Sony Z1 Wide Lens Options (top side)

I may need to pick one of these up quick. Any opinions?

Price to performance?

-shawn

hey Shawn,

I got myself the Sony VCL-HG0872 when I got my FX1s..... it's only x0.8 and (seriously) nearly weighs the same as the camera! I wouldn't recommend it at all..... not enough of an increase in angle and a bloody heavy lens!

I'd say 0.7X or stronger should be your aim as, from what I've seen, anything less just doesn't quite deliver and you'll be constantly doing that "back a bit, back a bit more" dance while shooting....

It may be worth heading down the ebay route and looking up a dirt cheap alternative that's shipped out of Shanghai or something....

Find a brand and model that suites your expectations and then Google it..... see if their are any write-ups out there.....

WA lenses are like white-balance, (it's all down to individual preferences) I love semi-fisheyes (about x0.45) - in the right situation - and the distortion can always be corrected by zooming in a touch giving you an effective x0.6 - or so.......

Of course, make sure that whatever you are buying has optics sufficiently good for use on your HD camera - as, obviously, any aberrations etc will show up massively... ergh....

http://www.raynox.co.jp was mentioned previously - about a year ago in a "Diopter" thread, I believe? - from Japan and they have some seemingly fantastic WA / fisheye lenses......

There's also good old century optics etc....

just checked ebay - there are a good few new items from these two brands inside a fairly sexy pice-range.....

good luck with it all...

Then there is RED EYE

Then there is RED EYE

now that looks veeeeery nice - cheers Wagsy....

The Red Eye's big advantage is it's small size and light weight, not it's optics. For my FX7, I bought a Raynox .7x for $150 and then a .5x Raynox for $400.

I sent back the Red Eye.

This is very helpful input guys. So, Wags, have you used the RedEye? Ron, why didn't you like it and how aer you like the Raynox .7x and .5x?

I have a Bolex Aspheron mounted in a hacked-up spare FX1/Z1 lens hood.

Great aspheric lens, no curved straight edges, but NOT a quick solution.

Search "Aspheron" here for more info.

Just a reminder, I have an FX7, not a FX1.

The .7x Raynox lens is the 7062pro. At full wide it works pretty well. Zoomed in, brings softness in the corners as expected. I posted sample photos a little while back. If you do a search you'll find it.

The RedEye is a single element lens about the size of a filter. Doing a brick wall test, the .5x RedEye lens had identical coverage as my .7x Raynox. It also had soft corners and barrel distortion that I didn't have with the Raynox. Even if they mistakenly sent me a .7x instead of a .5x, the softness and distortion would probably be even worse. For me, it was an easy decision to send it back.

If you need something very small and lightweight then consider the RedEye, otherwise, I can't recommend it.