Trygger has addressed the issue of unwanted reflections and glare in photos taken with your iPhone 5. Reflections and glare can occur with both indoor and outdoor shots and can be a real nuisance to the average photographer.
Trygger Camera Clip attached to an iPhone 5
The Camera Clip is made from 1.88 mm hard polycarbonate and is felt-lined to provide an inner grip that will not scratch or mar. There is a pass-through button for the sleep/wake function of the iPhone. It will only fit the iPhone 5. It is 1 x 1.24 x 0.5-in (24.4 x 31.75 x 12.7-mm) and comes with a round plastic holder similar to any lens carrier. There is a turn wheel that allows the user to adjust the filter to control the level of light that comes through.
Camera Clip in case
The polarizing filter built into the Camera Clip is made by placing a color neutral polarizing film between two layers of high-grade Borosilicate optical glass. (Borosilicate glass is a type of glass with the main glass-forming constituents silica and boron oxide. Some Pyrex products are composed of Borosilicate glass.)
The Trygger Camera Clip is available in black or white.
Camera Clip color options
The polarizing filter is designed to give more vibrant colors, truer to what the eye sees, and to eliminate glare. The following image, professionally produced, illustrates the difference between polarized (right) and non-polarized images (left).
Image example from company website
Using the product
It is very easy to use the Camera Clip. It slips on and off an iPhone 5 easily and stays in place once attached to the phone, but there are a couple of important considerations that must be heeded. First is that your phone must be completely naked. I use a Seidio tempered glass iPhone 5 screen protector on my iPhone that I would not give up for any reason, not even to conduct a review. It is 0.02-in (0.55 mm) thick but the Camera Clip will not fit on my iPhone 5. (For more info on the tempered screen protectors see a review of the iPad version). I borrowed a phone from a friend for testing purposes.
Second is that with the Camera Clip in place both the back microphone and the camera flash are covered. The flash is a no-brainer. Why would you need it? But were you to use the Camera Clip while taking videos, you would lose the use of that back microphone. Chances are it could be a non-issue, but users should be aware of it.
I found that using the Camera Clip did indeed make a difference in the quality of my photos. I took pictures in the middle of the afternoon in the kind of glare that leaves you momentarily blind when you walk back inside the house. The colors in the photos in the following image are strikingly different.
One last point about using the Camera Clip. There are no real guidelines for adjusting the filter control. If I were going to use this product for an important event I would want to become very comfortable with the filter adjustment ahead of time so that I spent my time taking the pictures I wanted, not trying to figure out settings.
Do I Recommend it?
I do. Even though I have pointed out some cautions, there is some real potential here for us amateur photographers who have to deal with issues like glare and reflections. As long as the user knows the product well, I think it will serve as a relatively inexpensive solution to these problems. The Camera Clip is not available from the company web site, but can be purchased from BiteMyApple for US $39.99.