wide angle lense

[juggalo 1]

Does anyone use this type of lense? Why or why not pros cons all advice appreciated.
thanks

waving off is to tell people to get out of my landing area

[Cashmanimal 0]

since I broke my preferred lens I have used the same/similar lens adapter.

It works great, makes for great photographs and does a fantastic job, but it has a few cons:
1) Multiple lenses causes some fogging in extreme temperature changes (mainly in winter... still not TOO big of a problem).

2) It's heavy. especially since it is an adapter (probably being used on a kit lens?...) it works like a lever and is that much heavier.

3) I started using it after I had everything configured on my helmet, and when I flipped it on there the adapter was sticking into the frame on my video. Wasn't too big of an issue until I moved my camcorder forward, realizing it would be a while before I could afford my old lens again :(.

Overall if it is your only option, it works. I have a lot of fun with it outside of skydiving, but it definitely serves its purpose.

It's all fun and until someone loses an eye... then it's just a game to find the eye

[juggalo 1]

thanks
i'm wanting something temporary for stills

waving off is to tell people to get out of my landing area

[PhreeZone 15]

The optics on this are far less then you would get with out it. Using add on's like this tend to create less sharp photos and distortions that are not present on true wide angle lenses. If all you are planning on doing is printing 5*7's at the local Walmart you'll never know the difference but if you are planning on 8*10 or even more so 16*20's you'll see the edges of your subjects are not as crisp as they could be. If you do post processing and lots of cropping for larger printing you'll notice the optics are lower grade. Depending on the glass you may even see your photos shifting +- 1/3 stop if it has a poor coating on it.

Its a cheap but workable solution if all you want are 5*7's but the quality of your photos will suffer if you are looking for larger prints or cropping. The drop in sharpness might be something you are willing to live with since unless you get a high quality lab to print it some of the sharpness can be lost to the printing also.

There is a reason that pros are willing to spend $1800+ for a wide angle lenses, the optics of it are such that they are able to make prints that are razor sharp even at 100% crop and they have less chromatic changes then other glass. Mid range glass holds a lot of quality in the f8-f11 ranges and still tends to be nice even wide open. Lower quality glass is still ok in that mid range but the sharpness is not there in the wide open ranges and towards the edges the focus is softer.

An option you can look at is a manual focus lens, it requires you to use the lens completely by hand for focus and other things but these can usually be had for a lot less money then the Autofocus lenses. Plus there are some really cool lenses like the Peleng 8mm lens that is a 180 degree view that can result in some really unusual shots that is a fairly inexpensive lens.

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