The Manfrotto Klyp case gives your iPhone a mount for LED lights and a tripod.If one LED light for your phone camera is good, are 24 better?
If you are serious about taking photos with your iPhone, then perhaps so. Manfrotto, the camera accessories manufacturer, has produced a new iPhone case for the iPhone 4 and 4S that lets you snap on auxiliary LED lights and a tripod.
The Klyp case, as it's called, is a pretty standard slip-on case with a rubbery “soft touch†exterior and feltlike, scratch-free liner.
The stars of the system are the lighting arrays, either a 12-LED light suitable for close-up photos and macro shots, or a 24-LED lamp that can comfortably light head-and-shoulders shots.
The LED arrays are a huge improvement over the single-LED flash built into the iPhone. The built-in flash has a tendency to overlight photos harshly and leave your subjects with glowing red eyes, which, while Halloween-appropriate, isn't so great the rest of the year.
The 24-LED array has a dimmer switch to adjust how much light it puts out. The quality of the light is neutral, but it might benefit from a diffuser, which, in a pinch, you could probably make from tissue paper.
Using the 24-LED ML240 mounted on the clip case made portraits more flattering, but they would have been better still if the light could have been aimed a little more precisely. A fully articulated mount would take care of that.
The best use of the light didn't require the $35 Klyp case at all. Holding the ML240 at arm's length and at an angle to subjects produced more flattering illumination and more interest ing shadows than when it was on the case.
The case can be useful in that it allows you to connect one of the LED arrays and a tripod at the same time. It has three quick-release slots that the lights and tripod mount click into, so it's easy to adjust.
The Klyp is available as just the case or in four bundled kits, each with different lights and accessories. Prices range from $80 for the case and smaller light to $130 for the case, larger light and pocket-size tripod.
The lights are also available without the clip case, priced from $60 for the smallest to $95 for the larger. There are two even larger lights sold separately as well - three versions of a 36-LED array and an 84-LED model.
