Has anyone seen, or used the ZUNOW wide angle lens kit for the PANASONIC 3DA1?
Considering the Focal Length of the camera, this would be ideal, even essential for
some traditional-type shots. Any leads on rental of this lens would be very helpful,
Thanks,
Carlton

Hi Carlton, I have a 3DA1 as well and am also interested in the Zunow lens. It seems to be special order and I have not been able to see one in the flesh yet. I don't think anyone rents it out because I think it needs to be installed on the front of the camera in some way (haven't got the full details). If you find out more I'd be interested too.

Neil

Dear Carlton & Neil,

The Zunow WDA06 kits are still in stock at our warehouse
in Rotterdam. Please also check Zunow Conversion Lenses Japan | Portal (http://www.zunow.tv) for our international dealers.
After our stock has been sold out, deliverytime will be
approx. 3 months, due to production time in Japan.

Cheers,
John Raadgeep

Hi John,

Thanks for the info - although when I follow the link for a UK dealer it says it can't find the web page. Can you help here?

I've not managed to get my hands on one of these yet to try it and don't know anyone in the UK who would rent one out for a trial (although 3 companies in the US do). Can you help with this at all? As far as I understand it completely replaces the front bezel of the 3DA1 lens so I'd like to understand how quick and easy that is to do and how it affects the camera performance before I commit to buying one.

Cheers

Neil

Hi Neil,
I will be using it in the next few days and describe what I find,
More later,
Carlton

Cool - thanks Carlton. Did you get one on hire to try out? I know Adorama Rental in NY hire them and are obviously pretty local to you :) Look forward to hearing what you make of it.

Neil

Hi Carlton, have you made any progress on this yet?

I talked to Panasonic recently and they did say to be careful as from their side removing the front of the lens assembly to mount the Zunow on a 3DA1 would void the warranty on that part of the camera - although the back-end electronics etc would be fine. Any damage would require another set-up of the twin lenses although I don't know how much that would be.

Seems like there's an opportunity for someone to offer an approved fitting service for this and still maintain warranty??

Hi Neil,
The shoot was quite intensive, but I did get watch the wide angle lens installation with our DP.
The lens-plate, or housing, is cosmetic, and once it is off, you have not one, but two typical threaded camera lenses exposed.
Now the following is unofficial, but I would venture to speculate that any, (identical pair) of third party-wide angle lenses would thread on, and work fine.
(47mm I believe, maybe some other reader would know for sure)

I am being cagey, because I do not want to be taken verbatim here. Although I have worked in the Stereoptical field for 20-Plus years, it was initially with a plethora of used and broken Polaroid SX-70 cameras, (Mostly gotten from pawn shops) that I seriously modified, and basically hot-glued and gaffer taped in all sorts of configurations and distances, etc, so in this present world of micro-measured, interocular distances and 5 and 6 digit equipment costs, I would say to protect myself and say: ("please don't try this at home" :-)

That being said, The DP and I discovered we needed to vary the horizontal adjustment on the 3DA1.
We did not have time to do an A-B test, (i.e. with and without the wide angle lenz kit) but WITH the lens kit, we needed to adjust the horizontal alignment on the 3DA1.

Other than that, it worked fine, and the quality was fine too, (I wish we had time to shoot some tests WITHOUT the lens kit, but as I said it was a high pressure and intensive shoot.)

Carlton

Hi Carlton. Did you ever try using a filter on the thread of the 2 3DA1 lenses ?
I am currently using a matte box and would happily ditch it for a more portable solution.