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24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Biggest Quality Surprise Ever, February 6, 2009
This review is from: Digital Concepts 0.45X Professional 43mm Wide Angle HD Lens with Macro (Electronics)
I purchased this 0.45X Wide Angle accessory lens to attach to my HV30 Canon HD camcorder. For a lens under $30 (my price) it was more of an experimental purchase with little confidence that such a cheap piece of glass would compliment a $600 Hi Def camcorder. I am still in shock after performing a wide variety of test footage and stills over the past several weeks. In a nutshell, if I scratched or damaged this lens to make it unusable I'd have another on order as soon as I got back online.
There are many generic accessory lenses out there to fit the Canon HV30 43mm threads. And many have proven to be worth the equivalent of a fishing sinker with multiple problems like lens barrel vignetting, halo'ing, fringing, fisheye, blurring at the edges, inability to create sharp focus, and about every other performance flaw you can imagine. Its the old adage "You get what you pay for." This BUCKS the rule~! This lens, identified by the brand name Digital Concepts and made by Sakar in China (although the lens barrel says JAPAN) is everything those others are not.
I have filmed (video mode) recent ice carving sculptures and can't tell the difference between the HV30 normal lens and the sharpness and color reproduction of this wide angle lens nor can "blind tests" with my friends viewing the footage tell the difference. Corner to corner, side to side, ZERO Vignetting in full wide angle and no fisheye'ing, and oh what a pleasure it is to have so much additional "real estate" in the frame. The fireworks display I shot that night was no different than the normal lens quality except I had a much wider field of view of the bursts. Clear, sharp, colorful imagery. Absolutely no distortion of any kind.
Ranging through the Wide Angle to full Telephoto settings provide accurate focus, sharpness and no imaging problems except at full telephoto where a soft focus look was apparent. Backing off just a tad on the zoom setting put the scene immediately back into crystal sharp focus. This really is not much if any problem because you are getting the lens for WIDE ANGLE usage and so to use telephoto/zoom with it is contrary to its best use.
Even with a 62mm UV filter and a flower pedal lens hood/shade on the end I had NO vignetting of any kind in VIDEO mode. Switching the HV30 to Camera Still Frame mode showed some minor concerns that were correctable. Because the still photos taken with the HV30 have a wider view than the Video framing, there was some vignetting of still frames in the corners when at full wide angle. BUT this ended up being due to the UV filter and lens hood added to the front of the lens. A slight zooming will eliminate this vignetting. But when the lens hood and UV filter ring were removed, the still frames taken, even in wide screen 1920 x 1080 were sharp, clear, and clean with no vignetting or sharpness problems. When wanting to take still frame 3.1 MP photos, you just need to remove the hood and UV filter and shoot to your heart's content. BTW, when the flash is not needed for exposure, the HV30 will shoot 3.1 megapixel stills in high speed continuous mode at 10 frames in about four or less seconds. Pretty cool for shooting fast action sports for great still captures.
I've shot traffic intersection scenes in video mode at 1/8th sec. shutter speeds in low light with this lens with remarkable effect of motion blur and sharpness of static non-moving images at the same time. In MACRO mode, with the outer barrel removed, it will at least double your effective close up framing with absolute clear, sharp focussing no different than the normal lens.
Sorry for the long winded review. But this particular lens has far exceeded any expectations and with PERFECT performance. As I said, I'd buy another in a second if anything happens to this one. And because this lens has a 0.45X wide angle view, it FAR EXCEEDS the 0.7X CANON WD-H43 wide angle view which is 5 TIMES the cost of this lens. If you want more real estate in your frame, this is the one to get. IF I get the time in the future I'll try to do a Video Review so you can see for yourself. Be FOREWARNED....the 2X Tele Extender lens by the same company is a piece of crap and I had to send mine back. It was as useful as viewing through the bottom of a coke bottle bottom on the HV30~!
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
The not so wide angle, March 23, 2009
This review is from: Digital Concepts 0.45X Professional 43mm Wide Angle HD Lens with Macro (Electronics)
I purchased this lens as a wide angle/fisheye for my hv30. Its cheap which is awesome, it screws on nice, and has the option to be either a macro or a wide angle. Though i do not have much use for a macro personally, it works fine. The problem is the .43x claim. If i honestly had to give a true to life measurement i would say its more of a .8x. With a standard .43 I can get way closer to subjects and still have them fit on screen. But with this lens i only get about 5 feet closer to my subject before I am too close. If youre looking for more a "fisheye" type lens, I'd look elsewhere.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
affordable & reliable, April 6, 2009
This review is from: Digital Concepts 0.45X Professional 43mm Wide Angle HD Lens with Macro (Electronics)
Like many ratings, I purchased this lens for a canon HV30 camcorder. both the lense and the camcorder were ordered at the same time ground shipping and the lense got to me a day before the camcorder, so kudos on the order processing! I have only noticed a slight blur on the edges when using the optical zoom at full zoom, since this is a wide angle lense, I don't intend to use it for zooming often! For affordability and common sense, I don't see the point in ordering a 150 dollar wide angle lense when this is a perfectly workable product, at a great price, and processed at lightening speed!
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