Customer Reviews

Canon WC-DC52 Wide Converter for the Canon A10, A20, A60, A40, A70, A75, A80, A85, A95, A510, A520, A540 & A570IS Cameras

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Bought this wide angle lens and adapter for my Canon A70 to shoot lots of interior shots of rooms, as I am a house remodeler. Lens makes great wide shots to encompass a small room and all its features. Where this lens fails in that the size of the adapter and lens is so large hanging out the front of the camera that it blocks half of the flash when shooting. The result is that most of the entire right half of your photos will be dark or have a prominate shadow. This camera is the second A70 I have had because it has all the features I needed and makes great photos otherwise. My only workaround this shadow problem is to now invest more money into a slave strobe unit. All combined, its making the cost of this camera skyrocket, compared with investing in a higher grade digital camera with interchangable lenses and flash adapters.

Canon definitely knows how to hook the consumer. If you have performed the research necessary to know the camera you seek, and it happens to be a Canon, you can bet a new lens or two or three will be in your future! And, why not? Canon has made lens transition seamless and simple. Moreover, given the cost of the camera, the low end incremental additions of wide converter and telephoto make your system relatively complete at a very reasonable cost. Do your research so you know what you're getting into!

I've recently purchased the Powershot A80 (an incredible little digital and highly recommended), a replacement for a Nikon digital. The A80's onboard lens brings landscape photography in at 38mm, but anyone who is shooting landscape knows, "the wider, the better." As a result, I purchased the wide converter (Canon product WC-DC52) to bring more picture into my landscape shots. The wide converter increases the angle from 38mm to 24.5mm, an exponential improvement, particularly for outdoor shots. And, all-in-all, the pricing is right, particularly if you shop it around a bit (however, Amazon has a great price). Further, the conversion adapter (see below), lens exchange is incredibly fast and elementary.

Net, net, if you're purchasing a Canon digital (low-to-mid range), spend the dough for the wide converter. You won't be sorry; a great investment.

NOTE: Make sure you purchase the Canon LA-DC52 Conversion Lens Adapter, which serves as the adapter for all compatible Canon lenses.

First off I must say I love my A95. It has the features I want (other than zoom range), plus the rather smallish size is nice after toting 3 SLR bodies and 6 lenses around for years. This wide angle conversion lens is nothing special though, and has some limitations.

1. Noticeable barrel distortion, but it should not be a problem if your subject has no straight lines in it.
2. Need to use LCD for precise framing/viewing. The adaptor sticks out about 1-1/2 inches, and the lens is about an inch, and they are 52mm diameter, therefore it blocks about 40% of the view through the finder.
3. Flash not recommended because the adaptor/lens blocks about 1/3 of the flash coverage, causing a shadow on the bottom right corner. Not a problem outdoors.
4. Only for use at widest angle setting. Essentially it makes your zoom camera a fixed-focal length camera.

The largish size and black plastic finish sort of throws off the style of the A95 itself. Comes with front and rear slip-on plastic caps and a pouch. I'm not thrilled, but for $70 I guess it is OK within its limitations.

First off this is a fun accessory for my A95 and A80. At about 26mm lens you can shoot some very nice wide angle landscapes to close-ups for under $100. The lens is sharp and is a nice piece of coated class. Once mounted you zoom lens works inside the adapter so you probably have a 26mm to 40mm (total guess)zoom lens. Yes it does have barrel distortion, yes it does stick out and block the flash, yes it is black and it does look a bit dorky on the camera. So either go buy a digital rebel and a 19-35 zoom for over $1000 or correct the barrel distortion in your image editing program, use a slaved flash for indoor shooting (manual mode only) and paint it silver.
Bottom line...if you like the look of wide angle, don't mind or even like a very very mild barrel distortion (ever so slight fisheye look), and are good with silver paint, then for the price of a cheap hotel room or a nice meal for two, you can have a lot of fun with this accessory.
Highly recommended!!!

To add to the precedent astute comments - the barrel distortion will prove a particularly nasty surprise if you happen to leave the lens on when taking panoramic shots - it will likely render the photo-stitching software useless and you will spend hours prodding and stitching the pics together yourself. I found this out the hard way after coming back from a Paris vacation with 50+ panoramas!

I got this lens mainly for confined settings where you frequently end up backing into a wall or corner and still can't fit everybody into the shot. You can squeeze a lot more in the frame with this lens. Unfortunately, the lens and adapter block my A80's built-in flash. Unless you want a big shadow cast across a large part of the shot, the lens has to be taken off every time you need the flash. Which is more often than not at indoor social gatherings! So I end up rarely using the lens at all. It just stays at home because it's not worth hauling around just for those few cases when I could have used it.

I will say that it otherwise works well. You can still zoom all the way in or out. (This in contrast to the corresponding Tele lens, with which you reportedly must keep the camera zoomed all the way.) And the entire field seems to focus fairly well. (This in contrast to a similar though older Kodak product I own, which blurs all but the center of the shot.)

The lens is very quick and easy to attach or detach. (Also a contrast to the Kokak product, though at least the flash works with it so you don't have to take it off so often!) Easy, that is, provided you leave the lens screwed onto the (required, purchased separately) adapter and handle the lens/adapter as a unit.

A minor "issue" with this technique (keeping the lens attached to the adapter): The adapter is 1.5 inches long, so it does provide a bit of a shield around the circumference of the back of the lens (while they're screwed together), but that end of the lens is still somewhat vulnerable. The cover for the camera end of the lens is too large for the camera end of the adapter. It would be nice if Canon provided a cover for the camera end of the adapter too. And maybe if the covers had a spot for attaching a string to keep track of them.

One last tip: it's not convenient, but you can get acceptable results using the flash with this lens if you hold a flash diffuser in front of the flash. I suppose you could even jury-rig some kind of mount for that...

A related note: I highly recommend the waterproof case(s) for shooting underwater and in other wet (or sandy or dusty etc.) conditions with these cameras.

I bought the converter since I wanted to use it for landscape photography. I took some test shots and discovered that the converter has an unacceptable amount of barrel distorion. If you are thinking about buying this product just be aware that you will have to correct your images through software after you take them.

I purchased this wide angle lens for my digital camera. When I was experimenting with it taking photos inside my house, there was a dark shadow in the lower right hand portion of the photo. When I took a photo outside, there was no shadow. I went to my local camera shop to ask for help in this matter and he said I would need to adjust the white balance according to the light in the room, but he said, in reality, 'these digital cameras are really not meant for attachments'. I did experiment with the light balance, but still had no luck in getting that dark area to disappear.The flash on the camera is not strong enough to compensate for the area the lens blocks. I returned the product.

Works as advertised. Be aware that when using the flash with the lens it will cast a shadow in the picture. Also your view through the view finder will be partially blocked, but you can always use the LCD screen.

I wanted a wider view for the camera and this converter took care of it beutifully. I'm very happy with it.