Wide angle lens. Which one to get?

whatsafrog2do · Sep 10, 2003

I'm thinking of getting a wide angle lens for my Olympus C730 but I don't know which one to get. Is a .45x or .43x wider than a .70. I think I saw a .70 from Olympus but it's sort of big. Any suggestion on what to look for or avoid. I guess any of the leading brands are good but is Kenko okay? Also looking for something that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. I've also seen one that has serious vignetting happening.

Jeff Canes · Sep 10, 2003

Is the zoom on this camera 5.9-59mm? (39 -38mm equivalent in 35mm film) A .7x is going give you 27.3mm (film equivalent), .45x = 17.5, I think I would be tempted to go with the .45x, but remember adding a wide angle lens is going to add distortion, the wider you go the more distortion, about BIG issue, this is an add lens for it to work properly it needs a prism to redirect light ray to the smaller lens

whatsafrog2do · Sep 10, 2003

Yes the zoom is 5.9-59mm. I actually tried a .45x lens but it had really bad vignetting but it's pretty neat how much it zooms out. Would all wide lenses wider than .50 have vignetting?

Jeff Canes · Sep 11, 2003

I think that any wide-angle add on lens not designed for your camera is going to have vignitting. Is the vignetting area blacked out or just darker.

If it is blacked-out then it is the same kind vignetting that is caused by lens hood.

Near the bottom of this page is a good diagram showing mechanical vignettinghttp://www.vanwalree.com/optics/vignetting.html

My statements often doesn't make sense :scratch:

I took these with a Sigma 14mm lens for a Canon A1

whatsafrog2do · Sep 11, 2003

The 0.45 had very bad mechanical vignetting, on all four corners. But today I got a 0.66 Raynox DCR6600PRO. Although there is still a little bit of darkening especially on the left top and bottom corners, it's fine with me. I can just crop it or Photoshop the corners.

Jeff, your last statement "Never the bottom of this page..." doesn't make sense. Were you gonna say something like don't buy anything that causes vignetting? Concerned because if you were gonna say that I would probably return it to the store and maybey get the 0.70 from Olympus which is much bigger (physical size). But I would have to buy a bigger polarizer if I were to use that lens, which doesn't really appeal to me now.