On Wed, 04 Apr 2001 05:48:52 GMT, "brian a. henderson" wrote:

>: One question: If almost everyone says they need a wide-angle lens
>: attachment, why don't manufacturers fit their camcorders with a standard
>: lens that zooms to a usefully wide angle? Why the gap between what
>: videographers want and what manufacturers provide? It beats me. We're not
>: talking about rocket science or brain surgery are we?

>That was the topic of another thread. Apparently there are wide angle
>people, and there are telephoto people. For some reason the telephoto
>people seem to have it their way. Personally I like a wide lens.
>
>-Brian

I'm with you - but another reason may be that a WA to long tele
zoom is harder/more-expensive/bulkier to make, so we
get 45-450+ equivalent zooms on camcorders... There are a
few good .7X converters that mate well with some camcorder
lenses that stretch the WA end a bit wider with little
optical-quality cost, and there are OK fisheyes and .5-.6X
non-zoom-through converters, but it would be nice to have a
high-quality fast zoom that would continuously cover the
20-22mm to 200-400mm or so equivalent range (35mm) - and
maybe go to 16mm-fisheye equivalent, while I'm
dreaming...;-)