A few people have come up with add-on lens solutions for the iPhone and other smartphones, and now the Moment Kickstarter project wants to take that concept further with a bayonet-mounted lens system that focus on optical quality above all else.
“We need Moment to capture better pictures with our phones. Despite their convenience, phones lack the creativity that high quality lenses can provide,” explained co-founder Marc Barros. “With Moment we put the finest of photography back in your product with beautiful lenses that capture the best images on the market.”
Barros acknowledges that there were many other options on the market already, but says that the founding team was frustrated by the “clunky design and poor image quality” of those existing solutions. Moment is compact, and provides either a case or a small adhesive attachment to provide the thin bayonet mount needed to attach its lenses to your case. The lenses themselves will come in two varieties at launch: a wide-angle and a telephoto zoom that captures pics at twice the magnification of your smartphone’s standard camera.
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Backers can choose between the two at the $49 backer level, or pick up both starting at $99. The team hopes to ship the device by June, 2014 if all goes according to plan. And things should go fairly smoothly, given the founding team’s pedigree: Barros previously founded Contour cameras, which manufacturers the wearable action cam and GoPro competitor that’s sold in retail and online around the world.
Moment isn’t just coming out of nowhere, either: Barros and his team, which also includes top-flight optical engineers Michael Thomas and Russ Hudyma; as well as Richard Tait, co-founder of the board game Cranium; and Contour Chief Product Designer Erik Hedberg, have been working on the project for the past five months ahead of launching this campaign.
Of course, once the system is in people’s hands, there’s plenty of opportunity for expanding the line of lenses further. Smartphones may never be able to fully replace complicated and expensive DSLR rigs, but if Moment is successful in building a lasting company out of the idea of interchangeable lenses for the cameras we have in our pocket, they could replace pretty much everything else.