wideangle adapter: anyone try this?
 

hello,
i'm a believer in you-get-what-you-pay-for, so i don't expect much,
anyone try these or heard results from their nephews girlfriends bestfriend of the mailman's stepson's results?
thanks,
Lonnie

http://tinyurl.co.uk/21q7

...If you shoot through the bottom of a milk bottle, don't expect too much...

Well it's DIGITAL so therefore it must be good, the ANALOG ones never really sold that well :-)

ML

I've got a Century .6x adapter and I love it. I got it primarily because I couldn't afford the Canon 3x lens at the time but it is convenient and works well. It doesn't have a full zoom-through range but as I got it for shooting interiors in tight spaces, I really didn't need it to zoom-through. I will get a 3x when I can for the ability to zoom and use filters but the .6x adapter will fit onto that lens also...

i've ran into this comment about the CO .6x before - can't zoom through - does this mean the telephoto end of the 20x doesn't work well with it, or that mechanically while zooming, image quality is lost...

thank in advance, Lonnie

I use the Red Eye and Optex 0.7X wide angle adapters on the MF 16X Manual Servo lens, and they both provide sharp results.

The .7X only provides fixed or partial zooming, although I prefer to shift position rather than zooming when shooting wide angle footage, so this is not a problem for me.

The original Red Eye .5X provides a more extreme wide angle view, but I do not like to use the one I own because it produces far too much colour fringing and softness at the edges.

It's a matter of being able to focus. When using the .6x adapter you will be able to zoom from full wide to about 2/3 of full telephoto. After that point you won't be able to focus the image at all.

Century makes a .7x adapter that will allow you to maintain focus throughout the range of zoom but it doesn't give you as wide an angle as the .6x. That .1x might not seem like a lot but I tried both adapters and really prefered the .6x.

eric,
with .6 at the wide end of the 20x to about 1/3 the first part of it's tele,
how's the imagery, aberrations, vignetting, etc...
i'm imagining a slight fishbowl at the extreme wide,
is it the same throughout does it get better, or is it not bad...

i'm interested cause it's half the price of the .7, but if it's a huge quality difference, the three hundred more is warranted...

thanks, Lonnie

Lonnie, the maker's name is frigheningly absent from the ebay wide-angle converter. This tells me all I need to know.

I am always wary of things that need to have the words 'Digital' and/or 'Pro' writ large upon them to (maybe) give them some credibility. As you yourself say, you generally get what you pay for and if something seems too good to be true then it probably isn't. You will never get as good a result with a screw on adapter as from a 'proper' lens be it a wideangle,macro,telephoto or whatever. Sometimes though these things may give you acceptable results depending upon what you want/expect but, why spend all that money on an XL2 and then degrade the image quality by using a cheap optic? Save your pennies up and buy a 3X zoom instead. It's a good lens.

There is a bit of fisheye at full wide but I've only noticed it when there were strong vertical lines near the edge of the screen. I've never noticed any vignetting. I've heard of some people getting abberation in the corners but I've never noticed it myself. I tend to really control my lighting, though... that may have something to do with it.

I didn't notice any difference in quality between the .6x and the .7x but I only had the use of the .7x for a day.

I'd love to have the Canon 3x lens someday but meanwhile I've gotten the shots I needed to get now... instead of waiting for the pennies (130,000 of them!) to pile up!

thanks all on the subject of the original post, and thank you eric for the .6 info...
Lonnie

The .7x introduces too many aberrations for my taste, the .6x is quite nice but the 3X Canon lens is BY FAR the best lens, you can pick up a used one for $800 or so and it is well worth it!



ash =o)