Apple just released the iPhone 17 Pro with its shiny new 8x optical zoom, and the tech press is losing their minds over what amounts to catching up to Samsung phones from 2020. Don’t get me wrong, the 48MP telephoto sensor is nice, and yeah, you can now zoom into your kid’s soccer game from the bleachers without everything looking like a potato. But while everyone’s celebrating Apple finally hitting 8x optical zoom, there’s this fascinating Kickstarter project that’s about to make your iPhone camera do something genuinely wild.

The Martvsen MagStack isn’t trying to compete with Samsung’s 100x Space Zoom or Apple’s newfound telephoto prowess. Instead, it’s going completely sideways into territory that neither company has seriously explored: extreme macro photography that turns your phone into something closer to a portable microscope. We’re talking about 105x magnification that lets you photograph individual pixels on screens, the crystalline structure of sugar grains, or the intricate patterns hidden in everyday fabric.

Designer: Martvsen

Click Here to Buy Now: $69 $115 (40% off) Hurry! Only 7 Days left.

Most people think about zoom as “getting closer to distant things,” but macro magnification flips that concept entirely. You’re getting impossibly close to tiny things that are right in front of you. At 105x, you’re working with a focal distance of just 2.5 centimeters, which means you’re practically touching your subject. This creates an entirely different photographic challenge and opens up subjects that most people have literally never seen with their naked eyes.

What makes the MagStack clever is how it solves the biggest problem with smartphone lens attachments: they’re usually a pain in the ass to use. Traditional clip-on macro lenses require threading and unthreading, which inevitably leads to dropped lenses, cross-threading, and wobbly connections that ruin your shots. The MagStack uses strong magnets with what they call a “position-proof” design, meaning the lenses snap together with perfect optical alignment every time. You can stack from 30x up to 105x magnification in seconds, without tools, without frustration.

This modular approach means you’re not stuck with one magnification level. Different subjects work better at different magnifications. Flower petals might look amazing at 30x, while the surface texture of a coin requires 80x to really reveal its details. Having that flexibility in a system that swaps instantly changes how you approach macro photography. Instead of committing to one lens and hoping it works for your subject, you can experiment and find the perfect magnification on the fly.

The build quality seems serious too. They’re using aerospace aluminum construction and optical glass rather than the cheap plastic you’d expect from most smartphone accessories. At $99 for the full Pro kit, it’s positioned somewhere between “impulse buy” and “considered purchase,” which feels about right for what you’re getting. Compare that to buying a dedicated macro lens for a real camera, which easily runs into hundreds or thousands of dollars.

Here’s where it gets interesting for iPhone 17 Pro owners specifically. Apple’s computational photography has gotten incredibly sophisticated, but it’s largely focused on mainstream photography scenarios. Better portraits, improved night mode, smarter HDR. They’ve built amazing technology for taking better photos of people, places, and things at normal scales. But they’ve basically ignored the microscopic world that exists right under our noses.

The timing feels absolutely ideal because social media has created this massive appetite for content that flips tradition on its head, and macro photography can evoke just the right amount of ‘wows’. Macro photography consistently performs well because it reveals hidden details in objects people interact with daily. A drop of water becomes a perfect sphere with reflections and refractions. A flower reveals patterns that look almost alien. The surface of everyday objects becomes abstract art. It’s the kind of content that makes people stop scrolling.

Samsung has been pushing zoom numbers higher and higher, but they’re chasing distant subjects. The Galaxy S25 Ultra can digitally zoom to 100x, which is impressive for photographing buildings across town or wildlife from a distance, but the image quality degrades significantly at those extremes. The MagStack takes the opposite approach: instead of reaching far, it dives deep into the tiny world that surrounds us constantly.

The practical limitations are real, so a 105x zoom may sound great on paper, but there are some caveats. At extreme magnifications, camera shake becomes enormous, so steady hands or a tripod are essential. Lighting gets tricky because the lens can block ambient light, and autofocus struggles at these distances. But these aren’t insurmountable problems, they’re just different techniques to learn. Ring lights are cheap, tripods are everywhere, and manual focus becomes second nature with practice.

What’s genuinely exciting is how this democratizes high-end macro photography. Professional macro setups cost thousands and require years to master. The MagStack lets anyone start exploring extreme close-up photography immediately, with their existing phone, using familiar camera apps. The barrier to entry drops from “serious photographer with specialized equipment” to “anyone curious about the hidden details around them.”

Your existing smartphone is already an incredibly capable camera… we truly have come really far in terms of packing pretty impressive sensors and sandwiching lens arrays into phones that cost anywhere in the $700 ballpark. The MagStack doesn’t compete with Apple’s latest improvements; it unlocks an entirely different dimension of photography that Apple hasn’t even attempted to address. While everyone argues about whether 8x zoom is enough or if Samsung’s 100x digital zoom is useful, this little magnetic lens system is quietly opening up a world that most people have never seen.

The MagStack kit starts at $69 for a basic array that gives you 30x + 25x modular lenses, but if you want to bump up to the 105x zoom, the Pro kit costs $89 and packs three 25x lenses along with the 30x lens – all which you can stack together to create that monster macro lens. Each kit comes with a clip that works with most phones, although an extra $19 will get you a bespoke iPhone case designed to specifically mount the lens system. The Martvsen MagStack ships globally starting November 2025.

Click Here to Buy Now: $69 $115 (40% off) Hurry! Only 7 Days left.

The post Unlock 105x Zoom on your iPhone Camera – No Pro Upgrade Needed first appeared on Yanko Design.

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