I'm considering purchasing this WA lens for my FX1:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=361297&is=REG&addedTroughType=categoryNavigation

I really like the fact that it has a bayonet mount and a very wide 0.6x conversion, but I'm a little concerned about extreme barrel distortion. I understand that I can't use full zoom with it but I'm okay with that.

Thanks for your feedback.

I have this lens and I like it, but there is indeed pretty extreme barrel distortion. If you don't like that effect then it may not be the lens for you. See the following: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=58525

I was afraid of that. I would be using the lens to show home interiors and all those straight lines would make the distortion pretty obvious.

Thanks for the quick response, Boyd. I remember reading your above post back when I was looking at tele lens (which I still haven't bought).

Yeah, maybe not the best choice for your application. However, the builtin lens has noticeable barrel distortion at full wide already, so any adaptor is only going to compound that. Unfortunately there aren't a lot of options for wide lenses on the Z1/FX1.

With the .6x century, if you shoot outdoors with the horizon around the middle of the frame then it looks pretty good. But as soon as you tilt up or down the horizon line turns into a "smile" or a "frown". But sometimes this can be an interesting effect which I like.

Sony also makes a wide-angle adapter for the FX-1/Z1. I have one and it's been good to me. I've been planning (or trying: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=59816 ) to sell it only because I don't use it as much as some of my other glass.

Yeah, Joe, I'm looking at that one, too. The problem I have with the Sony is whether or not .8x is going to be wide enough for me. This lens (whichever one I buy) will be specifically for shooting home interiors for a real estate agency. Their sample video--which they'd want me to duplicate--is simply a series of one slow pan across each room, so I would have to fit the entire room top to bottom in one sweep. This is New England, where we have a lot of old Victorian homes with many small rooms and I will probably need as wide a lens as I can get. I also noticed some obvious barrel distortion on their sample, so maybe the .6x would be acceptable to them. I guess the next step for me would be to contact this potential employer and see what they say about it. I think you have a pretty good deal on the Sony. Don't worry, just because I bought an FX1 instead of a Z1U doesn't mean I'm a "cheap-a**". (I might be a "dumb-a**" but definitely not a "cheap-a**".) Hey, are we even allowed to say "a**" on this forum?

I wouldn't care as much about barrel distortion as about blur in the edges. If the lens you buy is very clear (even if you have to use a small apperture), then you can correct the barrel distortion completely in software. This will crop about 10% of the image (as a side effect) but the result will be awsome. It can turn a fish-eye lens to rectilinear!

I can't suggest a specific app but I think you can find something if you search for it -even as a plugin. This technique is used in photography and I think paintshop pro has a customized feature for any photographic lens. You might be able to use such an app (if you can't find one specific for video) through the batch feature to process a folder of images (that you previously converted from video).

Hey, are we even allowed to say "a**" on this forum?

Um, no....

Barrel distortion is a real problem with the Z1, as distortion has been traded for sharpness in the design of the Zeiss 12x zoom. The distortion is enough to make me wary of using max wide-angle as I track through buildings, because door frames that bow outward as I pass through them do NOT look good to my clients.

If you've got a flat-screen 16:9 TV, try this: Stand in front of the TV with your camera perfectly normal to the screen. Zoom to wide-angle and move so that the TV frame fills your v'finder frame. Switch to underscan if you like, the results are still pretty horrifying.

As you move further away though and zoom in, things begin to look better and the barrel distortion lessens. You've got to go to 12 on the 0>99 zoom scale to get zero distortion.

All is not lost though. My single element aspheric (a 0.5x) actually cures the inherrent barrel distortion to some extent. Not completely, but then there's a lot of curing needing to be done.

Steven - you're right. If you're going to go through the palarva of taking off the hood, opening the lens case, screwing on the supplimentary, changing the Steadyshot setting, storing the hood and lens caps, then at least make it worth-while. For me, doing all this for a 0.8x is a bit daft.

tom.

Steven - you're right. If you're going to go through the palarva of taking off the hood, opening the lens case, screwing on the supplimentary, changing the Steadyshot setting, storing the hood and lens caps, then at least make it worth-while. For me, doing all this for a 0.8x is a bit daft.

tom.

This must be the British translation of what I said in American. Words like "palarva" and "daft" haven't made it over here yet. :-)

But seriously, Tom, I don't have an HDTV and my FX1 lacks the numerical zoom scale of the Z1 (or maybe I just haven't found it) so I'll just take your word for it.

By the way, could you give me some more info on that 0.5x lens you have?

P.S. Message to Boyd: sorry about the a** thing. I was sort of quoting Joe Lumbroso and got a little carried away.

You're right - the FX1 only has the rather vague 'bar chart' zoom scale as another one of the 40 odd differences. See here for Chris Hurd's list:

http://www.hdvinfo.net/articles/sonyhdrfx1/compare.php

To go wide-angle and not increase the barrel distortion you'll need to shoot through aspherical surfaces. These generally are single elements and therefore won't be full zoom through, but even so they'll often allow a 6x zoom rather than the original 12x, say.

Look here:

http://www.lenswvl.com/

and here:

http://www.wittner-kinotechnik.de/katalog/08_aufna/b_optike.php

A spherical lens like the 0758 supplied with the PD170 and the 0.8x designed for the FX1 is that they exaggerate the barrel distortion inherent in the original zoom lens. It may well be acceptable in the zoom, but if you double the distortion by using a 0.5x converter, it will become pretty noticeable. It's for this reason that Sony wide-angles are pretty mild, generally.

tom.

Go for it - much more useful than the 08 Sony which weighs a ton and really isn't all that different. I've found the Century 06 really usefull especially when shooting in cars. Nice to have the bayonet mount too rather than spending ten minutes screwing the Sony lens on!
Cheers, TW

Yah, I pretty much decided to go with the Century .6x. I shoot weddings too, and I sometimes find myself trying to squeeze in a large wedding party in a tight space with nowhere to back up.

Now if I could just finish one of my video projects and get paid for it, I could buy it. I have 3 weddings (soon to be 4) and a corporate video already shot and no time to edit!

Another point. Say you shoot a line of 10 people standing perpendicular to you in front of your camera. The barrel distorting lens will make the middle people appear closer as they'll appear larger (and look fatter) in the frame.

The rectilinear lens (devoid of barrel distortion) will make the people standing at the edges appear stretched sideways - a bit like the selective distortion that 16:9 TVs add so that 4:3 material will fill the frame.

If you pan with the barrel distorting lens, stationery objects move at a constant rate across the screen. A non distorting wide-angle will make objects decelerate as they approach the centre of the frame and then accelerate out of it.

Both quite different effects.

tom.

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to mention to anyone planning on buying lenses for their Z1 and other HDV cameras...Make sure you buy glass and the lens says HD or HDV. A friend recenlty bought a plastic lens and, wow, it was clear as a bell in HDV mode (not so much in DV, but that's 4.5 times the resolution for ya).

heath

Or 3.7x the resolution to be more exact.

I have both the Century .6 and the Sony Wide Angle Adapter. I used the Sony Adapter once to test it out and now it's been sitting in its box for months now. The Sony Adapter is too heavy and is a pain to twist on for the slight bit of extra coverage you get.

The Century Adapter is good and I use it for stationary shots during weddings for cakes, venues, and the dance floor. It might be good for showing off rooms because from a high enough angle, it can make a room look bigger and larger than it really is which might help in selling a home?

Don't think you'll be selling many homes with bendy walls, floors, doors and window frames Chris. Too much barrel distortion for my liking.

Yea probably not. It's a good thing i'm not in the house selling business. hehe

One thing to keep in mind is that the Sony cameras are already pretty wide-angle to start with, due to the 16:9 aspect ratio. I bought the .8x Sony adapter, and while it's heavy, it's also very sharp and I'm happy with it.

The 0.8x is a bayonet fit and comes with that rather good looking petal hood, right? What news on the Z1's inherrent barrel distortion dwon the wide end - does your 0.8x make this condition worse?

tom.

It's not just that--pretty much all cameras (DV, HDV, etc.) with 1/3 inch CCDs need to have wider lenses to help out.

heath

Has anyone tried the 0.7x multi-element Century ($799 at B&H)?

By the way I seem to remember that Premiere 6.5 had a filter or at least a method for "reverse barrel distortion". Don't know about Premiere Pro or other programs. Some people used it for removing vignetting (black corners) from underwater footage.

Nick

The problem with using software based post production correction of distortion is the loss of resolution that accompanies such processing Nick. Much better to buy a lens that doesn't distort in the first place, and I hear good things about the newer Century designs. The old 0.65x was pretty poor in this respect, so I hope things are looking better today.

tom.

Thanks Tom, and I understand that such processing will affect the quality.

By "newer Century designs" are you talking about the 0.6x, 0.7x, 0.8x that we've discussed? As far as I understand they're all spherical, so surely they're going to give just as much increase in barrel distortion for a given FOV.

Nick

Generall you can take it that a zoom-through is a spherical-elemented assembly, but some (like the Raynox 6600PRO) use what I believe is an aspherical element to control the barrel distortion. The snag with such lenses is that they're not very sharp at telephoto, but as it's wide-angle you're after, I've never seen this as a disadvantage.

The Z1/FX1 has most noticeable barrel distortion down the wide end and this makes the camera unsuitable for a lot of work. But a single aspherical element widie (not the Redeye, BTW) zoomed in just a little will increase your field of view dramatically while at the same time keeping straight lines straight.

tom.

At a shooting an accessoriebag got "lost", unfortunately with my Century 0.6 Wideangle inside.
By chance I got the opportunity to buy a 0.7 from16x9inc
What makes me now wondering is, that no one mentions this adapter.
It is a zoom through Adapter, with slightly less barreldistortion than the Century, I couldn´t compare them side by side, but to my feeling the 16x9 gives sharper results at the edges.
Disadvantage: no bayonet, but at the end using them both, now I would decide for the 16x9.

alex

Does anyone know what the field of view of the Z1 in full wide is in terms of degrees?

I am interested in a comparison between it and my existing VX2000. The VX2000 has a limited FOV and really needs a wide angle adaptor, but reading the previous posts makes me think that perhaps it's much less necessary for the Z1/FX1.

Nick

Using 35mm still camera terms, the wide end of the Z1 lens would be 32.3mm. The wide end of the VX-2000 zoom is 43.2mm. So a little quick math says:

(43.2 - 32.3) / 43.2 = .2523

Therefore the Z1 has about a 25% wider field of view than the VX-2000 at full wide. Looking at this another way, if you put a .75x wide angle converter on your VX-2000 then the field of view would match the Z1 at full wide (43.2 x .75 = 32.4).

I will leave the field of view calculation in terms of degress as an "excercise for the reader" :-)

You're right - the FX1 has a much wider-angle 12x zoom than the VX/PD range. In 35 mm film terms the FX1 has a 32.5 mm focal length whereas the VX has a 43.2 mm. Of course if you shoot with the FX1 in the 4:3 mode they're a lot closer.

Many people find the FX1 is 'wide-enough', but I feel that it makes the 0.5x converter even better value for money. Shots can look very wide indeed, whereas on the VX they just look so-so wide.

tom.

Boyd and Tom, that's very helpful indeed. Now I know that the Z1 will only be a tad narrower (horizontally at least) than my VX with 0.7x Canon converter. I think I'll pass on the converter for now and spend the dosh on other accessories.

Tom, do you have a 0.5x converter? If so, which one?

Yes, I have a few 0.5x wide-angle converters, but the best one by far is the single element Bolex Aspheron. It's an aspheric so is not full zoom through - but it still allows you a 6x zoom whih isn't bad. It's T* coated and best of all adds not a single blip of barrel distortion to the mix.

Available new from Bolex in Switzerland. I know, because my second one arrived just last week. It's a lot of money for a single elemet lens, but then you can also spend a lot of money on a multi-elemet lens and get the barrel distortion included for free. In 35 mm terms you're now using a 17 mm lens - and this looks and acts seriously wide.

I've got some pictures here:

http://www.fortvir.net/gallery/v/tom-s-photo-album/

tom.

You got one with a 72mm thread Tom? Can't see any of them on their site. Their Aspheron page is offline. Do you mind me asking how much it was before I email them?

Ah, that's the problem, see. I got an engineering firm (SRB) here in the UK to make me an adapter going from the Bolex's 85 mm thread down to a 72 mm. It has to be a 'special' because of the position of the Aspheron's thread. Now with an off-the-shelf 72>58 adapter the Aspheron can be used on the VX2k as well.

A friend in Australia has had a bayonet adapter made. It cost a lot more money, but how neat! His engineer simply copied the ins and outs of the bayonet-on lens hood.

I paid UKP 418 to have it delivered to my door, but then Bolex had sale prices up all last month. That's less than a bendy Century.

tom.

If you can find someone to make the adapter, the Aspheron is GREAT. I use mine with my XL2 stock lens and it looks wonderful.

I've been trying for about a year to find someone who can make me an adapter with a bayonet mount (using the threading on the canon lens makes the aspheron sit farther away from your glass) but everyone I've found either doesn't have the tools for the fine threading work, or they want to charge upwards of $400.

In the meantime I have been using gaffers tape to secure the Aspheron to my lens, which works, but it makes me VERY nervous every time I do it.

I too have felt this nervousness. Before I designed the threaded adapter and had it made I used to hold my Aspheron on with friction (and quite a bit of it). But I remember doing some overhead shots of a Chinese Dragon dance from an upstairs balcony. Great viewpoint and wonderful to have the Aspheron in place, but I felt like you do when you look over the edge of the Eifel Tower. You feel for some inexplicabe reason that your shades are going to fall 50 metres, when you're fine looking at your feet in the street.

tom.

I got a reply from Bolex about the lens.

The Aspheron is a 6.5mm super-wide angle optical complement which is normally destined to be fixed to the Kern Vario-Switar 12.5-100mm zoom lens. Its thread is 85mm.

Guys, can I just check that this is the right lens before I order it? I'm not sure how the 6.5mm relates to 0.5x or 0.52x etc..

Cheers,

Nick

If you decide not to order through bolex, I have been trying to sell mine for a while...there's a post about it in the classifieds if you search.

Nick - The Aspheron is a perfectly normal 0.52x wide-angle converter, the 6.5 mm figure just telling Vario Switar owners what the focal length will be when they attach it to their Kern zoom.

I say perfectly normal, but it's not of course - it's totally devoid of barrel distortion - unlike lenses from Century, Optex, Kenko, Raynox, Tecpro, Cavision, Red Eye. I could go on, you know.

You'll need a special 85 mm adapter though as the attachment thread isn't right at the rear of the lens (for Kern fitting).

tom.

Chris - I can't even find classified listed.

Chris, I found your 2 ads and I might be interested. First I need to do a bit of research because I really want to get a bayonet mount made this time around (my wide adaptors go on and off a lot, often in a rush) and I need to know I can get one made somewhere or cobble one together myself without totally breaking the bank.

Does anyone know how much a spare FX1/Z1 lens hood costs? Probably silly money. I'm thinking of butchering one to use as the basis of a bayonet mount.

Also does any ring or fitting in existence come with an 85mm female thread that would mate with the Aspheron thread, or is this really something that needs custom machining (I don't mean 85 to 72, I know that doesn't exist)? If some sort of off-the-shelf ring is available then it could be screwed/glued to a butchered FX1 lens hood.

Tom, do you reckon that Cavision LH100W P/M 4:3 hood is still the best bet for shading the Aspheron on a Z1?

Nick

I had thought about using a lens hood as a basis for a bayonet mount at one point. They seem to run about $60 USD on ebay.
http://cgi.ebay.com/CANON-LENS-HOOD-FOR-XL1S-XL1-S-XL1-XL-1-BRAND-NEW_W0QQitemZ180005946948QQihZ008QQcategoryZ64329QQssPageNameZWD1VQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
I wasn't able to find a 85mm threaded ring to fit the aspheron, so I scrapped the idea....but if you happen to find one let me know.

Chris - I can't even find classified listed.

Tom: Are you unable to see the Private Classifieds forum on the main index page? If so, are you logged in or just browsing as a guest (it should say "Welcome back, Tom Hardwick!" on the upper right side of the screen). If you see that message but not the Classifieds forum then let me know and I'll look into it.

New members are not allowed access to the Classifieds for the first few months, but you should certainly not have that problem!

The closest I get is Private Messages, and Private Classified doesn't appear anywhere Boyd. So I'd be mighty pleased if you'd look into it as I have some good manfrotto kit to sell.

tom.

Nick - I'm interested to see you looking longingly at the FX1's hood, as I did exactly that with my VX2k. I bought a new Sony hood and butchered it about in an effort to attach the bayonet to the Aspheron. No-go. But go ahead - hack at the FX1 hood and let me know how you get on.

If you email me off list I can send you the drawing the lathe operator will need to make the special 85 mm > 72 mm adapter.
I never found the 85 mm ring you're looking for, but a correspondent of mine has had a bayonet adapter made for him in Australia. No, he wouldn't make me one, it took so damn long to machine.

The Cavision hood is pretty useless on the Aspheron, and that's simply because the Aspheron sees so wide that the very corners of the frame are actually *just* picking up the Aspheron's front ring. I use mine unhooded now, thanking the lord for T* Zeiss multi-coating. Another point: The Cavision hood is 4:3 and you really need a 16:9 hood. Anyone know of one?

tom.

If the corner-to-corner measurement of the Z1 hood is bigger than the outside diameter of the Aspheron then maybe it could be made as a tight push fit if the hood is cut carefully. I'll send you a PM in a minute Tom.

I have a Century .7X zoom through available for sale. It is listed in the clasified section. It's brand new in the box.

The Cavision hood is pretty useless on the Aspheron, and that's simply because the Aspheron sees so wide that the very corners of the frame are actually *just* picking up the Aspheron's front ring. I use mine unhooded now, thanking the lord for T* Zeiss multi-coating. Another point: The Cavision hood is 4:3 and you really need a 16:9 hood. Anyone know of one?

tom.

Have you tried just making a homemade disposable matte box? I use a method similar to this link:
http://www.sticktowhatyouknow.com/bts/mattebox/index.html
I find it works well, and it's cheap. As long as you aren't trying to impress a client (or are shooting in the rain), it is a great alternative.

'Your administrator has disabled private messaging' I'm told, Nick.

Chris - I did in fact make myself a hood, but it's too fragile for professional run'n' gun, which is what I do.

tom.

Moderator note:

Several posts have been moved from this thread into a new thread in the XL2 Forum since they were specific to that camera: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=73328