I bought a cheap kit of external phone lenses - $40 for 4 lenses (wide angle, fisheye, macro and zoom) which included a clip (clip attaches to the camera and the lens screws into the clip), a mini tripod and a clamp to attach the camera to the tripod.
I took some test photos in Sonya's back yard!
The phone is an iPhone 11 MAX PRO, which at the time was one of the best (phone) cameras on the market, so it already took a good range of photos!
Here are a couple of photos with the camera at 1.0 and 2.0 zoom:
Here is a pic from the phone at 0.5 zoom, and a comparison to the wide angle lens:
And here is the same shot with the fisheye lens:
Here is a zoom shot of the distant flowers with the phone's 10x zoom:
... and with the external zoom lens:
Theoretically you could combine the two - attach the external lens and then zoom using the phone's zoom - but (with the iPhone anyways) there are multiple built-in lenses, so if the camera decides to switch to a different built-in lens, then you need to move the external lens as well.
OK I managed to get an "ultra zoom" - camera 10x zoom plus the external zoom lens - although getting it into focus was impossible, and (as expected) the phone kept switching cameras.
Here is a close-up of one of the flowers, first a regular camera shot and then with the phone's 10x zoom:
... and with the external macro lens:
The macro lens is a bit of a pain because it can only focus within 1-2cm, so to get the above shot I had to stick the phone right into the flower. Whereas with the camera's zoom I could take the photo from a couple feet away.
