On Mon, 11 Feb 2002 05:14:12 -0800, Bon & Ed wrote:

>I want to purchase a wide angle lens adapter for my Panasonic MX300.
>
>I've narrowed the choices down to the Raynox .45X HD4500pro OR
>the Tiffen .5X lens, both have the required 43mm threads ( rings ).
>I'm hoping someone in the group has had experience with either of
>these wide angle lens adapters and could give us a short review.
>
>I like the "barrel distortion" bending of vertical lines in the
>images, but I cannot tolerate the hazy - out of focus edges that
>most inexpensive wide angle adapters seem to produce. Both of the
>above mentioned units are around $80 in cost. I've seen images from
>a Century Optics wide angle lens that were CRISP & CLEAR from one
>edge all the way to the opposite side, but they want nearly $400
>for this rig.
>
>There's got to be a cheaper lens that still has super clean optics.
>Any ideas?

Avoid the Tiffen - I tried one, and it was terrible.
BTW, you can use step-up rings to fit larger WA converters.
Not the same lens, but on my EZ30U Panasonic the Sony
VCL-ES06 worked well (not zoom-through, though), and various
Raynox and Kenko (roughly equal-quality good providers...)
.5X converters mostly worked at least reasonably well. My
requirements are that the particular WA converter on a
particular camcorder (matching can be critical - beyond
just choosing "good" converters) be fairly sharp to
the corners with the lens wide-open (interiors), and
sharp to the corners with the lens stopped down a bit
(exteriors). This does not happen with most combinations,
unfortunately. The Sony ES06, the Raynox 6600HD, and the
Canon WD-58 have been the best "generic" converters I've
found (they work well on most camcorders) - but they
are mostly not .5X, and the R. and C. can be heavy and
large for some camcorders. For w - i - d - e , try
the cheap fisheye (.42X) converters - these often work
surprisingly well, especially the no-name older larger
ones with the Series VII mounting threads...