Upgrade Your iPhone With An APS-C Sensor And f2.0 Lens Simply By Sliding It Into This New Case

September 18, 2014 by Tiffany Mueller 34 Comments

I have to admit, I love the idea of a smartphone that has Leica glass more than I like the idea of attaching a giant lens to my existing smartphone. While both have their downfalls, it’s still nice to see phone manufacturers really starting to get inventive and pushing the technology that drives our phone’s ever important camera elements. Jumping on that bandwagon is a start up company named Relonch which is looking to enter the competitive world of smartphone photography with the release of a new iPhone case. The Relonch case appears to pack quite a punch in terms of what it can do for your phone’s current camera.

As we all know, one of the major setbacks of cameraphones are their small sensor size. Though the technology is improving, the sensors inside our phones do limit their performance. The Relonch, however, fixes this issue by giving your phone an APS-C sensor. The Relonch also addresses the other elephant in the cameraphone room by giving it a nicer f/2.0 lens.

Completing the trifecta of cameraphone issues is battery drain, an problem Relonch works around by allowing the Relonch to charge your iPhone while you’re using it via it’s Lightning port. As for battery life of the Relonch, it’s designed to turn on and off automatically when it is attached or removed from your iPhone.

While promising in concept, the Relonch does come with some issues of it’s own. Primarily, that it’s still in a prototype stage and not expected to hit the shelves until 2015. It’s also sporting a fairly hefty price point of $500. That’s not to say it isn’t worth $500, but it’s kind of hard to justify dropping that much money for a smartphone accessory.

What’s your opinion? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

[ Relonch via PetaPixel ]

About Tiffany Mueller

Tiffany Mueller is a photographer based in Hawi, Hawaii. You can follow her Twitter here and her personal life here.

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Kike Cruz

How cool!!!
Shutter Hive

This is a very interesting product, my only concern (aside from the price) is that iPhones change form factor fairly rapidly so by the time you actually get one the iPhone 7 will be out and it will no longer fit. Presumably they will be making an iPhone 6 version?
- Tiffany Mueller
  
  Good point. This always seems to be the unsolvable problem with these types of gadgets…They are obsolete so quickly!
- Jim Johnson
  
  The thing about the price for me is that they want the money now to ship at some later time… and if you read the fine print, they warn that the final product may not actually look or be like the conceptual renderings.
Chabada György

Or just gaffer tape your iPhone to a high end DSLR for the same result… Stupid thing. I know that using a tablet for taking photos is even worse but still…
- Jeffrey B George
  
  They actually have a iPhone to camera hotshoe adapter, I’ve used on my DSLR to get GPS data, etc. Gaffers tape is brilliant though. ;-)
Richard Jane

Looks great. As long as it can adapt to fit a few years’ worth of iPhone versions, I’m in.
D

Or you could pay the same amount, and get a dedicated point-and-shoot that will most likely do the job better.
- pincherio
  
  This is a point and shoot with a DSLR sensor. How many of those do you know that go for 500 bucks?
  - Shinny Trinket
    
    You can walk into ANY camera shop and spend $50-$100 on a used dSLR and get much, much better IQ – people really need to stop this gadget nonsense !
    - pincherio
      
      But a cheap DSLR will most likely have no way to upload and share your pics to the net. Just cos you don’t get what the rest of the tech savvy world does, doesn’t make it nonsense.
      - David
        
        computer?
        eyefi card and tablet?
        its not rocket science!
        this is an option. it is not for me. it will prob work with one iPhone before they change the form factor.
  - david
    
    eos m $311
    
    http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/883304-REG/Canon_6609b033_EOS_M_Digital_Camera_with.html
    - pincherio
      
      Nice. Include the Sony NEX cameras as well. Still a pretty bare cupboard. More options are always welcome. Competition drives prices down but no one has a gun to your head forcing you to buy one.
pincherio

This would have been better as a stand alone camera that connects to a smart phone via wifi or NFC. I’m loving the DSLR sized sensor in a P&S form factor.
- The JennCast
  
  Or you could buy a Nokia Lumia 1020
  - pincherio
    
    A Nokia Lumia 1020 has 40+ megapixels. It doesn’t have an APS-C sensor. Big diff.
Marc Weintraub

That’s cool, but yeah, it won’t work starting tomorrow. Well, I guess it was good while it [didn’t] lasted.
Cesar Gonzalez

Jose Castillo
Jim Johnson

Not a case. Anything that adds that much bulk really can’t be considered a case. It’s more of a docking station. You’re not going to put this thing to your ear or slip into your pocket. Because of that, you are going to carry it separately, then have to put it on your phone when you get ready to take a photo. Might as well just carry a separate camera.

Nice thought, but it really will not work the way most people think it will.
Robert Miler

It’s just a point and shoot that uses your phone as a display and memory.
- Tiffany Mueller
  
  Essentially, yup. I think the point of the device is to eliminate the need to carry around a smartphone and a point and shoot…Which the Relonch does, sorta… ;)
  - pincherio
    
    But given the size of the thing…really makes “sorta” the key word.
    - Tiffany Mueller
      
      lol, indeed… :)
vincent-b

You see that as an accessory and everybody says you can get any other camera for $500.

This is not what this product is. This product is an PAS-C Point and shoot camera with an iOS operating system. That alone is worth the price for a lot of iOS users. Because of the ease to share, store, manipulate, use tremendous apps without any gap between the capture and the treatment+sharing. And that is unique, there’s no other camera doing that and there will not be any! Samsung can come up with (very weaks) Android cameras, no one will come up with iOS cameras, not even Apple. I always wanted that kind of product as I’m an avid photo and video shooter, editor, sharer.

That said, this would really have to be a flawless and very high quality product for me to put 500 on it. I love the form factor (I will never get the bulky sony bluetooth lens) but I’m looking for a $350 version of this.

All the comments that say “or you could put the same amount to have a different product” are stupid. We talking about this product, not some others. Wake the fuck up.
- John C
  
  While stupid, and wake the fuck up are convincing arguments, I think they are very telling. Most people compare one option with similar options and weigh the advantages and disadvantages of each. But I guess that’s a stupid idea.
- RCorrino
  
  What i don’t get is the need for this. Sure you can upload poctures to the web faster but the iPhone can do that already; with decent image quality. What this adds is a bigger sensor and a better lens, but that would result in a bigger file size or RAW files and do you really ned to upload those quickly?
  
  Some people might have a legitimate use for this but all i see is a gadget that has an extremely high cool factor that tech heads will like to show off
Jeffrey B George

I love it, I am getting annoyed all my iPhone accessories keep being phased out. Underwater cases, solar cases, speciality lenses, wallets, etc. Great business for 3rd parties, but not for my wallet.
mike

I thought the other two were fairly unnecessary, but this one is outright stupid. $500 for an iPhone gadget? So now the device goes obsolete when someone gets a new iphone in a year as well? Even if it wasn’t exactly the size of the phone it would still be unnecessary since you get get a good point and shoot for less than this price.

Heck you could get a medium-grade point and shoot AND a top of the line Google Nexus phone for the price of this thing.

There is a reason they are making these gadgets for iPhone and not Android.
Ahet

I’m really waiting for a grip for 5DmkII that enables calls from my camera.
- Tiffany Mueller
  
  =D
- nite
  
  Cameras already have wifi, so I suppose they are pretty close to phones now. :)
Tony

Of course like a lot of iPhone users have discovered time and again not only does the change in Apple hardware obsolete add ons their iOS upgrades can force all sorts of changes to apps and even to the amount of data you have room to store on your phone. It is a cool idea and I can smell the smoke from credit cards already being swiped for it. But as someone that still shoots a lot of film, I will not be jumping on this. Oh and just as an FYI I do carry a Lumia 1020, a Fujifilm X-E2, and a Yashica Electro 35 GSN. I still tend to go to the Electro before the others for a quick shot.
Tan

Or you can just get Sony QX (http://goo.gl/SxadZO)

Though it’ll be nice if Sony approaches Apple to allow their current TouchID NFC only to work with the QX as well

And problem with cases like this is you’re stuck with your phone and the moment Apple decides to change their phone design in ~2 years time, you’ll have to buy a new “phone case”.

Just look at their promo pic, it’s already dated as the new iPhone 6 comes in 2 sizes and are both rounded edges

Though I like the design of the case, look so clean and minimal