If Kickstarter were a forest, you wouldn’t be able to see it for all the iPhone camera adapter cases littering its leafy, money-begging hummocks. And here we bring you another photo-friendly sapling of an invention, only this one is a little different. It’s called the Magnifi, and it works with pretty much any piece of imaging equipment that ends with “-scope” (or “-lars, as we shall see in a second).
The [Magnifi][www.kickstarter.com] consists of two parts: a half-case, which clips over the top part of the iPhone4/S and makes it look like a man wearing a t-shirt but no pants or underwear. On this case is a bayonet mount onto which you can clip a clamp.
This clamp is the brains of the the operation. You slide its cylindrical hole over the eyepiece of a microscope, telescope, or binoculars and clamp it shut. You now have a giant telephoto lens through which you can take shots using any of your iPhone photo apps.
It’s specialist, sure, but the beauty of both Kickstarter, and of the iPhone’s huge user base, is that niche products can flourish and get to those people that want and need them.
What could you use this for? Well, the binocular setup — if done with a tripod — will turn you into a wildlife photographer on the cheap. And biologists, instead of just snapping pictures of their lunch and posting them to Twitter or Instagram, can now post photos of the bacteria living *on* their lunch to Twitter or Instagram. Yummy.
The Magnifi can be had for a pledge of $55. Wait around for the retail version and you’ll pay $80. The project has already doubled its $10,000 goal, so if you want one, bookmark the site and stick it in your calendar for future review.
And now it’s time to insert my now-inevitable request for someone to make a decent, non-huge camera case for the iPad 3. My money is waiting here, Kickstarterers!
[Via [OhGizmo!][www.ohgizmo.com]]
[www.kickstarter.com]: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/637232010/magnifi-the-worlds-first-iphone-photoadapter-case
[www.ohgizmo.com]: https://www.ohgizmo.com/2012/04/23/magnifi-case-lets-you-use-your-iphone-with-almost-any-optical-instrument/ “OhGizmo! » Archive » Magnifi Case Lets You Use Your iPhone With Almost Any Optical Instrument”
