Did another brick test.

Raynox vs standard lens. But with the standard lens on, I positioned the camcorder further back to match the area covered.

I think this is a better test to compare resolution and I am now even more impressed with my $150 Raynox.

I agree - you certainly have hit on a good combination there and when viewed big the Raynox looks sharp right into the corners. Do you know what aperture this was taken at? The 6600PRO I had seemed to have a single layer coating (a light blue) with nowhere near the 'depth' of the multicoating on competitor's lenses, so I was careful to hood it as best I could. But for a lens at this price with so little distortion that still left you with 60% of your zoom useable it is indeed a bargain.

My slight quibble is that I was never quite sure where this 60% point was, and because of it I never zoomed more than a few mill away from max wide. With my single element aspheric on the other hand the change from sharp to wildly blurry is distinct and very obvious indeed, so I'm much happier to use any focal length in that 60% range, knowing it's sharp.

tom.

Aperture was F6.2. Why do you ask ?

Do you know of an easy way to get these aspheric lenses in the US ? I've seen the links you provided. One was in German, and the others did not look like they had online ordering.

this is my first post, greetings, I belive century 0HD-65CV-SH6 .65X is available from schneideroptics.com , has anybody got one and tested it for barrel distortion?

many thanks

saman

I'm with you, Saman.

Has anyone tried the Century 0HD-65CV-SH6 0.65x?

Yes, the Century 0.65x is a zoom through, so does barrel distort. Not by much, but then if your camcorder's zoom barrel distorts down the wide end (and most do) then the Century will add to that.

I'm with you, Saman.

Has anyone tried the Century 0HD-65CV-SH6 0.65x?

Yes, I did:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost.php?p=711950&postcount=32

Thanks, Piotr.

That's sad, really. I was hoping for more out of that $500 lens.

The Sony just seems so weak in the wide angle department. :-(

from what I've seen so far, the Raynox is a real value at under $200... ordered mine today.

--Ralph

Ralph, please post some grabs, and your impressions on the Raynox!

Ralph, please post some grabs, and your impressions on the Raynox!

My Raynox was delivered yesterday and I shot a quick two-minute test with it, see:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8914037309791032666

VERY pleased with the Raynox. At less than $200, it's a great deal.

--Ralph

Ralph, thanks a lot! As far as barrel distorsion is concerend, I can see almost none. However, due to the quality of your clip, I can't assess its influence on colour fringing or picture sharpness in full tele... Please post some stills for this purpose!

Thanks again:)

Good to see your test footage Ralph and I was most impressed by its lack of barrel distortion. Early on in your test you pan right and the vertical edge of the barn comes into view: dead straight, excellent.

Not so here with the Raynox 0.5x:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7647318907112986893

Problem is the V1/FX7 doesn't have much wide-angle coverage right out of the box, so a 0.7x is pretty mild at the best of times. The 0.5x I use on the Z1 looks wildy wide, is devoid of barrel distortion, and there's a short clip here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNBi1XaEdtQ

tom.

Ralph, thanks a lot! As far as barrel distorsion is concerend, I can see almost none. However, due to the quality of your clip, I can't assess its influence on colour fringing or picture sharpness in full tele... Please post some stills for this purpose!

Thanks again:)

Piotr, here are three stills... most frames in this test are perfectly acceptable... the third one (extreme telephoto) has some problems... I not sure at this point whether it was me or the lens... the cam was on autofocus which might have affected this.

In general, still very happy with performance.

Good to see your test footage Ralph and I was most impressed by its lack of barrel distortion. Early on in your test you pan right and the vertical edge of the barn comes into view: dead straight, excellent.

Not so here with the Raynox 0.5x:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7647318907112986893

Problem is the V1/FX7 doesn't have much wide-angle coverage right out of the box, so a 0.7x is pretty mild at the best of times. The 0.5x I use on the Z1 looks wildy wide, is devoid of barrel distortion, and there's a short clip here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNBi1XaEdtQ

tom.

Yes, I see the difference, Tom... still, NICE beach! ;-)

--Ralph

Thanks Ralph - it beats the Century 0.65x, no questions about that. Have you thought on fitting some lens hood on it?

In general it seems nice.

But that last close-up of the barn still.. shows significant softening and smearing at the edges. The center is fine, but the edges, particulalrly top right and bottom-left are really quite smeared.
- Look at the leaves of the green plant at bottom-left (on the enlarged 3rd pic). :-/

Also some chromatic aberration visible on the vertical plank on bottom right.
I'd really like to see 3 or 4 of these 0.65 to 0.8 WA lenses for the V1 compared on sam cam, fixed-tripod, same subject. I am starting to think that for all it's "mildness", the Sony VCL-HG0862K might perhaps be the best solution. It gives 29.9mm widest on V1, and everyone just needs to work out if that's wide enough for them. I think, for my purposes, it would be wide enough to be honest.

I have heard before that the Raynox is fine at wideangle, but suffers when you zoom in and i think these pictures largely bear that out. Of course, the whole point of these lenses are that you need them for the WA end of the range, and once you zoom in beyond a certain (fairly early) point, then of course you should just take the WA lens off.

But human nature being what it is, most people aren't going to be screwing and unscrewing the lens every 30seconds and are likely to just leave it on for a little while, whether they're zoomed in a bit or not..

just my 2 cents. Thanks to Ralph for the useful test.

Absolutely Stu. The Sony's own 0.8x wa has absolutely no effect on picture quality except for a slight barrel distorsion; is fuly zoom-through with no clour fringing. Therefore I'm keeping it, but would like to have some stronger adaptor for those rare occasions...

Stu, yes I agree with your assessment but it only seems to occur at full out telephoto ... in other words, I find the Raynox usable over most of the zoom range... just have to remember don't go out all the way. ;-)

--Ralph

My experience with the Raynox is the same as Ralph's. What this has meant to me in practice is that the adaptor does *not* live on the lens, but only comes out when I need a wide-angle shot.

Still liking the Raynox a lot!

As I said in my previous post's I really like my Raynox 7062, especially given the price, but I also agree with the others, that the lens does not stay on the camcorder and is only used when a wider angle is necessary.

As far as the Century vs. the Raynox, IMHO, Century optics should be embarrassed that the Raynox at less than half the price out performs it.

OK, so here are 4 grabs from my V1E: the first is widest without any adapter, the second - widest with the Sony's own 'K' 0.8x, and the bottom two - fully zoomed with the Sony wa. The latter might not be focussed properly, but some of the leaves are sharp here and there around the whole picture area, without fringing - so there is no degradation. Like I said, the Sony VCL-HG0862K might no be wide enough sometimes, but at least it's not spoiling the picture. On close-ups like this, the Century 0.65x I tested couldn't produce really sharp pictures even in the frame centre, and the leaves' edges against the sky were outlined with ugly magenta halo.

Thanks for posting those shots Piotr.

They are very useful to see.

Thanks for posting those shots Piotr.

They are very useful to see.

My pleasure Stu. The VCL-HG0862K is really mild, but sufficient for most situations.