Moment SuperTele 240mm Mobile Lens II review: This tiny lens gives your smartphone some serious photographic reach

Phone telephoto lenses have developed enormously in recent years, with flagship phones now offering increasingly sophisticated optical zoom systems that would have seemed almost impossible in such compact devices not particularly long ago.

However, there is still a limit to what manufacturers can fit inside a smartphone, and once you move beyond the native optical focal length, digital cropping and computational processing become increasingly important.

Moment's SuperTele 240mm Mobile Lens II (T-Series) is intended to work alongside the iPhone (and other models) telephoto cameras, allowing it to build on the optical magnification already available inside the phone.

The result is a much longer focal length, with Moment positioning the lens as an accessory for photographers interested in wildlife, sports, travel, and other subjects where getting physically closer isn't always possible.

Specifications

Price and availability

The Moment SuperTele 240mm is priced at $150 / £149. This is very good value, as we've seen similar telephoto lenses from Chinese smartphone manufacturers such as Oppo's Hasselblad telephoto cost far more.

Compatibility is the most important consideration. Moment lists support for certain iPhone Pro models with periscope telephoto cameras, including the iPhone 15 Pro Max and compatible subsequent Pro models. You'll also need a compatible T-Series mount. Moment makes cases for the iPhones, and for non-iPhones there are clip-on adapters, but lining up the lens perfectly can be tricky.

Design

The Moment SuperTele 240mm is surprisingly compact considering the focal length it is designed to achieve. At approximately 86g and measuring 38mm in diameter and 49mm long, it's considerably smaller and lighter than a conventional telephoto camera lens. Of course, this is only possible because it works alongside an existing smartphone camera, effectively using the phone's built-in optics and sensor as part of the overall imaging system.

The exterior follows Moment's familiar styling, with a black aluminum housing and the small red logo that has become a recognizable feature of the company's lens collection. The construction uses optical glass with multiple elements designed to provide additional magnification while maintaining a relatively compact profile.

As with Moment's other lenses, the SuperTele attaches using the T-Series bayonet mounting system, with a twist-lock mechanism holding the lens in position.

However, alignment is particularly important here, as the lens needs to be positioned precisely over the correct smartphone camera. The SuperTele's compatibility requirements are therefore more restrictive than those of the company's lenses designed to work over the main camera. The Moment iPhone 18 Pro Max case I was using worked perfectly, but if you have a clip-on adapter, you might find lining it all up much more fiddly.

I also found I had to use Moment's Pro Camera app (which is an additional one-off cost), as it allows you to manually select the active camera rather than relying on the phone's automatic lens switching. There are also no additional electronic controls on the lens, and exposure and focusing are handled by the smartphone.

Performance

The essential thing about the Moment SuperTele 240mm is that it offers additional optical magnification rather than simply relying on digital zoom alone. You can also crop in 2x digitally using Apple's pixel-binning tech and still get "lossless" images at 480mm.

But even the most sophisticated smartphone image processing cannot entirely compensate for the loss of detail that occurs when cropping too far into a relatively small sensor. So these optical lenses do help.

The Moment SuperTele produces images with more quality in the centre than the iPhone's digital zoom can manage at the same focal length. Images are a little weaker around the corners and edges, as the distortion from the glass gives a slight blur, but it's not always noticeable if you aren't looking for edge-to-edge clarity.

The SuperTele provides a tighter field of view before any additional digital magnification is applied. Photographing distant subjects with a telephoto perspective can create the impression of compressed space; this gives the phone more of a professional look, with background blur you'd expect from a larger-sensor camera.

However, there are some practical limitations. At longer focal lengths, even relatively small movements can have a noticeable effect on the image, making stabilization increasingly important. While some Android phones have specific modes to work with their first-party telephoto adapters and keep things steady, the iPhone stabilization isn't tuned for this lens, so there is quite a bit of sway when trying to shoot handheld, and photos sometimes have some motion blur.

The relatively long minimum focusing distance of approximately four meters is also worth noting, as the SuperTele is designed specifically for distant subjects rather than close-up photography.

Verdict

The Moment SuperTele 240mm is probably the one add-on lens I think every phone photographer should think about getting. There is still considerable room for accessories that expand the optical zoom of a phone, and the Moment SuperTele does a good job. Images are sharper in the centre than Apple's equivalent digital zoom, although the SuperTele introduces some slightly soft, distorted edges.

But its additional optical reach can make a meaningful difference when photographing wildlife, sports, distant landscapes, and other subjects where getting physically closer isn't always an option, and the added glass creates a more camera-like compression in images that just gives photos a more professional edge.

Of course, there are limitations, particularly when it comes to compatibility (if you have a recent iPhone, you're good), iPhone stabilization algorithms are not designed for these lenses, and the added costs of buying a compatible case and the Moment camera app.

But for photographers who regularly find themselves pushing their smartphone's zoom capabilities to the limit, I think the SuperTele 240mm is one of Moment's best phone lenses.