Conversion lenses any good?

[moracca]

Ok, so I got my fujifilm s9000 not too long ago, and am extremely happy with it. The only problem is that its not a full DSLR, so you cannot change the lenses. I've done some looking around on the internet, and see a lot of auctions on ebay for those add-on lenses which hook into the filter threads using an adapter. For example, a 3x telephoto lens like this one. It has a 78mm thread size, but uses a 58mm adapter that screws into the filter threads on the front of the lens to match my fuji's thread size.

My question is this: does using these lenses in addition to the regular lens create decent looking photos? Is it a waste of money? Is one brand better than others? Any opinions/suggestions?

Thanks in advance for your help guys!

//Moracca

 

[250Gimp]

I have some close up lenses that work fairly well, but the thing to remeber is that as you add glass in front of the lense it can cause problems such as flare and colour casts in a really bad case. I found the ones I have did have a small affect in the picture quality, but not too bad.

 

[moracca]

Thanks for the reply... I understand what you mean. I've been looking at some Opteka conversion lenses on amazon, and reading the customer reviews section. What's weird is that some people report "these lenses are terrible, horrible barreling, fringing, etc etc", and other people say "these lenses take excellent photos, I can't stop using it!" I'm not sure which to believe. One person did post a side by side photo with one of the zoom lenses... it had some crazy barrel distortion to it, but I've seen others that other people have posted, and they're not too bad.

 

[Alpha]

If the people giving rave reviews don't use real photographer terminology, i.e. "i've never gotten any such and such" then you might want to take them with a large grain of salt. It's easy for people who haven't tried anything better to be completely satisfied...

 

[moracca]

point duely noted... OTOH, I have seen a couple shots from one of the fisheye lenses that didn't look too badly distorted (well, apart from the actual fisheye distortion )