TMO Background Mode: Interview with the Founder of olloclip Patrick O’Neil
Patrick O’Neil grew up in a family of photographers, and so designing a portable, add-on lens set for the iPhone was a natural thing to do. It all started as a Kickstarter project over five years ago at his kitchen table. Immediately successful with the iPhone 4, Patrick, along with his partner, was able to launch the olloclip company and has built these amazing lens kits ever since. The olloclip lens system is designed to have different creative options in your pocket: macro, fisheye, wide-angle or telephoto. We talked about the optics and engineering of these lenses, the mobility emphasis, keeping up with Apple’s changes, and how the product has evolved. Here’s Patrick’s story: from kitchen table to a company with almost 50 people readying the new lenses for the iPhone 7 and (joy!) the 7 Plus.
Show Notes
My Background Mode interview with Patrick O'Neil
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Let me take this chance to say THANK YOU Mr. O’Neil.
I got an olloclip set last summer. It has Wide Angle, Fisheye, plus 10x and 15x Macro lenses and it’s wonderful. Seldom have I had more simple fun with a product. I expected to mostly use the Macro lenses for photos of tiny things. After all the iPhone SE camera is fairly wide already so why would I need the others. I got them because they were part of the set. But I’ve found all sorts of cool effects with the Wide and Fisheye lenses too. It’s just a blast.
TIP: If you use the wide or fisheye and the panorama setting it not only widens the field of view the camera doesn’t know how far you’ve rotated. My stock SE does a 180 degree pan. With the fisheye I get almost 720 degrees. Fun for different photo effects.