On Thu, 19 Apr 2001 08:34:16 -0500, Team Yodeler - Alex Deller wrote:

>I curious if this is a common problem with a wide angle lenses.
>
>I have a Sony DCR-PC110 and purchased the Kenko KCW-042 Wide Conversion
>lense, it's a 0.42X lense. If I have the PC110 set in Memory mode for
>the stills and zoom all the way out, I get barrel distortion, meaning I
>see the side of the lense in the picture. But I don't get the
>distortion if the PC110 is in video mode.
>
>And if sitting in a room that is all windows on only one wall; if I
>point the camera towards the windows or a perpendicular wall, the
>viewfinder displays a scattered purple vertical line. If I point the
>camera away from the windows (window wall is to my back), the purple
>vertical line does not exist. Removing the Kenko lense and going
>through the previous steps yields no purple line at all.
>
>So is this common for a wide-angle lense or is this Kenko lense just
>junk?

Where to begin....? ;-)
All wide adapters known to me produce some "barrel"
distortion (the bowing outward of off-center subject
straight lines, not the "vignette" that you describe).
There is more on this (and how to "correct" it - and
why you may not want to...;-) on my web page, at:
http://www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/perspective-correction.htm
Mfgrs. of these rarely costom-fit them to particular
camera lenses, so the results may be "soft" with some
(or all...) lenses, and they commonly vignette at the
zoom short end. In addition, your camera uses more of
the CCD (shoots a wider angle) for stills than for video,
making any vignetting worse for stills. These WA
converters come in different types, too, such as
"zoom-through" and "non-zoom-through" (the one you
have will be soft at the zoom long end, and .4X's are
generally non-zoom-through types); and standard and
fisheye (with intentional strong barrel-"distortion" -
though this is not truly distortion [see web URL above]),
and yours is a fisheye-type. Also, these are not optimized
for specific lenses (and may not even be coated), so
pointing them toward light sources will bring out their
rather noticeable flare and ghosting problems. But - I
use these often, and if well matched with particular
lenses and if used with understanding, these can help
get you some interesting video! ;-)