wide angle for narrow prices
 

For those who need a wide angle solution with no (or very small) picture distorsion, there is a nice and cheap solution.(very nice to shoot wedding is small and crowdy places)
At the good old time of film camera (super 8 and 16mmm), there was a lens called Aspheric. It is still available in the video world under the name of RED-EYE.
the good point of aspheric lenses, is they give you very wide angle without bending wall and floor.
The bad point, is they are expensive to build, do not allow zooming, and go easy on the flare with lights.
Since the era of 8mm and 16mm film is already done, you can find on Ebay a lot of aspheric lenses for cheap.
look on brand names like Schneider, Bolex, Eumig, Beaulieu. the prices goes from 5 to 50$.
For example i got for 15$ an EUMIG PMaspheric that just screw nicely in my VX2000, giving a field of view a lot wider than my 400$ Canon wide-angle, without any bendind in straight lines.
you can find some for new, but the prices are higher.
sample from ebay
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...3DR2%26fvi%3D1

and here
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...0%3D%26fvi%3D1

here they got everything as new.
http://www.wittner-kinotechnik.de/ka...a/b_optike.php

ahem. You do know that some wedding videographers are now offering film packages as well? Film still looks like film, even on video.

i know, there are still plenty of people interested in Dinosaures, while they disappear several million of year ago, and people collecting post stamp at the e-mail era.
I am pretty convinces that in 100 years from now, the only movies we will be able to watch will be on film, but i am not ready to swap my VX2000 against a NIZO S8mm even if I got a friend who has more than 50 8/s8 and 16 film camera in his collection.

Giroud,
I like this idea but don't know much about this sort of thing. Can I find one that will screw right onto the front of my Canon A1?

i found an EUMIG PMAspheric with 58mm thread that fit perfectly my VX2000 (i think it is 58mm too on the canon A1).
the angle is wider than my Canon WD50 and the image stays perfectly straight.
I got a Schneider that seems a bit smaller (55 or 49 ?) and a BOLEX that is around 50 too. I ordered one that has 2 thread diam., (63 and 67) and the Schneider IV has 77 mm diam so it even can fit a FX1 (72mm) or a DVX100 (82mm) with stepup/stepdown ring.

It is 2nd life for this old hitech, a bit like when the mini35 adapter gave a new life to all these old 35mm super fast lense.

I've got the WD-H72 wide angle convertor from Canon for my A1. It is a 72mm thread.

So that means that I can find one of these convertors on Ebay, with a 72mm thread and it should fit fine?

The current wide angle from Canon is great, except that straight lines are curved at wide-open. Of course, this is cool and dramatic looking when I'm filming big muscle cars.

Thanks for the help!