Moment aims to take camera phone lenses to the next level

[kickstarter url=http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/584288471/moment-amazing-lenses-for-mobile-photography width=300]

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/584288471/moment-amazing-lenses-for-mobile-photography

One of Moment’s lenses, designed for use on mobile phone cameras

A new start-up is set to start producing mobile phone camera lenses that it claims will “capture better images than anything else on the market.” US-based Moment this week launched a 30-day Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the production of its lenses,  and doubled its target within 28 hours. Moment was looking to raise $50,000 on Kickstarter, but it blew way past that amount right away, netting $100,000 in just 28 hours. Currently, with 25 days to go in the campaign, Moment has raised over $208,000, and it’s a virtual certainty that the number will be higher than that by the time you read this.

According to Moment, “Most existing mobile and iPhone accessory lenses are OK in the center of the frame but degrade quickly towards the edge of the frame. They also exhibit significant chromatic aberration and in most cases, significant geometric distortion.”

Moment says that the glass type and larger size of its lenses help to to minimize distortion and chromatic aberration (the effect of colored fringes appearing on objects within a photo), as well as improving the quality of images from the center to the edge of the frame. Its aim, it says, is “to maximize image quality, while not degrading the resolution of the native camera.”

A photo of a winter scene taken with a Moment lens

Lenses will be produced to work with iPhones, iPads and Galaxy phones, with two types of lens produced to begin – wide and tele. Whilst the lenses are fairly similar in design, the wide model will feature a lens hood on its front to protect against scratches and sunlight.

The wide lenses will have a magnification ratio of .63x, TV distortion of less than 0.5 percent and resolutions of 300 LP/mm (axis) and 250 LP/mm (corner). The tele lenses will have a magnification ratio of 2.0x, TV distortion of less than 0.25 percent and resolutions of 300 LP/mm (axis) and 150 LP/mm (corner).

Moment expects to start delivering lenses in June. Watch the video below to find out more about the story behind the product.

Sources: Moment, Kickstarter

Moment aims to take camera phone lenses to the next level