Customer Reviews

Zeikos ZE-WA37S 37mm 0.45X Wide Angle Lens

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

 

 

Length:: 0:30 Mins

I agree with A. Abram's review. The wide angle lens has a very good build quality and blends well with my Canon Vixia HF200. Pretty much everything in his review is spot on. However, there are a couple things that are somewhat disappointing.

The vignetting in close range means this lens really can't be used for semi-pro work. The strange thing is that on the HF200 you can't even tell that vignetting is occurring until the video is transferred into an editing program. A little zoom will make it disappear. But that is where the biggest problem comes into being. This lens is advertised as a .45x wide angle but with the macro on it is really more of a .8x. If you zoom in much you will lose the entire benefit of a wide angle lens. The cure is worse than the disease.

The detachable macro is a great addition. I'm not really into photography but I can see where this may come in useful every once in a while. Just taking some pictures of a dime were NOTICEABLY better with the macro on. No matter how much I zoomed in without the macro I couldn't get as close or as much detail as with the macro on.

Six 37mm adapters come with this lens (25, 27, 28, 30, 30.5, 34mm). Unfortunately no adapter comes with the lens that makes the wide angle lens (without the macro) fit on 37mm threads. This would add so much more versatility to the lens in situations that require a fisheye view. I give an example in the video and you can see at least another foot of view is added.

When considering buying these ask yourself how much you're going to use them. For $17 these offer almost the same performance as the official canon WA lens at 1/10 of the price. The only problem with performance is when using high levels of zoom (blurred). However, on youtube there are reviews of raynox's .45 wide angle lens that show a noticeable improvement over this lens. At only $30 I'm kicking myself in the pants for not buying it.

(I bought this with the 2.5x telephoto lens from Zeikos and that is worthless while filming. It barely adds to my camera's optical zoom while adding very noticeable distortions.)

I'm disappointed with it, feels like cheated by the description, it's not really a 0.45x 37mm lens.

With the macro on, the factor is effectively >0.7x, I compared to my 0.7x lens, it's even narrower than that, that's how I know the effective ratio is >0.7x.

There is just no way to use the 0.45x lens without the macro, the lens itself has a female thread of something like ~40mm, only the macro has a male 37mm thread to put it on your 37mm camcorder/camera. There is no other adapter comes with it.

in the end, I had to tape the lens to my 37mm adapter for some other lens in order to use it.

I purchased thus for my new Canon HG21 also purchased at Amazon. Build quality of glass and housing is excellent and the optics clearly have an anti-reflective coating on them. Image quality is fine in several minutes of test video I shot and appears to be completely undistorted. Do note that some camcorders (like my HG21 had) may have slight corner cutoff/vignetting at the full wide-angle zoom setting. A slight touch of the zoom away from full wide-angle solves this completely and you do not loose much at all of the (super) wide angle effect that this lens is made for. For under $30 as opposed to the Canon equivalent at about $150 and considering I won't be using it on a routine basis, I'm very happy with the Zeikos. By the way, if you go to their web site, they have many products in their lineup. After buying this lens, i also purchased a 3 piece Zeikos 37mm filter set from Amazon (which included a circular polarizer!) and am very happy with this line overall. Definitely worth the price!!

To me, this lens is kind of a joke. I have set it up on my Canon s95, and like the other reviewers have stated, you will see the circular edges of the lens when fully zoomed out. So you have to zoom in slightly to make those edges disappear. Well, now you've zoomed in, and defeated the purpose of the wide angle lens. There is also a lot of distortion of vertical and horizontal lines near the edge of the frame. And, as others have stated, you cannot attach this lens to a 37mm adapter without the macro. I really don't get that...

To really get a wide fish-eye type of effect, you pretty much have to unscrew the macro, and just hold the wide angle lens up to the camera. But that's a hassle, and really not functional. It's cheap and looks to be decently constructed, so if you got a few dollars to burn, you can buy this and use it once or twice...

Wonderful value but when fully zoomed out for wide angle (which is what it was needed for) the black circle of the lens rim shows up. You have to zoom back in a bit to rid this, which brings me back to close to what my camera (Canon Vixia HF M31) can do naturally. And as others have said if you leave it on for everyday use, it is blurry when you zoom more than a moderate amount, and creates a shadow if you take a photo using a flash. Sure wish it worked, looks nice on the camera (is black not silver like picture) and would have made a great every day accessory lens, especially for indoors.

I ordered this Zeikos ZE-WA37S 37mm .45 Wide Angle Lens without much expectations, I mean it was dirt cheap, you know you get what you pay for and all... In any case. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of this little cheap ass lens!

After I received the lens (Came black by the way) I quickly put it on my Camcorder and went outside to shoot some video. Shot some video with it on and some without it. Upon close comparison, it was nearly impossible to tell which video it was used on. Yeah, it really is that good, talk about being surprised!

I would highly recommend this to anyone who is looking for a wide angle lens.

The only thing I would recommend is to pick up a 46mm (The size of the front element) wide angle lens shade to keep out the sun.

Other than that, it's a nice little lens!

Very solid construction quality. It performs as described, though there is slight vignetting at the widest angle, so zoom in just a bit to eliminate that. Worth it for the price.

This is amazingly worth your money for a first lens or any lens. it does great also because it has a second lens that provides your camera with REALLY CLOSE macro. i love this lens, BUY THIS ITEM.

The lens is good. It provides a wider visual picture (hence the name - duh) without distortion for me. I'm not an expert or a video snoot, just the normal person who wants more options than the standard camera offers.

I was weary about getting this after looking at other reviews and seeing sample videos on YouTube, but for the price, I figured it would be worth the risk. It was. I'm so glad that I decided to purchase this. I have a Canon Vixia HF100, and it works very well on it (though, keep in mind, other cameras might have different results). I don't lose any picture quality, and I am able to see the whole image (you can't see the outline of the lens as some people have said). You would be able to see even a wider angle without the macro converter, but even with it, it is still a huge amount. I highly recommend, especially considering the price.