I have a FinePix S5200 (fuji) and I am considering getting a wide angle adapter lens. Any tips for using it to minimize distortion and image quality?
quite honestly if this is one of those ebay deals for like $100 that screws into to your existing lens and has some ambiguous name like Pro Optics or something, I'd say you would be wise to spend your money elsewhere. Had one as well as a "telephoto" when I owned a sony mavica cd500 and it was a piece of junk more or less.
Anytime you add more glass in front of your lens your quality will suffer, If it sounds to good to be true, well you know. Cosmo
So..After shipping the "eBay Special" the "OPTEKA" lens is $100 CDN. should I do that or just fork out the $200 CDN and go to a local store and buy one made by Fuji (same brand as my camera)???
these camera / adapter lens combinations are never top range optical quality ... how that particular one works, not idea. don't expect too much though.
With the camera you've got, you don't have much of a choice if you want to do wide angle stuff -- you're going to need an adapter. If you're serious about it and you don't plan on upgrading cameras any time soon, you'd be better served to get the good quality glass. Glass matters, bad glass sucks and it'll just tick you off.
I had a Pro Optic one: [ame]http://www.amazon.com/Optic-Auxiliary-Super-Fish-Eye-0-25x/dp/B0002E1SQY/ref=sr_1_22/102-8774412-7587336?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1174665184&sr=1-22[/ame] It was great fun. Had the quality of a toy camera. It didn't fit the step-up ring like it supposed to, though, so I sent it back. I've since bought a door peephole and stuck it to my point and shoot. It's the same amount of fun, equally crappy quality, and cost about five dollars. If you're going to get a wide angle adapter, the lower the number before x, the wider it will be. Most are 0.42x, which in my opinion, is nowhere near wide enough to bother. The Pro Optic I had was 0.25x, which was great. The widest one you can get is something like 0.16x, but those are harder to find. I recommend making a peephole fisheye adapter. It's going to have only marginally more crappy quality than a hundred-dollar wide angle adapter.
