Wide angle Adapter for XL1- suggestions?

[Dean Orewiler]

Geeze....talk about a technical nightmare...but those "less than perfect" videographers are laughing all the way to the bank...and they used an el cheapo video camera from Circuit City and returned it after they were finished with it.

[Tony Davies-Patrick]

Both the Optex .7X and the Red Eye .7X are very good. The advantage of using the Red Eye is that the orginal hood fits easily and back focus can be manually controlled if used together with the 16X Manual Servo lens.

[Tom Hardwick]

I asked the Red Eye importer for a 58 mm version of the 0.7x and the 0.5 x aspherical wide-angle converters so that I could test them for Film and Video Maker magazine last summer. They are super slim, very light (plastic high pressure injection moulded elements) and they are beautifully multi-coated. I tested them on a VX2000. To save embarrassment all round I decided not to do the write-up because of their disappointing performance, and simply returned them. Note that these 58 mm versions are no longer in production however.

tom.

[Tony Davies-Patrick]

Tom, I too was extremely disappointed with the old .5X 72mm version Red Eye, and although I still have one, I do not use it (These are no longer in production as Red Eye understood the flaws and recalled the early .5X model, and I believe that they are testing out a new higher quality HD version at the moment).
However, I also own the .7X 72mm Red Eye and this has proved to be an entirely different animal than the .5X, and if matched to the 16X Manual servo lens it produces much sharper images across the frame. Unless Canon makes a manual wide angle lens in the future, the Red Eye is my main choice for providing a quality wide image beyond the widest setting of the 16X lens.

[Tom Hardwick]

I was interested to read your thoughts on the Red Eye lenses Tony. The problem was (as I saw it) that although one of the element's surfaces was indeed aspherical, it was only mildly so, meaning that barrel distortion was allowed free reign. If Red Eye are serious about aspherical surfacing their wide-angles then it's worth doing properly, so that distortion is kept in tight control.

tom.

[Tony Davies-Patrick]

I can only imagine that my .7X 72mm dia. version is not the same as the 52mm version sent to you? I tested mine against my sharp Optex glass .7X and it performed equal.
A converter on the front of a lens will never perform as well as a prime lens alone, but I was not impressed with what I saw in the Canon 3X zoom, so the 72mm Red Eye .7X (which seems to be equal to the Optex and Century in performance) is the only option I have at the moment.