{"id":218353,"date":"2026-02-28T05:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T10:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/28\/i-tested-this-329-smartphone-lens-against-the-iphone-17-pros-camera-heres-what-happened\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T05:45:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T10:45:09","slug":"i-tested-this-329-smartphone-lens-against-the-iphone-17-pros-camera-heres-what-happened","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/28\/i-tested-this-329-smartphone-lens-against-the-iphone-17-pros-camera-heres-what-happened\/","title":{"rendered":"I tested this $329 smartphone lens against the iPhone 17 Pro\u2019s camera \u2014 here\u2019s what happened"},"content":{"rendered":"

I tested this $329 smartphone lens against the iPhone 17 Pro\u2019s camera \u2014 here\u2019s what happened<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.tomsguide.com\/cameras-photography\/i-tested-this-usd329-smartphone-lens-against-the-iphone-17-pros-camera-heres-what-happened<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-02-28 05:15:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.tomsguide.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Listen, I love my iPhone 17 Pro, and have very few complaints about its camera. It does everything I need a smartphone camera to do\u2026 which is to take copious photos of my dogs and the occasional picture of my wife and\/or family. For more serious photography, I have my Fujifilm X-E4 and Fujifilm X-T5.<\/p>\n

Not everyone is as lucky as me in owning a mirrorless camera, though, which is why iPhone lenses are a thing. The best iPhone lenses provide a moderately affordable way to boost your smartphone\u2019s capabilities \u2014 by adding a better macro lens, for example, or a more characterful lens for video or portraiture.<\/p>\n

There are loads of smartphone lenses out there: from anamorphic video lenses through to fisheyes and macros, and on to super telephotos, like the Sandmarc 10x super tele lens I\u2019ve been delving into this week.<\/p>\n


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This lens has a 10x magnification, which is equivalent to 200mm on a full frame camera. That\u2019s longer than the optical reach of my iPhone 17 Pro\u2019s 8x lens, although the built-in lens can digitally zoom to 10x (and far beyond) to match framing.<\/p>\n

The Sandmarc 10x costs a whopping $329, so I wanted to see how it fared against the iPhone\u2019s built-in lens. Is it worth the spend? And are iPhone lenses worth it at all, for that matter? Read on to find out.<\/p>\n

Peter Wolinski<\/span><\/p>\n

Senior editor, reviews & cameras<\/p>\n

I’m Pete Wolinski, senior editor here at Tom’s Guide and in charge of our reviews and cameras coverage. I oversee all smartphone lens testing, so I’ve used plenty of them. Follow me on Instagram to see my photography.<\/p>\n

Sharpness (or lack thereof)<\/h2>\n

I\u2019m gonna get a major issue with the Sandmarc out of the way first: this lens is not sharp. In fact, it\u2019s anything but. Much of that is to do with the optics themselves. When you use a smartphone lens, you\u2019re placing glass in front of an already finely-tuned and calibrated optic (your phone’s built-in lens) \u2014 it\u2019s almost never going to come out sharper…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I tested this $329 smartphone lens against the iPhone 17 Pro\u2019s camera \u2014 here\u2019s what…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":218354,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/rceujtdB325QwifFeWkUqX-2560-80.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[120],"tags":[80],"class_list":["post-218353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-iphone","tag-iphone-17"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218353"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218353"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":218355,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218353\/revisions\/218355"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}