Can I still get a good picture as long as I dont zoom in?

Thanks,
Andy

Using a wide angle lens and shooting in 16:9 mode are pretty much unrelated. If you like your wide angle lens in 4:3 mode it will do the same thing in 16:9. If you like the camera's 16:9 quality without the wide lens, it should be the same with it.

As to how far you can zoom in, that depends on the convertor lens. Some are designed to be zoom-through, others are not. There is also big difference in quality between cheap convertor lenses and expensive ones... basically, you get what you pay for.

Andy, with the PD170 there are two options for 16x9 shooting...

The on camera 16x9 mode does not do your footage any good, the picture quality
is below 4x3...

and thus, there are conversion lenses that you can put on the PD170 that creates
the 16x9 feature but uses the better quality of 4x3 resolution...

The wide angle lens that came with the PD170 is for shooting 4x3 or the on camera 16x9 mode...

thanks guys!