zoom through isnt that important to me. its nice to have but its not that hard to live without either ;)

Hi Eric. I had a Century 0.7X converter that was zoom through on my XL2. When I bought an A1, I filed away a small section of the bayonet mount surface, and it fitted fine on the A1 (thanks to a tip in a previous forum post). The bad news is that the image with converter fitted was blurry round the edges when zoomed out to full WA. Pretty useless really, so I ended up selling it with my XL2.

I think Century have brought out (or are in the process of bringing out) a HD version of this converter, I expect it will be much sharper.

Richard

this new one may be the one im talking about.

Richard, it looks exactly the same on my Xl1-s too.
Blurry around the edges at full WA but i was never able to zoom through without some serious blur.


I really only wanted to see if it would fit to get an idea of the weight
and basic view of what the Canon WDH-72 0.75X would provide.

Hi Eric. My converter was fine on the XL2, a bit of barrel distortion and slightly softer than the 20X lens, but I never noticed any blurring (that wasn't caused by me). Only when I put it on the A1 did it show the blur problem. I wonder if they changed the models between your XL1S model and my XL2 model?

Richard

They may have. However, it clearly says XL1/XL2 right on it.

The blur happens during zoom through on the 16X and goes right back in focus, but the shot is useless.

I also have the 3x which is simply amazing. It was just frustrating in situations where I would need to zoom on something, so I purchased the Century. I almost upgraded to a 20X as I heard that it worked better on that one.

I had to use it for a while and just learned its points of distortion.

Ultimately, I just decided to get an A1 and I'm purchasing the Canon WA this week.

The RedEye .5X seems like a decent choice for a non-zoom in extreme situations. It's light too.

I have the 0.5 red eye and am very happy with it. There is some distortion and softness on the edges but very acceptable levels in my opinion. I also purchased the Cavision wide angle, the 0.6x with zoom through and was very unimpressed. The edges were very soft and the chromatic aberration was huge. Not to mention that the lens hood vignettes at full wide. I returned that and will be try the 16:9 INC 0.7 wide angle shortly.

Patrick

patrick, could you post "before and after" shots using the red eye?
i'd really appreciate it.

i figured as much on the Cavision. Let us know how the INC works out.

My solution for my requirements has been to buy a century 0.8x compact hd converter which will cover most shooting situations, it seems a better option than the canon because it's half the size and even less than half the weight of the canon, however is likely to produce a picture of equal quality, so it just makes sense at the same price. I realise that 0.8x is not very wide, although it will cover most situations and for extreme wide shots I am likely to purchase a red-eye 0.5x hd lens, so I too would appreciate some example shots please Patrick. I am happy with this solution because it keeps the bulk and weight down which is important to me. I certainly did not like the idea of a 720g century 0.7x on the front of a already front heavy camera.

Okay, I made a quick comparision with the stock lens, 0.5x red eye lens and a modded 0.3 $100 clip-on raynox. I should also note that I had problems using instant AF with the red-eye only (it pulses frequently when turned on). I use this on a steadicam so most of the time the AF is a helper. Normal AF works with the red eye though.

Hope that helps.
http://smcouples.com/Samples/wideangle.mov

I've been working on getting Vfgadgets to send me a couple more wide angle lenses so I can do a comparision with all of them, but they are too busy with NAB right now. If you call them, please mention that it would be nice to have a comparision video with all the different options shown.

Patrick

Sometimes I wish I had chosen a less price-demanding line of interest/work. Like painting with fries from McDonalds or something...

Thanks for doing that Patrick.

I think I'm just going to stick with the Canon WA. I ordered it earlier today.

Coming from an Xl1-s with a stock 16X of 5.5mm-88mm
the A1 lens is already wider at 4.5mm. For my needs, .8 should be fine and I know the image will be at its best.

For those of you who are hoping for something that is inexpensive and zoom thru which is wider than a .8X you are bucking a lot of trends. Frankly the manufacturers have almost never gone past .8X with a zoom thru although technically it is possible. There is a technical and cost reason the wider adaptors are not zoom thru and that is because it is very hard to hold the focus over the whole range and relatively easy to just deal with the wide lens. Size and weight also come into play as most zoom thru adapters end up being heavier. If the Canon XH-A1 isn't wide enough with a .8X for you then you might have to sacrifice zooming for wideness or try a different camera. Don't expect any adapters to be the magic bullet anytime soon

I saw a .5x on ebay that is supposedly made by Tokina for around 190.0 It looks like one element group. I wonder what sort of quality that might be? Obviously not zoom through but if it were sharp at all that's pretty inexpensive.

One can often get away with a sloppy converter/adapter if shooting material where the sloppiness is masked by image content. The problems become appaent in stills and side-by-side comaprisons. But they becomes painfully apparent if shooting difficult material, like test charts, resolution charts, etc.

Any adapter that is not equal to or larger than front glass on the camcorder lens is going to have some issues.

Good glass is not cheap, and great glass is expensive. You pays your money and takes your choices.

Push AF Is Innacurate On Wide Shots?
 

I don't know if anyone else has had this experience. When zoomed in PUSH AF seems to focus (reasonably) well on target, but if you're zoomed out and PUSH AF and then zoom in, you find that PUSH AF has come up short of the mark?

For me PUSH AF on wide seems to focuss on random stupid distances well in front of the target.

And yes I'm on a tripod, with the same results on variety of targets, all well illuminated with clear vertical lines, and no I don't have AF on.

Anyone else care to let me know if they have similar experiences?

Well I don't own an A1, but this behavior is similar to my Sony cameras and is probably unavoidable. The problem is that when you zoom way out to a wide shot, the depth of field is huge. It's possible that everything from 10 feet to infinity is all in focus, so autofocus isn't very critical. Then when you zoom in your depth of field become considerably less, so the focus point you set on the wide shot isn't accurate.

Maybe there's something different going on with your camera, but I suspect this is the phenomenon you're seeing...

I can confirm - this is a normal behaviour (on both the A1 and V1).

Thanks guys, at least I know it's not a fault with my model.

Canon WD-72 Wide Angle Adapter
 

Hi Everyone,

I looked high and low and can't find much in the way of any information on the WD-72 aside from a .75 magnification factor. Does anyone know whether it is a "Zoom Through" lens? Long ago I had a Century Optics adapter for another camera and it would not allow you to zoom all the way through the zoom range with the adapter mounted.

Also, does anyone own one of these, and if so, what are your impressions of it with respect to loss of resolution, CA, etc.

Thanks very much,
Richard

I have the lens.

First off, it is advertised as .75, but on the lens it actually says .8. It is really only a marginal increase, but it helps when you need it.

It is zoom-through, and while I haven't done any testing the footage does look flawless to me. I can't tell if it is on or off.

The only other issue of note is that it is both huge and heavy. There is a lot of glass in that lens. We shoot a lot of hand-held and that doesn't make it fun.

i'm picking this up next week hopefully since there arnt really a lot of options available for wideangle adapters.. i never heard it advertised as a .75 though.

It is big and heavy, but it is a gorgeous piece of glass .. It's zoom-through and transparent (I can't tell whether it's on or off either), so you can leave it on all day, and takes the A1 to being really very wide indeed.

I warned a A1-owning steadicam friend against getting one, as the A1 is really pretty wide anyway, and the extra front-weight would take a really nice light cam into being a bit more difficult to handle ... it really does depend on your circumstances.

For me, there are a lot of jobs/locations where being that wide is a huge plus-- I was considering getting an XL-H1 to shoot alongside an A1, but the H1's 20x lens is SO, SO less wide than the A1+WD-H72, that I found shooting run-and-gun with the H1 to be really frustrating ... The whole time I was trying to backtrack and finding it hard to believe that the lens wouldn't go wider. So I'm getting a second A1 instead, not decided whether to get a second WD-H72 or not, but I reckon I will at some point.

does anyone have any comparison pics? just to show exactly how much wider it is?

I think Chris posted some long ago... do a search and they will probably show.

Received one today
 

Thanks very much for the input. Based on Barry's comments, I went ahead and ordered one. Yikes, it really is a huge piece of glass! I was really happy to see that it comes with both a huge lens shade and a pouch to keep it in.

I am actually happy to get a little more weight on the system. I use a Steadicam Flyer with the XL H1 which weighs about 8.5 pounds loaded and the rig is actually easier to use with the additional 3.5 pounds over the XH A1. The Flyer specifies a minimum of 5 pounds of camera weight and the XH A1 is just under that with a normal battery and a tape loaded.

Even at .8 is appears that I'll be able to get down to a 35mm equivalent of 26mm which is plenty wide.

Thanks for the input from everyone. I'm stuck here at work looking at this monster with the camera at home. It's going to be a long day.

Glad you like it Richard, I'm definitely happy with mine ... and to be honest, you can see where your moneys has gone when you hold it and look through it ;)

I don't own an H1 but I've hired one a couple of times-- are you finding its relatively tele lens as restrictive as I found it ...? I loved the cam, but the A1+wide has been an eye-opener... If I remember right, the H1 goes to ~42mm equiv, A1+wide to ~26mm equiv

As I said, I was going to go H1+A1, but now going 2xA1 with a semi-custom shoulder mount for one

Richard - glad you like it. And you are correct - the A1 is so friggin' wide already that with this monster on it you'd have to go fisheye to get wider.

Tell us what you think once you've shot through it.

A 0.8x wide-angle converter that's so huge 'n' heavy? I had a look at it at the Video Forum in London earlier this year, but to me it's just too mild an increase. Nice that it didn't seem to add any barrel distortion and that it's full zoom-through.

Good when it's on, but what with all the hassle and palava of storing it, carrying it, mounting it on the camera - well, if you're going to all that trouble my thought is that you might as well fit a REAL wide-angle while you're about it.

Have a look here to see what a 0.52x converter does for the field of view my Z1 gives. And it would do the same thing for your A1 of course.

http://tinyurl.com/2bxrv5

tom.

Finally Got a Chance to Use the Lens
 

Thanks for all of the input everyone.

As Chis said on another post, I'm amazed that it costs so little. I did a lot of testing with it and it's perfect in every way.

One thing that really surprised me is that when using the XH A1 in full manual mode, there is no loss of light with or without the adapter. The aperture and shutter speed don't change at all with -3db, and auto gain control off. I was expecting some light loss but so far, I don't see any.

I does make the camera a bit nose heavy but also smoothes out the handheld aspects...especially when shooting from the waist. I hope to get it balanced on the Steadicam Flyer later today and take it for a spin doing some interior shots of large homes. The XL H1 was a little unwieldy on the Flyer and the standard lens wouldn't get any where near wide enough for interiors. The wide angle Canon lens for the H1 is I'm sure quite good, but for $400 the WD H72 is a no brainer

I'm pretty sure your wide converter is of three element construction, and with good multicoating (Canon know how) each air to glass surface probably loses less than one hundredth of a stop. So you lose possibly 5% of the light - unnoticable in practical situations.

What the converter will do is add to the vignetting of your image, where the centre of your frame gets more exposure than the edges. It'll only really be noticeable at wide apertures on very evenly lit subjects, and isn't really worth worrying about.

tom.

hey tom, where did you get that .58 adapter from? whats the model #? price? is it rectilinear or fisheye? thanks.

Best wide angle lens for XHA1
 

I need a wide angle lens. What do you recommend? Do I really have to spend $900 on it? What do i sacrifice if I dont spend $900?

Here are some photos of the adaptor kit. I use the lens fairly often and am happy with it overall. For me the down sides include: the weight, no easy way to add a filter and it blocks the Quick Focus lens (shown in the last photo).

How wide do you need?

What quality do you need?

David, it's a 0.52x converter sold by Bolex in Switzerland.
http://www.bolex.ch/NEW/?p=1
The Aspheron's no fisheye as you'll see if you click on the tinyurl I gave you above. There's *no* barrel distortion.

tom.

I have the Canon wide angle and I must say it has very little if any distortion or CA.

This is a very quick way to check to see how much barrel distortion your lens combo gives.

http://www.fortvir.net/gallery/v/tom...test+.jpg.html

tom.

A little more WD-H72 completeness...
 

Earlier I mentioned three items on the down-side, here are three on the up-side: it works well (including zoom through), the price, and it looks impressive. (I definately get more comments and questions about the camera and what I'm doing when its on).

There is a short clip, where its put on and then removed, on this thread: http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.ph...hlight=wa+clip

Here is another thread with a little more info: http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=78929

I have now tried the century optics compact hd 0.8x converter. The last wide-angle I tried was a zunow 0.7x which was terrible with 1/3 of the image soft around the edges and very bad abberations. Well I thought I would be safe with the century as it is only a 0.8x and century are said to be among the best you can buy and they are by no means cheap.

Unfortunately the edges are still soft although not as bad as the zunow at around a 1/5 of the width of the image being affected to some degree vs 1/3 on the zunow. The abberations are still there and to me are at an unacceptable level. The one good point about it is the size, it is light and is so small it does not block the instant af sensor.

Even when switched to sd the softness remains unchanged although the abberations are reduced significantly.

I have given up, and considering the cost of this wide-angle it is simply not worth the bother and in my opinion ruins the quality of the image from the stock lens which is excellent.