Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time

Sep 6, 2022 by John Aldred Leave a Comment

Smartphone filter kits seem to be coming through thick and fast lately, with the most recent being NiSi’s iPhone filter kit announced a few weeks ago. Now, there’s another hitting the market. It’s the Snap Filter, a magnetic filter system for the iPhone from Pan’s Scheme, a company founded by YouTuber, Mediastorm. It’s an interesting system which offers some familiar filters including ND, Mist and star filters as well as anamorphic look-a-likes, blue and gold streak (in horizontal and vertical flavours).

A base attaches to your smartphone and there are two bases, one for the iPhone 12/13 and 12/13 Pro and one for the iPhone 12/13 Pro Max, that magnetically attach to your phone. Onto these, you attach your filters, and various kits are available depending on your needs. It’s a design that, as usual, is specifically for the iPhone, though. So, Android users can move along. Nothing to see here.

There are two basic kits. There’s the ND Snap Filter Bundle, which includes a special Kickstarter (yes, this one’s launching on Kickstarter) limited edition version of the base, along with four neutral density filters in 2, 4, 6 and 8 stop strengths along with a case to keep them all in. The other is the Effects Snap Filter Bundle, which includes the base and case along with Black Mist, Cross-Star, Blue Streak (horizontal and vertical) and Gold Streak (horizontal and vertical) filters.

It claims to be the “World’s First Magsafe Filter System”, taking advantage of the magnetic features of the newer iPhones. This also means that unlike many other filter attachment systems (at least, other filter attachment systems that aren’t of the clamp variety), it’s quick and easy to put the base on and take it off as needed. If you don’t need to use it, you can just remove it and use your phone as normal. And when you want to attach or remove a filter, they snap in and out of the base.

There are some sample photos of the types of images each of the filters produces on the Kickstarter campaign page, and they look quite good, although they’re nothing really all that new. What is new, though, is the convenient design and form factor. It’s a neat-looking set and if you’re an iPhone user (I’m not), I’m sure you’ll find the Magsafe compatibility quite useful and practical over more traditional means, such as permanently attached cases or clip-on systems that can potentially scratch your screen.

On the Kickstarter campaign right now, the prices for each of the three kits start at $79, $109 and $136 for the ND bundle, Effects bundle and complete bundle respectively – until the Early Birds all run out. They’ll go up a little bit after they do, but once the campaign’s over and they go retail, the price will jump up to $159, $199 and $249 respectively.

Filed Under: news Tagged With: iPhone, Pan's Scheme, smartphone video, Snap Filter

John Aldred is based in Scotland and photographs people in the wild and animals in the studio. You can find out more about John on his website and follow his adventures on YouTube.

John Aldred is based in Scotland and photographs people in the wild and animals in the studio. You can find out more about John on his website and follow his adventures on YouTube.

Dunja Djudjic is a writer and photographer from Novi Sad, Serbia. You can see her work on Flickr, Behance and her Facebook page.

Alex is a commercial photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She mostly shoots people and loves anything to do with the outdoors. You can see her work on her website and follow her Spanish landscape adventures on instagram.

Adam Frimer is a Guinness World Record holder, producer, and DOP based in Tel-Aviv, Israel. Adam owns a production company that specializes in corporate marketing and brand strategy. His videos have collectively hit over a quarter billion views

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