I found the most insane iPhone lens that can capture the most unique, creative, immersive footage you have ever seen: the prob blend from Samar. Wow, let’s do this.
What is going on? It’s Anel. This new Sandmarc Probe Lens from San Mark is on another level. It doesn’t matter if you’re a photographer, filmmaker, or content creator; you need to check out this lens.
You can capture the unique creative shots and take your footage to the next level this lens is quite big I mean look at that around 35 CM with a diameter of around 3.5 cm and weighs around 258 grams.
But the build quality you don’t expect anything less from San Mark it is topnotch it feels like a quality piece of Kit just like other Sanar lenses this Lens comes with a nice carry case to keep it all protected and it’s also compatible with all of San Mark’s screw on cases so you don’t have to go and buy a separate case if you already own a bunch of sand mark lenses this is going to fit right on there.
1. What is a Sandmarc Probe Lens?
Well, it’s basically a wide-angle macro and it has 2.1 magnification and it has a minimum focus distance of 16 mm now this design this long design allows you to get into places that you could never get into before so what’s cool about this lens is you can get extremely close to your subject without that shallow depth of field that you get with traditional macro lenses so you get more of everything in focus and another cool feature is this inbuilt Focus ring right here you can manually focus in and dial in your focus when you’re shooting.
The 106° field of view means you can get that super immersive cinematic look so you’ll notice at the tip here that you have some LED lights which are cool if you’re shooting in places where you can’t get enough external light you just press this little power button right here and you can cycle through the different levels of brightness and it’s all powered within the lens there’s a USBC charging port and there a cable included in the package.
The only thing to note here is that when I was using the built-in LED light I noticed a little bit of blue flaring in my footage as it got closer kind of disappeared it’s barely noticeable if you’re shooting with this lens just make sure you got enough light in your area.
Tips 1: Use A Slider
So let’s move on to some shooting tips and the first tip I’ve got for you is to use a slider if you try and use this thing handheld your foot is just going to come out wrong get yourself a slider now I have a motorized slider and when I paired that up with this I got some brilliant results now if you can’t afford to get a motorized slider don’t worry get yourself a manual slider just really nail that technique you want to go in a slow steady movement practice a few times it might take you a few goals to get the shot right but you can still get great results with a manual slide.
Tips 2: Use A Pro Camera App
You can use the standard camera app on the iPhone but you have to go through all the settings to disable macro mode it’s just a lot of hassle I would just go straight to a pro camera I like to use the Black Magic Pro Camera you could dial in your settings and get the highest quality footage with the pro blend.
2. Final Thoughts
So this Sark probe lens retails at Rs 27,805 (Approx) now that’s pricey but I can see why it’s so expensive I mean the quality of the lens and the amount of Optics that are going into this thing so you really need to think if you really want to Splash out on the lens like this for me I like it it’s going to stay in my collection and I’m telling you if you got one of these it’s going to inspire you to create so many different unique shots you can get into places that you’ve never been in before and get something from a unique perspective it’s going to take your content to the next level don’t get me wrong it’s not perfect I’d like to see some improvements to the LED light to make it more usable but other than that it’s a pretty good lens.