Following up from a previous thread, I got a wide angle adapter - a Raynox
DVM-700 from Jessops for 35 quid. I took the camera with me, filmed a short
clip with each of the adapters I was interested in, and then checked them
out at home. Here's a review of the four that I tried...
--------------------------------------------------------
Raynox QC-303, 0.3x, £20
Stars: [ * x x x x ] and a half
Optically bad slimline clip-on. Poor at the edges, with blurring and lots of
chromatic abberation. Goes out of focus when the camcorder lens is zoomed.
Goes very wide. Cheap and cheerful semi-fisheye for £20. I'd consider this
for trying composition ideas, unless there's something much better for not a
lot more money.
--------------------------------------------------------
Raynox QC-505, 0.5x, £20
Stars: [ * x x x x ]
Slimline clip-on which is optically pretty bad. Poor at the edges, but not
as bad as the wider QC-303. Goes out of focus when the camcorder lens is
zoomed. Not wide enough to have the novelty of the 303, and optically so
poor, it hardly seems worth 20 quid.
--------------------------------------------------------
Raynox DVR-5000, 0.5x, £50
Stars: [ * * x x x ]
Screw-in type of medium size which comes with three plastic thread adapter
rings. Edges were reasonable, but chromatic abberation was clearly evident.
Might have had a front filter thread. Overall, this was disappointing - the
chromatic abberation was close enough to that of the cheap clip-ons, that I
failed to see what made it worth 50 quid.
--------------------------------------------------------
Raynox DVM-700, 0.7x, £35
Stars: [ * * * x x ]
Screw-in type which is very small. Edges were reasonable-to-good, and it's
easily the best of the bunch in terms of chromatic abberation - after trying
the other lenses, this one didn't seem to have any of note. Comes with two
metal filter thread adapters, but has no front filter thread. A surprisingly
capable performer for an amazingly low price.
--------------------------------------------------------
I was really after a 0.3x for mega-panoramas of landscapes, with the ability
to zoom to get other focal lengths. I expected the clip-ons to be poor, so I
had kinda set my sghts on the 50-quid DVR-5000 0.5x, thinking that that
would be suffciently close to the magnificaton I wanted while providing
acceptable quality. However, I felt that the DVM-700 was such a better
performer than the other three that I decided to have a 0.7x for now and
take my time with tracking down a better quality semi-fisheye adapter.
My camcorder's 35mm-equivalent focal length range is 40-400mm, so the 0.7
adapter changes this to about 28-280mm - a good general purpose range. The
DVM-700 is small enough to leave on the camera, which is where it's been
since just after it was bought.
--
Wally
www.artbywally.com www.wally.myby.co.uk