Customer Reviews

Canon TC-DC58N Tele Converter Lens for Canon A710, A700, A630, A640, A610, A620, A720IS, G3, G5 & G6 Digital Cameras

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This lens is well worth the money if, like me, you bought the A710 IS in part for its 6x zoom, recording wildlife encounters is important to you, and you don't want to carry around an extra camera for such occasions.

The main shortcoming of this converter is that it increases the minimum focus distance (at camera's longest zoom) to a whopping 6 ft. At this distance, the field of view is about 7.6 inches wide. Without the converter, at longest zoom, you can get down to a view about 4.1 inches wide, at about 22 inches from the subject. So, regrettably this means that if you want to capture miscellaneous subjects in nature that may be approachable (butterflies, lizards, whatever), you can probably get a much better closeup without the converter. I suspect it will mostly sit in my bag just in case I see a large animal standing around (but not too far away), in which case it can really improve the shot (almost doubling the subject's size).

You will probably not use it unless the subject is really special and worth digging the converter out. But it is helpful that a large leatherette bag is included with this lens so you can leave the adapter attached to the lens and just pop the whole thing on and off.

In an effort to get closer to the subject, I have experimented with reducing the zoom while the converter is attached. This seems pretty useless. For example, at 1x the view was ca. 4 inches across, 2 inches from the subject. At around 2x, at closest focus, you get ca. 3.5 inches across at 2.5 inches away. At around 3-4x, the closest distance goes up to 6 ft.

Vignetting seems a minor issue because you will mostly use this converter when zoomed all the way out. However, I could imagine situations where you are mostly shooting distant elk or something and you want to take a quick landscape shot without removing the converter. FYI, slight vignetting starts to appear when you drop a little below the halfway zoom (maybe ca. 3x), but even at 1x (35 mm equiv.) where you have almost a completely circular vignette, you still have plenty of real estate left in your image so it is not a big deal if you know how to crop out the blackened edges; but it is easy enough to pop the whole thing off, so that is what you would do instead.

In the end, the best thing (for me anyway) would be a highly compact camera with a built-in 10 or 12x zoom with good optics. This doesn't exist yet, so I bought the next-best thing, the A710 IS with about half the zoom I'd like (but much more than the competition among good compact cameras). But once that commitment is made, it's definitely worth having the 1.75 teleconverter as well. I may even buy an extra adapter ($20) so I can quickly pop on/off either this or the closeup lens without having to screw things together.

This lens is a good way to extend the capabilities of a general purpose camera for an amature photographer. Overall all quality and color accuracy of the digital images is good. The large lens diameter blocks the view finder, forcing one to rely on LCD screen for framing. The camera sometimes gets confused during action shots taking longer than normal to auto focus - a minor inconvenience.

Lens requires an adapter - a seperate piece to keep track of.

The optical x6 zoom on the Canon A710 IS is already better than cameras in it s range (i.e. non SLR). However, the zoom takes the picture up to the natural size; the tele converter lens really does make a difference.

Firstly, if there are any negatives, they are very minor; the lens and adapter are black - would have been nice to have been silver to match with the camera. Erm, that's it!

The main quality of Canon is the lens, which they always do well. The clarity of this lens is very good, with very little fuzziness at the edge. It also connects simply the adapter and seems fairly solid when connected. The electronics features help in the overall control of adding the attachment. The tele lens does make a difference for just getting that bit closer to get what you want.

I never thought I would brag about a point and shoot camera, but the Canon G6 is remarkable. And, the add-on lens is equally suprising. Granted, this is not an interchangeable SLR lens, but it's great for use with all the subjects one would shoot with this camera. I am glad I chose the Canon brand lens. Note: I use the Lensmate adapter.

After getting the wide converter Canon designates for the VIXIA HF S21 and realizing how heavy it was, I was not about to get their tele converter. I got lucky and got one of these used locally, and it is a very satisfying choice. Even at the price here I would get it; the vignetting is minimal (compared to others I have tried), and the 1.75x magnification will allow you to capture things like the moon with great resolution.

Vignetting is something to note: I was able to eliminate the effect before reaching half of the zoom range, and even at full wide it covers only about the side 6th of the field of view, so it is still fairly usable if you get stuck in that position. However, because this is used to get close you probably won't, and you do get a good zoom range to use with it besides.

This lens is relatively light: this one with the WC-DC58 wide converter combined still weigh LESS than the aforementioned WD-H58 wide converter! And it is compact enough for what it does.

After i bought this product i saw the comments: when you use it without zoom in your camera, you see the object of pic into a circle. Also another disadvantage is that if you want to take a pic with flash, this lens blocks the light and the pic is divided: mid size is ok but the other size is black or dark.

I am not a camera buff, but I wanted some extra zoom capability. It doesn't increase the zoom as much as I had hoped, but it does the job for me.

I use this on my Canon Vixia HF S100 and it works fine. There is vignetting through slightly less than the first half of the zoom range, and depending on lighting conditions, I have noticed some chromatic aberration. These are qualities I would expect from any screw on lens adapter though. It does not prevent the camera from autofocusing and is much cheaper and more powerful than the adapter recommended by canon for the HF S100(1.75x as opposed to 1.5x) It has been very helpful for getting just a little bit closer in on wildlife.

Not much that could go wrong with this - but it is well built, and attaches easily. I use this on a PowerShot A620 which only has a 4x optical zoom. This helps to get those far shots without using the digital zoom and losing image quality. The included bag is nice for keeping it dust free when not in use.

I bought this lens for my Canon PowerShot G5, and because it requires the use of a long adapter, not only does it cause terrible vignetting (that circle the other poster thought was cool, but which is actually a design flaw) unless you zoom most of the way, it blocks the built-in flash. I have owned four Canon cameras over the past 15 years, and the G5 and everything related to it has been a huge disappointment. (I would have bought the digital Rebel when it first came out so I could use my EOS lenses, but it didn't allow flash exposure compensation (insane for a $1000 camera body).)

I do not recommend this lens or any of the G-series digital cameras from Canon. When I've got the money I'll be buying the latest digital Rebel and upgrading some of my old EOS lenses, and selling my entire PowerShot kit. If you are an experienced photographer, you will not like this system at all.