Moment T-series review: premium build quality but limited image gains: Digital Photography Review

April 22, 2024

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Launched in 2023, the T-series is Moment’s current line of premium add-on lenses for smartphones and comprises an entire lens ecosystem, including cases, filters, filter mounts, and other accessories.

Compared to the previous M-series introduced in 2017, the new T-series has been designed for the larger image sensors and bigger pixel counts in the latest generation flagship smartphones, using 25% more glass, an additional lens element and a larger bayonet mount. In addition, the larger dimensions should help avoid vignetting on smartphone cameras with focal lengths of 24mm equivalent or wider.

We had three Moment T-series lenses available to test: the Tele 58mm telephoto lens, the Wide 18mm lens and the Fisheye 14mm lens. The Moment T-series line-up also includes a 10x macro and anamorphic lenses for video shooters, the Anamorphic 1.33x and the Anamorphic 1.55x.

Moment offers a variety of options for attaching the lenses to your smartphone, including a universal lens mount that should work with most smartphones. We used Google’s latest top-end smartphone, the Pixel 8 Pro, with its dedicated Moment case for our tests.

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Build quality and ergonomics

All three lenses come with a metal body and are reassuringly hefty, giving you the impression of having shelled out your money for a premium product. In the box, you’ll find a lens cap and a pouch, and in the case of the 18mm lens, also a screw-in metal hood. The 58mm tele and the 18mm wide lenses offer a filter thread. There is no way of attaching filters or hoods to the fisheye lens.

All lenses come with a pouch in the box.

The Google Pixel 8 Pro dedicated case looks like any generic plastic lens case but comes with a bayonet-style mount for attaching the lenses. Lenses are attached with a 1/4 turn motion, similar to a mirrorless camera or DSLR, but lack the reassuring click sound when the lens locks into place. Still, the connection is solid and tight.

Lenses are attached to the bayonet mount in the lens case with a quarter-turn motion.

Moment recommends mounting their lenses in front of the smartphone’s primary camera module, which offers better overall image quality on some smartphones than the ultra-wide or tele modules. The Moment case for the Google Pixel 8 Pro allows you to mount lenses in front of the phone’s tele module. This would, of course, only make sense for the 58mm tele, but in practice, it does not work. With the lens attached, the Pixel camera automatically switches to its primary camera and uses digital zoom instead. Moment offers a dedicated app that can be configured to force the device to use its telephoto camera. However, the app is currently only available for iOS.

The tele lens adds quite a bit of bulk and weight to your smartphone.

Image Quality

Moment Wide (18mm equivalent) lens

On the Pixel 8 Pro, the Moment wide lens expands your options in terms of wide-angle shooting. It widens the field of view of the primary camera module but is still closer to the primary camera than to the Pixel’s ultra-wide in terms of focal length.

Overall image quality is not massively impacted by the add-on lens, across all light conditions. The camera tends to use a very similar ISO value with the lens attached, and global image parameters, such as color, dynamic range or contrast, are very close to the Pixel image without the lens attached. The same is true for image noise, but the Moment lens introduces a slight corner softness, and our lens sample also had a soft spot towards the bottom center of the frame.

The Moment lens was also somewhat prone to lens flare when shooting in bright sunlight, even with the hood attached. Focus was still working well, though, and both distortion and vignetting were well under control.

Moment Fisheye (14mm equivalent) lens

The Moment fisheye lens offers a slightly wider field of view than the Pixel 8 Pro’s built-in ultra-wide camera, but the difference is relatively moderate.

As you would expect from a fisheye, its images display a much stronger distortion than the built-in ultra-wide camera, but depending on the use case, this can be a desired effect and a legitimate reason for using the Moment lens. You’ll have to live with quite soft corners in your images, though.

With the Pixel 8 Pro’s ultra-wide camera delivering excellent detail and low noise, even in low light, using the Moment fisheye with the primary camera doesn’t offer any real benefit in this respect. Like the wide lens, the fisheye is a little more prone to flare than the built-in cameras. Focus works just as well with the lens attached as without.

Moment Tele (58mm equivalent) lens

When mounted in front of the Pixel’s primary camera, the Moment tele 58mm tele lens achieves, as one would expect, a narrower field of view, but not as narrow as the Pixel’s own 2x tele mode, which is achieved through digital zoom.

Shooting through the Moment lens with the Pixel’s primary camera gives you a slight advantage in terms of fine detail over the digitally zoomed image. Still, given the Moment image’s wider field of view, this advantage is canceled out when viewing the same crop area. Given both images are captured by the image sensor in the primary camera module, there is no noticeable difference in terms of image noise, but in some conditions, we noticed a slightly reduced contrast with the Moment lens and, surprisingly, chromatic aberrations appear to be better controlled with the Moment glass.

You can also combine the Pixel’s 2x zoom with the Moment lens for roughly a 4x tele factor, but the result is pretty underwhelming. The Moment lens magnifies the digital zoom’s imperfections, resulting in a relatively obvious lack of detail. You’re better off using the Pixel’s dedicated tele camera with its native 5x tele in almost any situation.

The Moment Tele provides some advantages in terms of portraiture. Background blurring is not as pronounced as with the artificial bokeh of the Pixel’s portrait mode, but you do not get the same segmentation errors around the subject, especially in fine details, such as hair. This said, current flagship smartphones, such as the Pixel, have become very good at isolating the subject from the background, and you have to zoom in fairly closely to spot the imperfections.

Conclusion

The Moment T-series lenses are nicely made, and the case and lens mount designs work well together, giving you the impression of converting your smartphone into a much more serious piece of photographic equipment.

However, out of the lenses we have tested, the fisheye is the only one that offers a unique perspective unavailable through one of the Pixel’s built-in cameras. In addition, shooting with the add-on lenses mounted in front of the Pixel 8 Pro’s primary camera does not really give you an advantage in terms of image quality. The built-in ultra-wide and Google’s 2x tele zoom mode are just too good for that.

You also do not get any aperture control, as you would get on an interchangeable lens camera and the Moment lenses eliminate one of the most apparent advantages of a smartphone camera: ultimate compactness and simplicity.

Overall, the Moment T-series lenses are an interesting option for smartphone photographers who like to experiment with gear. The fisheye provides a unique look, and the telephoto’s natural bokeh is nice for portrait shots, but you should not expect massive improvements to your smartphone’s camera capabilities.

The Moment lenses might make more sense on smartphones with less capable ultra-wide and tele cameras, but if you own a current top-end device, it’s hard to justify the cost and added bulk.

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