Thanks Bryan,

I had done an extensive search when I bought the lens and had come up empty.

I bought the Phoenix WA from 47st Photo. It's also a hefty chunk of glass, good quality. I thought it was a good value.

Mark G

.65x wide angle adapter
 

Hello, I was hoping that someone can tell me why there is such a big difference in price for the.65x wide angle lens. I would like to buy one for my Sony vx2000 and I think I wont the .65x but I don’t wont to buy one and could have paid less for the same thing.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I have both the Century Optics AND the Kenko PRO for my 150's. There are some differences such as; price-the CO is about $400 and the Kenko Pro about $170 or there abouts, the CO does not have front threads for filters or lens hood the Kenko Pro does, that means for filters you need a matte box and that can run a few hundred bucks. BOTH are bayonet mount, easy to put on and remove which I rarely do. I have not noticed an appreciable amount of difference in sharpness between the 2, yes the CO is sharper but IMHO not enough to make a $200 difference, at least not for the work I do which is weddings and events. I've been using them for 2 years and have never had a client complain or even be able to tell the difference.
Lastly and stupidly IF my camera should happen to kiss the floor lens first, I would rather bust up the less expensive of the 2, of course that doesn't take into consideration damage to the prime lens or camera itself, :-0

Sony and Canon also have very nice WA lens. I know quite a few folks using the Canon.

Pays your money, takes your choice!

Hope this info helps.
Don

Thanks Don
The Sunpak pro .65X wide angle lens I found it for $142. I was going to buy that one but just did not know what to ask them about it. Maybe the fact that the more expensive lens enables you to put on different filters drives the price up. I think I did see the Kenko pro the one I seen was around $250.00 I have never seen that cannon lens. Is it a 65X WA lens?

The Kenko Pro and the Sony wide for the VX2000 are the same lens. It's just that when Kenko makes them for Sony, they don't put threads in the front and stamp the Sony name on it.



--------------------------------------------
Der Schnurrbart meiner Katze ist schwarz, nicht weiss; und wenn ich sie strechle, schnurrt sie.


(My cat's whiskers are black, not white; and when I pet her, she purrs.)

I like my Optex WA. It has the front filter threads and is well coated. It also has a bayonet mount.

I believe the Canon is .65 and I didn't realize the Kenko Pro went up so much. I KNOW I paid less than $200 for it, oh well, inflation. I keep forgetting about the Optex, frankly, I've never seen the Sunpak.

Whichever you get, make sure it will work for you, no vignetting, zoomthru (if that's important to you) clear,sharp image.

Frank, the German saying at the bottom of your post, when translated does it mean, "GO CHICAGO CUBS! HEY HEY, LET'S PLAY 2"? ;-0

Don

Bryan,
I have the Optex, too. What, if any, lens hood do you use?

Have a look at the lens hoods made by cavision.com. They're rather good and clamp on to whatever outer diameter you happen to have.

tom.

I use a cavision soft rubber hood (Clamp on ) and a cavision 4x4 bellows mattebox. The cavision rubber hood is great when you don't really need to use filters or the deepprotrction of the bellows. it cost me $60 US plus $5 for the adapter ring. There are no vignetting problems.

http://www.cavision.com/LensHood/LH100S.htm

they are very nice people to deal with . Speak with Catherine or John Anthony. Sarah is the receptionist. Nice person, but doesn't know cameras.

I've seen everthing they have to offer and the stuff keeps getting better.

You mean in the way of hoods and flags, right Bryan? The Cavision 0.5x wide-angle converter I had for a magazine test was (how shall I put it?) the least good of all the lenses under test.

tom.

Tom, wasn't it you who put the Optex .65X up against the Century .65X?

Not me Dave. I've tested the Century 0.65 bayonet and found it to be very good indeed but I've only bayonetted the Optex to my VX, never seriously tested it.

Tom and Bryan, I actually have the Optex lens hood that's made for the .65X, but I've thought about replacing it at times. For those who might be curious about it, it's made of a well-finished thin metal. It attaches with two hand-tightenable screws -- one on each side of the lens. As these are metal screws digging into the black painted surface of the lens, you do end up putting small scuffs into the lens (and silver shows through) but this really isn't any big deal. As the hood isn't a real tight slip fit onto the lens, and because the screws are on direct opposite sides of the lens,
and because the hood is metal, I have on occasion had the hood actually start making a tapping noise on the lens because it would "rock" on the screws. This noise would be picked up by an on-board mic; I solved this by putting a small piece of black electrical tape on the underneath where the lens and hood meet.
One thing that I havent seen mentioned before that *is* nice about the hood is that due its square shape and its dimensions, when it is mounted on a VX2000, the bottom surface of the hood sits almost flush with the surface that the VX is sitting on, and therefore the side-to-side stability is increased quite a bit. This comes in handy when you have a heavy mic or light on the camera. You could even then sit the cam/light/hood down on a couch without having to worry about it tipping over. However, when setting this combo down on a hard surface (e.g. a table top), I take care to set it down level or back end first. See, the VX is front heavy with a 16 ounce wide on there and it wants go down front end first, but due to the hood being metal, there would be a constant jarring of the lens elements -- and for that matter the entire camera -- as the front of the hood comes into contact with the surface.
The hood vignettes just a hair in one or two corners, but it's outside the TV safe area. With the .65X wide having a lot of glass up front, it needs a hood. Not so much that it has flare problems, but any little dust on the surface shows when light hits
it from the side.
Well there ya go. Everything and more than you've ever wanted to know about the Optex lens hood.