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it'll be something where you just slip it in and it's ready to go
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So there's no screwing around, literally no screwing around, super easy to work with
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Now, let's talk about some limitations, one of which is that it is kind of clumsy
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You know, I mean, if you want to do this, you really are going to want the results that are going to be better
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So on a phone like this, probably not great. On a tablet or a laptop, especially, this can be okay because you're going to sort of get the lens you want
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You're going to get it screwed in, clipped on to the top. top of your computer or something and then you're not going to mess with it
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and you're not going to touch it. But as an overall solution, this is kind of a bit of a jury-rigged sort
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of solution to, gee, my phone doesn't have a wide enough angle lens or it doesn't do macro the way
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I want. The other thing I've found is after using this for a fair amount, there are threads on the
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inside of the hole on this lens clip, the one clip, and there are definitely threads on the edge of the
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lenses, but unfortunately, after using it for a little bit, watch, it doesn't actually screw tight
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anymore. I don't know exactly what's happened. Maybe they're metals a bit too soft, but I wish
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and I want it to not be able to pull out. You know, I want it to be able to screw in and be in
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absolutely solid. And I feel like it was when I first got it, but by, you know, just over time
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the usage I think has damaged these threads. That's something. to know that might be something that they have a newer version of this one clip already
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but it might be a newer version coming. Certainly a case that works more with
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magnetics and something would work better than that I think that important to know But really the biggest issue with this is the sort of overall clumsiness factor is it is a solution
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It is fun. In particular, I think the macro capabilities are super fun
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If I had to choose just one of these, there is no question. I'd do the macro
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You can have a lot of fun with that. And certainly, it gives you a chance to see typical objects in an atypical way
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That's pretty helpful, right? But all in all, I guess I am imagining this is something that you will enjoy for a while
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And eventually it will be like, you know, we'll just do whatever the camera does and we'll be fine
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And then you won't be using it so much. So this is really sort of a mixed bag
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It's fun. It's interesting. It gives you more capabilities. If you're stuck with an older device that just doesn't have all these great wide angle options, this solves them
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if you're really wanting to play around with macro photography, but you don't want to buy a special camera
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this gives you the ability to change the lens on your phone or tablet to let you do that
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You know, so that's sort of the pros and cons. Now, before I talk about the price, because we've got a couple of things to talk about here with the price
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before I do that, let me ask you, you can subscribe to my channel
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Really appreciate when you do that. And obviously, I am super candid and honest
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You know, they sent me this stuff, but that doesn't mean I'm just going to tell you it's glorious
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I'm going to tell you the pros and the cons. So, subscribe, and you can see future reviews
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Cool. Now, let's see. This is the hit case, one clip lens clip
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It's $14.99. Pretty darn important because without it, you can't really do much with these other lenses
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And whether you're looking at these super wide or the wide or the macro, they all look exactly the same other than the right
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writing on the side. Whatever one of those you're looking at, they're 3999 per lens or much better
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deal. You can get all three lenses for $99, which is definitely a better deal. And that's at
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hitcase.com. So kind of a middling review, fun to play with, not sure about how long you'll be using
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these. But if you're going to try it out, then I definitely recommend you to start with the macro
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lens. That's all I got. So I'll catch you in my next video
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