Wideangle for PD150

Which wideangle should I buy for the PD150?

Which maintains sharpness?

Are matte boxes useful?

In the past on hired kits I have always had a problem with, dust and
dirt getting on the wideangle lens and showing up on the image, any tips?

thanks

FF

[Chris Hurd]

The Canon 58mm wide angle adapter for the GL1 works perfectly on the VX2000 and PD150. It's about $180. Keep the dust away with a lens brush or a can of compressed air.

[fargogogo]

Are you still able to use the zoom lens with the wide angle adapter? Or does it lose focus as you zoom in?

Thanks.

[Chris Hurd]

It's a zoom-through adapter. You have the entire zoom range. It will hold focus throughout the zoom provided you have initially set critical focus. Hope this helps,

[Margus Kivilaan]

I understood that adapter-attachment thing that way:
if named adapter it allows full zoom
attachment can or cannot allow some zoom
fisheye usually does'nt allow zoom, but has widest angle and also most distortion
Anyway it's always best to take camera with you and try these things out right in store
We have used Century Optics 0.65x adapter with sunshade, looked quite good.

regards, Margus

[Mike Rehmus]

I prefer the Century wide-angle for it's very strong attachment mechanism. It is very good optically too. I just finished a shoot of a motorcycle competition where I put the adapter on along with a lens shade and shoot all day long and had no problems with glare. Because I was swinging the camera around quite rapidly at the top of a crane, I would have been concerned about a less positive means of attachment to the camera.

That isn't to say that the front threads of the camera's lens aren't strong. It's just that I don't think they are designed for the physical abuse I give a camera when entering and exiting police cars. I'm forever bumping the lens shade or the microphone. Not hard but constantly.

The solution for dirt is to clean, clean, clean. Get a ear-flushing kit and steal the rubber squeeze bulb from it to use with your camera. Blow off the lens surface every chance you get.

Avoid the blower-brushes because the brushes pick up grit and you brush the accumulated grit across the lens surface. Or you will contaminate the brush with oils and brush oil across the lens surface.

Matte boxes are useful if you want to use filters and want to maximise shading of the lens.

They are not run and gun attachments. You can shade the lens with flags at far less cost.