Raynox DCR-5000 0.5x Super Wide Angle Conversion Lens

Beautiful. Came undamaged and on time and does exactly what the description says. I'd recommend this lens for someone who's a first time camera lens buyer whose looking for a product that does the desired affect and is still affordable. The edges of the picture do get a little distorted, that is the only thing to consider when buying.

This review is not for this product specifically, but more on the quality of Raynox products themselves. I have included below the transcript from a series of e-mails between Raynox and myself. This is unedited, exactly as the exchange went. Needless to say, I am very unhappy with their product and their customer service, and I will never buy another one of their items. I offer my experience only to help others avoid a waste of money. Read my story and make up your own mind. But, at the very least, take careful consideration before buying one of their products. The one positive thing I will say about Raynox is that they DID respond to me in a very timely fashion, their first response was within 45 minutes of my e-mail. I just wish the content of the response would have been as pleasing as it's speed.Me:Within the past year, I have purchased two Raynox lenses for my Sony Mini-DV camcorder. I purchased the DVR-3000, for $120.45, and the DVR-5000, for $49.95. To say that I have been disappointed with theseproducts is an understatement. With the DVR-5000, the wide-angle lens, when I was zoomed-out completely, there was severe vignetting, and when zoomed in, the only clear part of the image was the very center.Everything else was distorted and fuzzy. I put the DVR-5000 in my closet and purchased a competitor's lens, as I was already out of my 30 days since my purchase. Unfortunately, I did not need the DVR-3000for several months. This past weekend, I used it at the San Diego Chargers football game to take 73 digital stills. These images looked fine on my LCD screen, but when I got home and downloaded them to my computer, I found the exact same problem that I had had with the other lens. But, this is a telephoto, I'm SUPPOSED to be able to zoom in. The images were all fuzzy and distorted, except for the very center.These images are absolutely useless to me and have proven that I wasted almost $200 on Raynox product. Now, I have to purchase a competitor's lens, for a lot more money, and I am unable to do that at thistime. Therefore, not only am I out of my original investment, but I am losing business, as I am a professional videographer. I wanted to give Raynox an opportunity to correct this. Please have someone contact me by e- mail or phone.Raynox:I do not know what camera model you used but DVR-5000 is a standard quality wide-angle lens and like every conversion there is no " Perfect matching" for some camera models. The DVR-5000 works perfect.I would suggest HD-5000PRO for present mini-DV camcorders. The DVR-3000 is not designed for digital stills and the quality is up to standard TV screen resolution.Me:I am currently using the Sony DCR-PC330. Now, my bigger complaint is with the DVR-3000. What am I supposed to do if my video is also fuzzy? It's not just the digital stills, and it's not a resolution problem. It's that the entire image is fuzzy and also has some color distortion.Raynox:Again, there are no "Perfect Matching" for some camera models.Me:Ok, I am just trying to understand this. The lens fits physically perfectly to my camera, without an adapter. What do you mean by "perfect matching" and how can I tell if that's the problem?Raynox:The DVR-3000 is long discontinued . The camcorder you are using is over 3 megapixels and not recommended to use such a lens .Me:Well, I can't say that I am exactly happy with Raynox's answer. You have basically said that the lens is not of a high enough quality to operate with my resolution, and we're only talking 3 megapixel here. I would still have to say that I will never buy another Raynox product. The fact remains that I now have to spend $250 on another lens and basically throw away the $120 Raynox lens I have already purchased.

PROS: Manageable color fringing, inexpensive, great wide angle shotsCONS: Requires tweaking of the pictures with software to eliminate chromatic aberration, requires your usual wide angle lens in macro mode. My Canon EF 18-55mm IS lens would not focus close enough to use this lens.I have had the lens for several years. I bought it to replace a Bower 0.42 wide angle converter which was awful and should never be used on a still camera. It had severe chromatic aberration and image blurring in the corners of the frame. If you only want a Facebook size photo, it might be OK, but if you want a more useful photo, the cheap Bower lens is not for you.The Raynox lens is still fairly inexpensive, and has been out of production since 2008, but it could come back into production in the future. It appears to be a single element made of extremely low dispersion glass.The lens gives you twice the field of view of your normal lens. I use it with an adapter tube on a Fujifilm s7000. If you are using a flash, an external flash (or better, several) is a necessity because you will need to bounce the flash to get enough coverage over the large field of view.The lens gives good performance, with only a fraction of the chromatic aberration of the the Bower, but color fringing is still very noticeable. I routinely correct the aberration in Paintshop or Photoshop using the Panotools add-on. After correction, the color fringing is about a pixel in a 12 megapixel file. Both Paintshop and Photoshop have tools to eliminate the visible effects of this last little bit by desaturating the fringe area, resulting in a nearly perfect photo.This lens must be used in combination with your normal lens in macro mode and set to wide angle. (If you don't have a macro mode, you cannot use this lens. I had to add an achromat macro lens to use this with my Canon T3i kit lens.) There is quite a bit of barrel distortion - meaning that straight lines come out curved in the photograph as happens with any fisheye lens -- but this lens is perfect for taking pictures inside houses when you wish to capture as much as possible of a room in the photo. The fisheye distortion can be corrected in Panotools, but you end up with a strangely shaped border for your photo which is very unattractive. By the time you crop it, you are nearly back to the picture your normal lens would have taken. Therefore,I do not try to correct the distortion and I simply leave the photo with the fisheye effect. If you are expecting a rectilinear image, I would advise you rethink the purchase of this lens (and probably any extreme wide angle lens). The nice thing about this lens is that in most cases the image will still fill the frame of your camera. Many fisheye lenses take a circular picture that leave large black borders in the corners of the frame.If you use a lens hood, you'll need to remove it. The lens will simply take a picture of your lens hood.The image is reasonably sharp, but is certainly softer than with your normal lens. To minimize the aberrations, shooting at f/8 to f/16 is recommended.I would not recommend this for a professional photographer or advanced amateur who will want to spend at least $300 (if not a lot more) on a suitable Canon or Nikor fisheye. But for an inexpensive lens for the casual amateur who is only going to use it occasionally, it is one of the better choices out there.The thread size is 52mm so you will need the appropriate step-down ring for your DSLR lens or tube adapter for your bridge camera.Honestly, I do not use this lens very often for panoramic views because the horizon ends up curved when using this lens, which is not very attractive in my opinion. However, I continue to use the lens for shooting interiors of houses, where getting curved doorways is better than not getting them in the picture at all.If you can live with 0.66x instead of 0.5x, the Raynox DCR-6600 Pro will give much better results in terms of image quality. It is a little more expensive, but is a better corrected lens. It just does not cover as much field of view.I also have a fairly nice Phoenix 0.25x fisheye which I only use rarely because I get a circular image with extreme distortion and noticeable chromatic aberration. For my purposes, it's only good for shooting inside a very small room like a pantry or a bathroom.Consider as an alternative to this lens the Vivitar 0.43x 58mm filter thread size wide angle adapter lens. You'll find it on eBay, and it is still available. Just be aware that its acceptance angle may be less than 170 degrees.

Nice lens, well suited for wideangle work and panorama work, this lens multiply your focal lenght by half, meaning if you have a 28mm lens you will get the experience of a 14mm with the Raynox lens in front.Highly recomended for panorama photography. Remember you need a adaptor tube to mount it on your particular camera.