Getting ready for my next trip and I'm going far more minimal this time, and so the focus is on using the iPhone 17 Pro as my second / backup camera.
As such, I've been working on a vND solution for it. The significant considerations for me are..
It needs a ton of ND
As it doesn't have an aperture, if you want 180 shutter then you need enough ND to shoot F1.78 in bright sun
It has significant IR pollution issues
It suffers from IR pollution far more than my GH7. If I shoot with my GH7 and my 1-5 stop True Colour vND I never get IR issues, but the iPhone gets them even with just this 1-5 stop adapter.
I need an adapter that works with my iPhone case
I'm not taking my phone case on and off when I use an ND, and the "solutions" that the smartphone filter companies provide seem like pretty shitty cases compared to the rugged cases that I prefer to use.
I want it to be as small as possible - adding an ND filter shouldn't make it look like I'm shooting a Nolan feature film
As such, I've developed the following approach.
I'll stack my existing 58mm K&F 1-5 stop True Colour vND with a fixed NiSi 3-stop ND that also has IR filtering in it
I'm modifying the Tiffen MagSafe filter attachment I bought to work with my Otterbox case (photos below)
Cutting it like this and overlapping them gives the height step-up required so the filter part sits on top of the lip that the case has around the cameras.
After some testing, I found that I could position the 58mm filters so that they don't obscure any of the rear cameras (including the ultra-wide). The two limiting factors in the arrangement are that I can fit two 58mm filters but not three (the third one starts obscuring the ultra-wide camera) and if I position it so the three filters are fine on the ultra-wide then the other cameras start to be obscured by the filter holder.
The above is only held together with super-glue, but I have will cut some 2mm aluminium sheet and glue it in place with 5-minute araldite (epoxy) to make the thing sturdy.
The MagSafe connection is remarkably strong, partly because the Otterbox case has magnets in it designed to transfer the magnetic field to the outside of the case. It'll be strong enough for careful use anyway - it's not like I'll be shooting with it and also wrestling people at the same time!
The more that I think about how good these smartphones are now the more ideas I have on shooting with it. Once you toss in high-quality filtration like this, plus anamorphic adapters and all sorts of other things, the shooting possibilities get really exciting!