To start off let me give you a quick background into where I started in photography and then I can let you know what I thought of the Sirui lenses and kit that I got to test out.
I started on Instagram about 5 ½ years ago with an iPhone 5, like most people, and I built my account mostly with mobile photography, mainly because it’s the only camera I had but also because it was easy to carry around with me all the time. I have used a lot of mobile lenses over the years and was excited to get my hands on this set of lenses from SunshineCo.
Right, let’s get to it.
First impressions as I opened the boxes and saw the lenses for the first time, I was pretty impressed with the solidness of them, they felt strong and sturdy, made from quality material and glass (which is very important).
The little light that came with was also pretty good, didn’t feel as sturdy, but was lightweight and small. The cool thing is it has 2 settings, warm light and cool light, both have adjustable brightness.
The case for the iPhone caught my eye immediately as I opened the box, I have had a few cases for my iPhones over the years and I haven’t found one that really wraps around the edges and feels strong enough to take a fall. Now I’m not going to drop my phone to test the case, but I can say it really feels strong and I would have to say that it would do its job. The reason for the case is the lenses clip into it so you don’t have to keep taking your case off every time you put a lens on, which is very convenient.
A very cool attachment for the case is a small trigger release for the camera, which attaches to the back of the phone and acts as a grip while you’re taking your pictures or you can have it in your hand as a remote release for your phone while using a tripod for long exposures or whatever, means there is no camera shake while taking your pictures, which means clean a crisp images.
I used the 18mm lens more than the others purely because I am a landscape photographer and enjoy getting the wide angle shots, below are 2 unedited images I captured using the 18mm with the polarizer attachment, you can see the colour is rich. I am very impressed with this little lens and I could see myself using quite a lot, I’ve seen some lenses that get a bit of distortion in the image, but these ones seem pretty good.
The second lens in the kit is a 60mm portrait lens, which I was excited to try. Now I’m no portrait photographer and I was secretly hoping I could use it on landscapes too, which I couldn’t as it seemed to struggle to focus on far objects. But let me tell you it is pretty sharp when it came to portraits. Below is one I snapped, unedited, in very low light using the light that attaches to the top of your phone, I had it set on full warm light.
Then the last lens in the pack is fish-eye, again not my favourite lens to use but I was impressed as to how it coped and how clear the edges were, no real distortion and pretty clear all around the image. Below is an image shot on the fish-eye and below it the same shot but taken with the 18mm both unedited. You can see a slight difference in quality through the middle of the image in the fish-eye shot compared to the 18mm lens but not much, and also a bit of vignette happening in the corners, but nothing to worry about.
So over all I am very impressed with these lenses, made of great quality material, sturdy, and all round brilliant for mobile photography, and they each have their own little bag to carry them in so you can look after them while travelling around.
