Hi--

>> - sharp lens, that also works well
>> with wide converters.
>
>I just bought a TRV9 as well, and am fairly new to the camcorder game. I
>was wondering if you could point me to some info on these wide converters,
>and what benefits they have?
resonance@rpsx.nu (r paul seymour)

The lenses that are on camcorders start at the "short" end with
an angle of view roughly equivalent to a 50mm lens on a 35mm camera,
hardly "wide angle"! You can buy .42X (fisheye), .5X, and .7X
converters to widen the lens coverage. With good (Kenko/Raynox "pro"
models) converters, the .5X and longer also allow zooming with
sharp results, and they can be sharp at the short end when the lens
is stopped down some (hard to control on the TRV-9...). BTW, if you
aren't using the LCD VF, a side grip helps a lot in hand-holding
small camcorders like the TRV-9. You may have noticed the "whine"
by now in the audio - and may be looking for an external mic as well...
(with all this stuff added, the camcorder is no longer tiny, sigh!).