Wide angle + lens hood
 

I recently bought my optura Xi and shot my first, of what I hope to be many, projects. It's a music video for my friend's band. I'm very proud of it and it turned out so much better than I could've hoped for. Thanks for all the positive posts about the Xi. I know I made the right choice. Anyway, I was wondering if anyone knew of a good wide angle lens that has front threads to which I can mount a nice lens hood (I've looked around, but if anyone has any reccomendations let me know). I'm still new to all this, but I'm learning and looking to shoot several shorts in the near future and I want the wider look. If anyone can help it would be greatly appreciated.

The Canon wide-angle adapter for the Xi has a bit of a hood around it. Or were you looking for something bigger, beefier and more matte-boxy in appearance?

Wow, quick reply. I'm looking at the beefier style. Overall function matters most, but if it can give that certain "look" to the camera at the same time (more professional) then even better.

Take your Xi down to Precision Camera on Guadalupe St. and maybe they'll have a still camera lens hood that will fit on there. They might look at you sideways, but they'll definitely sell one to you.

I was actually thinking about that. I went in there the other day and just walked around checking random things out. I'm sure they can at least steer me in the right direction.

I think I may have found a wide angle lens online with a 49mm thread in the back and 72mm in the front. It's the HD-6600 Pro 49 by Raynox. So my question is, once I attach this do I put the UV filter on the wide angle lens, then the hood after the filter, or should the UV filter go behind the wide angle lens somewhere. Hopefully this isn't a dumb question. Thanks.

The only dumb question is the one that isn't asked!

I'd put the UV in front of the WA, gives you a little protection over that big piece of glass.

Sounds good. I think I'm set on this. I stopped by Precision Camera on the way home from school and the guy there showed me the Canon WD's. If the WDH-58 wasn't so much money, I'd get it. Thanks for the help Chris!

Riley,

The Raynox DCR-6600PRO sounds a like a good match for the Optura Xi. There are a lot of 72mm lens hoods out there that you can attach to the outside, and in addition you can still attach filters.

Most of the readily available 46mm wide angles, including Canon's don't have the outer thread, which forces you to sandwich the filters.

Thanks for the heads up!

Ok, cool. It's good to hear that from someone a little more experienced than I. I can't wait to get it taken care of and start shooting with it.

I had a Raynox 6600 Pro, and I think it's a very good wide-angle converter. The best thing about it is the lack of barrel distortion, so you can walk room to room without the door frames bowing outwards as you go through them. The downside is that it's not very sharp at full telephoto, so you have to be a bit careful when using the zoom.

But it's a wide-angler converter, right? You won't be using it for any other focal lengths, will you? Good.

tom.

Raynoxi are amazingly good at limiting distortion.

I bought the Raynox lens yesterday and it works and looks great. I wish it was the same color as my optura, but it's not an issue at all. I think I'm going to make the sunshade for the lens on my own. Once I do, I'll post pics of the set-up. Thanks for the help.

Well, today after posting my previous reply, I went to my classes and couldn't stop thinking about building the lens hood/shade or how I was going to do it. Right when I got out of class I drove to my parent's house (all the tools are there) and decided that I would start today. I had been thinking about using PVC Pipe as the body of the box, and to my suprise my dad had some lying in the garage. I proceded to build (without any experience whatsoever and was able to put together almost the whole thing. It's taped as of now, but not after tomorrow.

https://webspace.utexas.edu/rjs539/www/

The entire lens shade is sturdy plastic and I cut the four peices to a snug fit (not including some sanding that is not entirely finished on the side panels). I plan on putting a spacer in part the wide angle lens sits, to which I will attatch a stepdown ring adapter to fit to the 72mm threades on the lens (soon to be UV filter-then lens). I'm going to try and finish the project by the end of the weekend. If you have questions or comments please let me know.

(bandwidth resets every three hours so if it doesn't work, try again later)

https://webspace.utexas.edu/rjs539/www/

New pics of the box painted and glued together.