Amputive 20x macro lens review

Amputive 20x macro lens review- Is this the best macro lens for your smartphone in 2020? Well. Let’s find out!

Here are the details about the lens as given on Amputive’s amazon page-

• GAME-CHANGING MACRO PHOTOGRAPHY LENS: With Amputive mobile lens, add new dimensions to your photography and videography. Now magnifying your subjects without losing focus of the camera is possible. Compatible with all models of iPhone, Samsung, OnePlus and other companies, Amputive 20X Macro photography lens is the perfect tool to capture the details with accuracy. Enjoy capturing amazing camera shots in crisp detail.

• ⇨ ENHANCED 20X MACRO PHOTOGRAPHY LENS – A smartphone camera loses focus if subject is positioned near 4 cm, but with our smartphone lens for mobile photography, every problem is solved. To help you with your photography and videography expedition, macro lens is sharp in the middle and loses sharpness in the edge which helps in taking precise photographs of the subject as the camera only focuses on the subject and blurs out distracting elements in the corner. Isn’t it impressive?

• ⇨ POUCH TO CARRY YOUR LENS KIT – Worried about damaging the lens kit during rains or while travelling? We have the ideal solution! To keep your macro lens protected during extreme conditions, this smartphone lens for mobile camera comes in a perfect drawstring pouch. This travel-safe case also includes microfiber cloth to clean your lens for better vision.

• ⇨ STURDY STRONG CLIP - Macro is not that easy. With your practice and patience to capture macro images, you will excel the skill. To help you focus on the subject better during practices, our mobile lens comes with a strong and sturdy clip. Now aiming at your subject when you are in action mode is less difficult. Practice hard and be pro at macrophotography!

• ⇨ MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE – After using the lens for mobile, if you are still unsatisfied with the macro mobile lens, we are here for you. Amputive provides a full refund if you are unhappy with the product even after using it. What more would you want, right? We are sure you will love it.

Ok so, Let me start off with the presentation and build quality. The lens comes in a hard and quite sturdy case, which I wasn’t expecting for the price, which is as of 22nd July, 2020, ₹ 745 only. I could confidently put this case in my bag and not worry about the lens being damaged in any scenario. Inside the case, you’ve your lens clip, the lens itself, which has a lens cap on it, and a pouch, along with a microfiber clothe. The lens screws on to the adapter pretty firmly. This solution of screwing the lens on can be an indication that Amputive may come up with more lenses in the future that can retrofit on to the provided clip. However, this is merely my opinion. So, I’ll update about this post once Amputive comes up with more lens options. Anyway, Back to the topic! The clip is made up of plastic, while the housing of the lens is made up of metal. The lens cap is of mediocre quality. It’s flimsy but does its job.

Now, let’s look into some pros and cons.

Pros-

1) Price- To be completely honest, I was a bit worried when I placed my order. I was completely expecting a cheap piece of equipment for this price. But what I got was far beyond my expectations! 

2) Build quality- For the price, the build quality is excellent. Right from the case to the lens itself, it feels like you’ve a substantial piece of equipment.

3) Image quality- The images that are produced are really sharp in the respective focal plane. I use Redmi Note 8 pro and I’ve to be about 2cm-3cm away from my subject to focus at minimum distance. Amputive says the image loses sharpness “near the edges”. I’ll talk more on this in the cons section.

4) Bokeh- You get some exceptional, round bokeh. If you are uploading the images on Instagram, much like I do, a lot of times people actually can’t tell if it’s from a smartphone or a DSLR!

5) No vignette- There is no vignette whatsoever. For me, this falls under pro. I do know some people who prefer some vignette but I personally like it without any vignette.

6) Colors and tones- The color rendition is spot on. There is no color cast or any chromatic aberration. The contrast in the images is also great.

These are some of the positive aspects of Amputive 20x macro lens. Now let's address the negative side of this lens.

Cons- 

1) Sharpness- As I mentioned above, Amputive claims the sharpness in your images is gradually lost near the edges. To be completely honest, the sharpness is lost pretty close to the center itself. To put that into perspective, I’ve to always shoot with a minimum 1.8x to 2x digital zoom in order to be in the area of focus. Sure, if you’re looking for the radial blur filter type of effect in your images, you can work without the digital zoom but if you want some natural looking macro images, you will have to zoom in digitally.

2) Distortion- If you decide not to digitally zoom in, you will still face a problem of some heavy distortion. And it does not look appealing at all.

3) Not suited for cameras with 12MP sensors or 48MP sensors- Since you’ll have to zoom in digitally to be in the area of focus, the image quality would suffer a lot. I would suggest using this only if you’ve a minimum of 16MP camera or 64MP sensor. The reason why even a 48MP sensor won’t work is because by default, a 48MP sensor produces 12MP photos (this is called pixel binning and it is supposed to reduce noise and improve overall quality). Similarly, a 64MP sensor produces 16MP images. As long as you’re ok shooting in 48MP mode all the times, you can go with this 20x macro lens. Just keep in mind that it will produce large files.

My final thoughts and a clarification-

Now that we’ve covered the pros and cons, let me explain a bit about the “20x” here. There are macro lenses by other companies as well such as Skyvik and Apexel. And they all have macro lenses that say either 20x, 12x, 24x and so on. What do these numbers mean? Well, these numbers are called magnifying factors of the respective lenses. This defines how much a lens is going to magnify your image. For instance, if you have an object that is 1cm by 1cm. On a 20x macro lens, it would appear to be 20cm by 20cm. The formula for calculation magnifying factor (MF) is-

MF = Size of image / real or actual size

Now, just by looking at an image taken using such a macro lens might not convey this magnification because you’re looking at it on a smartphone display. So, to test out if this lens is truly 20x macro or not, I took an image of a ruler at the farthest focus distance with the macro lens on. And then I brought it into photoshop. In photoshop, you’ve the ability to display image size in terms of physical distance such as centimeter. So, watch the video below for the result.

As you can see, 1 cm of actual size is being shown as 21.8cm of image size. So, clearly, MF = 21.8 / 1 = 21.8. Experimental errors can account for the extra magnification. So, this lens is truly a 20x macro lens. There’s no doubt in that. 

So, to conclude, this lens is very competent. It does what it claims. Even though there are a few hiccups, I feel it was to be expected at this price point.

Do I recommend this camera?

Yes! You’re not going to get a better deal at this price point and for this quality. The pros definitely outweigh the cons! 

So that is all for my review! I hope you found it useful! If you've any specific query regarding this lens that I haven't covered, feel free to comment down below or DM me on Instagram @the_sarcasticegg! You can also email me at rahulpremkumarphotography@gmail.com

I also have a youtube channel. Feel free to check it out here!

You can check out Amputive 20x Macro lens on Amazon using this link- https://amzn.to/2WHShe7