Wide angle converter

[Christian Thomas]

Hi everyone,

Can anyone recommend me a wide angle converter with decent quality of x0.43 or x0.5x for a canon lens with 52 or 58 filter diameter? I know a lot of them are very soft .

Thank you.

[Manfred M]

And they all tend to produce soft images with some terrible barrel distortion and have significant chromatic aberration. I owned a Canon made one for a Canon video camera and found it to be a total waste of money.

These tend to be marketed to people who own bridge cameras with fixed lenses. As with all things photographic, the rule of thumb is the more you pay, the better the quality it. Wide angle lenses tend to be expensive because they contain quite a number of glass elements that are needed to correct the issues I mentioned.

I would suggest you save your money and put it into a proper wide angle lens. Some of the Samyang lenses are a real bargain if you are okay with a totally manual lens (no autofocus / exposure) as there is no connectivity with the camera's CPU. I speak from experience as I have a Samyang 8mm fisheye.

If you still decide to go for one, B&H and Adorama would likely be where I would look for one as these two companies tend be a little picky in what they offer.

[Christian Thomas]

Thank you.

[rpcrowe]

Christian,
Welcome to CiC... If we know where you are located, we might be able to give better advice.

Every wide angle adapter I have ever seen that fits on the front of a lens produces marginal image quality at best. Usually people try these lenses because of heir low cost.

I don't know your budget but, in the USA, one of the least expensive, but decent wide angle lenses for Canon crop DSLR cameras is a used Tokina 12-24mm f/4 ATX, Mark One. I have one and it is a sharp, well made lens, that produces very good image quality. There have been some complaints about flare but, I have not experienced that problem. I use a lens hood which might account for my lack or major flare problems.

It has auto focus and exposure control capability with all Canon DSLR cameras and can even be used on full frame cameras (although not wider that about 17mm on a full frame camera).

Best of all, the lens the lens sells or $100-$200 on eBay.