Launching a Kickstarter project is always a leap of faith. That especially holds true for Marc Barros, who launched a campaign for his new product on Tuesday — a smartphone lens attachment called Moment.
This is Barros' second commercial venture after he was let go from Contour, a company he founded while still in college. If you haven’t heard of Contour, that’s probably because its efforts have been largely drowned out by the marketing fusillade from its competition, GoPro.
Contour, which began its life as VHoldr, was part of the original wearable camera wave in 2008, much like the much more well-known GoPro. The product recorded in HD, saved to SD cards, offered waterproof case accessories and had an app and social network. Contour struggled to compete with GoPro and its popular Hero cameras, eventually deciding to continue the fight without Barros.
Now Barros, who wrote about his dismissal and the aftermath on his website, is again ready to try his hand at entrepreneurship with Moment. He's not straying too far from his roots, either.
"I believe in the Kickstarter concept: Getting to customers earlier. It's a little terrifying because you're showing prototypes," he said. To build his new product and company, Barros recruited some former Contour coworkers, and some with a few years' worth of experience making cinematic lenses.
The result is Moment Wide and the Moment Tele, capable of 2x zoom. The lenses, which work without special cases, are machine barreled and relatively large for a mobile phone lens attachment.
Moment lenses attach bayonet-style to a special mount that you must actually glue to your iPhone. Barros explained that it’s not permanent rubber glue, though; you can remove it if you want. But Barros does not envision taking the mount on and off.
The mount is actually a plate that runs the full width of your iPhone, but only goes as deep as the first edge on the back of the phone. Barros said the mount is thin enough to fit under your case. (There's also an Android option.)
The lenses also appear larger than competing 3-in-1 lenses from Olloclip. That company’s multi-purpose lenses include wide-angle, fisheye and macro in one attachment. Barros claims his lenses maintain image quality to the edge of the lens and the resulting photo, while Olloclip’s drops off significantly. Of course, there is no way to verify this claim without testing the product.
Image: Moment