Yes, for several reasons.
Due to the huge variety of lens and camera specifications offered by smartphones, I had to find a distance from the film plane that works for most phones without cropping any of the image area. Some phones with wider lenses will see more black around the edges than others.
Many users have told me that they like the ragged edge look. Film photographers often scan their images to show the edge of the negative, showing the sprocket holes or film markings. This is a way of showing that the photograph is more analog in nature. Proof that it's more than just a digital snapshot with a filter slapped on it. Proof that the framing was a result of their in-the-moment instincts, rather than cropping an image to achieve a desired composition later.
So I encourage people to share their images with a little black around the edges. If you would rather have a clean edge look, doing an image crop on your work is only a small extra step. The black edges (while unique to each smartphone/camera combination) should be consistent enough for any given setup that edits can be batch applied, or setup as an import automation in photo editing apps like Lightroom.
If you're on an iPhone it's very easy to this directly on your device:
- In the Photos app → Edit any photo, apply Crop/Rotate as desired.
- Tap the ••• (three dots) button → Choose Copy Edits. Toggle Crop and Rotation.
- Go back to Library → Tap Select → Choose multiple photos.
- Tap the ••• button → Tap Paste Edits.
That’s it! Crop and Rotate edits will be applied to all selected photos.
What about video?
Most smartphones crop the image sensor when shooting video, so in some cases you will not need to crop your video footage in post. The final image area will vary depending on your phone's camera specifications.
Why are the borders off-center?
We are aware that some users experience more significant alignment offsets than others. In our testing even identical models of smartphone have minute variations in the left/right/up/down alignment of the lenses and sensors in their camera systems. The impact of these microscopic variations can be noticeable.
If you are particularly unhappy with the alignment your phone and camera combination produces right out of the box, first, make sure the retaining screw of the twist-lock cradle is tightened all the way. If the image is still out of alignment (or if this step makes it worse) unscrew the twist-lock and add small shims of folded paper or cardboard in the gap between the cradle and the body until the alignment is more to your liking.
It's also worth noting that image stabilization can play a role in the alignment of the image since the software on your phone may attempt to keep the main image stable at the expense of framing.
Why are the borders curved?
Some phone models (including most iPhone Pro models) have poor close-distance focus capabilities. To get these phones to focus on the screen inside the ObscuraFlex a small diopter lens is included in the cradle. This diopter introduces a small "barrel distortion" that can be corrected in most photo-editing software (Lightroom, etc) with approximately a -10 lens distortion value.* This diopter also makes the image slightly larger (often negating the need for cropping) and creates a small amount of chromatic aberration which can likewise be addressed in editing.
* NOTE: distortion introduced by the ObscuraFlex lens (if present) can be automatically corrected when shooting images with the ObscuraFlex app by enabling the "Lens Distortion Correction" setting.
It's also worth noting that the camera in your phone will likely have some inherent lens distortion, vignetting, and chromatic aberration of its own which is automatically corrected by the phone's software. When shooting RAW with apps like Adobe's Project Indigo and processing your images in Lightroom on your phone you may see the option to apply or skip that step, usually called something like "Optics" or "Lens Correction". These settings are based on the known characteristics of the phone's lens. It's probably better to bypass those settings and compensate for the combined lens characteristics of the entire camera system only once if you're trying to achieve the highest level of image quality.