Comparision HV10 Standard lens, Raynox HD-5050PRO, Canon WD-H37C

[Oliver Reik]

Hello!

After being unsatisfied with the HD-5050PRO I went today to the largest electronic-store, I have ever seen - Yodobashi in Tokyo. :-D The choice is really unbelievable. They had simply everything there - ALL camcorders up to the H1, all of them powered to play with, ALL lenses, simply everything! The reason, why I was unsatified with the HD-5050PRO was the loss of resolution and sharpness outside of the center and, mostly, the choice between vignetting, when it is used with the 37/37mm converter or not being able to fix it the right way. :-(

First I wanted to go for the Raynox HD-6600PRO43 with a 43/37 adapter. As I had my HV10 with me I, directly tested it in the shop - the good news is, that this configuration produces, other than the HD-5050PRO with the 37/37mm spacer, no vignetting. By the way - if you set the HV10 from camcorder to photo mode, you can see in the display the complete picture and not just the croped one. The quality of the HD-6600PRO's casing seemed to be much better than those of the HD-5050PRO. It felt like if it was metal!? Well, I already told the clerk that I will take it, when I spotted the WD-H37C. Almost the same price, a little bit less wide angle (0.7 to 0.66) and no filter thread, but original Canon, metal casing and a heavy and solid feeling. So I swaped my decision and took the WD-H37C instead.

Afterwards I went to the Imperial Palace's garden an started a little shootout in front of a bush with flowers. ;-)

As you can see in the EXIF-Data in the pictures that the shutter was pretty much closed to about f4.0. With a wide open shutter the vignetting in the pictures that is now just some kind of shadow would turn totaly black. If you want to see how black, just have a look at this picture in my old thread, regarding only the HD5050PRO:

Raynox HD-5050PRO, widest setting


So, here we go - all pictures were taken in camcorder, full-auto-mode, by pressing the 'photo'-button:

Standard lens, widest setting


Canon WD-H37C, zoomed in to the widest setting of the standard lens

Canon WD-H37C, widest setting


Raynox HD-5050PRO with 37/37 spacer, zoomed in to the widest setting of the standard lens

Raynox HD-5050PRO with 37/37 spacer, zoomed in to the widest setting of the Canon WD-H37C (please note the shadows in the right corners)

Raynox HD-5050PRO with 37/37 spacer, widest setting (please note the shadows in the right corners)


Raynox HD-5050PRO without spacer, zoomed in to the widest setting of the standard lens

Raynox HD-5050PRO without spacer, widest setting


Regards, Oliver

[Oliver Reik]

Hi Bert,

Originally Posted by Bert Na

[...] The sample shots show that both converters yield comparable quality, the next question is whether 0.7x provides sufficient wide angle coverage.

When I just look at the center of the pictures I do agree, however besides from that I have to object that the HD-5050PRO gets very noticable soft to the edges. The Canon does much better, but there is also a pretty obvious loss of quality compared to the standard lens.

I have to say, that I really like the 0.55 of the Raynox, but 0.7 will also do fine for me. The other thing is, that if I want to shoot footage of detailed things, I want a completely clear picture --> if a wide area is soft and without details, the wider angle doesn't help me very much.

Regards, Oliver

[Bert Na]

Oliver - I absolutely agree with your observation that adding a converter causes considerable loss in resolution. I was hoping to be able to leave the WA converter on the camera permanently, but I've come to the conclusion that I should only use it when I need the extra coverage.