Moment’s smartphone lenses bring the professional photography experience to iPhones, iPads, and Galaxies

Here’s what you already know about the photography market in 2014: As the demand for smartphone cameras continues to surge, the market for dedicated point-and-shoots is shrinking just as quickly.

That trend has created a big opportunity for companies like Moment, a camera lens startup that wants to bridge the gap between portable smartphone cameras and high-quality professional ones.

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The company today is announcing its first pair of $100 smartphone lenses, the 18mm Moment Wide and 70mm Moment Tele, both of which promise to vastly increase the range of photos people can take with their phones. Moment’s first step, though: raising $50,000 through Kickstarter for the pair, which it aims to ship by June.

While Moment seems to be taking roughly the same approach to smartphone cameras as companies like Olloclip, Moment cofounder Marc Barros told VentureBeat that there are a few things that set Moment’s lenses apart. Besides being made with the same quality engineering as cinematic lenses, for example, Barros says that Moment’s lenses take photos free of distortion and chromatic weirdness. They’re also designed to work with or without cases.

Perhaps more importantly, unlike the Apple device-only Olloclip, Moment’s lenses are designed to also work with Samsung’s Galaxy phones (right now the S2, S3, and S4). That gives Moment’s lenses a much larger audience, and potentially more Kickstarter support and sales down the line.

It’s too early to say how well Kickstarter backers will respond to Moment’s hardware, but considering how much the smartphone market has ballooned over the past few years, I’d wager the potential here is pretty significant. And, so does Barros, who says that Moment’s ultimate goal is to build a hip, young brand around mobile photography.