Two tricks make this adapter really useful and versatile: a step-down converter ring, and one simple Photoshop adjustment.
It converts my 28mm equivalent lens to what I roughly estimate is a 21mm lens--a big increase in angle of view.
I got one of these adapters for my Olympus micro 4/3 camera, to try out as an alternative to a $600 true wideangle.
The big problem is substantial barrel distortion. Also, there is chromatic aberration in the corners and some vignetting (darkening in those corners). Now, here's the trick: Photoshop Elements (and, no doubt, other photo management programs) can eliminate the barrel distortion in: Filter/Correct Camera Distortion/Remove Distortion (try +20 to +30%). This has the huge additional benefit of pulling the corners out of the picture without reducing the wide angle of view--the very corners where both the chromatic aberration and vignetting occur! Crop to make the picture rectangular, and you have reduced all 3 problems significantly with this one adjustment.
Now, you still are not getting top quality. But for the ridiculously low price of this lens you are getting 50% or more of the quality at a twentieth of the price of a "real" ultrawide.
FItting the adapter to your lens: I use a Digital Concepts adapter on my micro 4/3 14-42mm lens (28 mm equivalent at wide angle). I have to say that the lens' focus mechanism struggled to work--the motors on this tiny lens must be too weak to move the added weight of this adapter--and I therefore found it best to use manual focus. Other cameras may not have this issue. I actually used Digital Concepts' "0.45X Professional 43mm Wide Angle HD Lens with Macro" which has a 43mm screwthread, closer to my specific need, and I had to also buy a 43 to 40.5mm stepdown ring. The adapter on this page, for the "Olympus Evolt", has a 58mm screwthread, which fits the 4/3 (not micro 4/3) lens. The same Digital Concepts lens adapter is sold on Amazon fitted with a variety of other screwthread sizes.) Digital 0.45X Professional Wide Angle Lens 58 MM with Macro High Definition
I bought this adapter primarily for use as a wide-angle lens once attached to my stock EOS 18-55mm lens that came with my Canon EOS Rebel XSi. On receiving it I found it doubles as a macro adapter (you just need to unscrew the wide-angle adapter). For the price it is a good deal, it costs below $30 and any decent fish-eye or wide-angle lens system will cost a good deal above $100. However there are performance issues which I will highlight here. Though I must mention, I found nothing amiss with the macro adapter - it had a crisp but narrow depth of focus, which I think is desirable in macro photography in which you require only your subject to be clearly focused. However the wide-angle adapter was a different story. I usually get crisp images with the stock EOS 18-55mm lens that came with my camera, the borders of distant objects are sharp and clear. However after attaching the wide-angle adapter the borders of distant objects tended to be hazy (thicker borders that looked like a smear of unnaturally bright colors [where I expected to see crisp dark outlines], this maybe a kind of chromatic aberration). Furthermore in the full zoomed out 0.42x view the picture's corners are clipped off and you get a final picture with a roundish view area [the corners are black: imagine a rectangle, now draw an ellipse within it - such that it touches all the sides, next constrain your picture within the ellipse and blacken all the parts of the rectangle that lie outside the ellipse]. So my final word on this adapter is buy it if you are going to use it for an occasional trip to some national park and are not much concerned about capturing the finer details of distant structures. It fairs pretty well in capturing details of structures which are closer than 50 metres, it is only when the distance gets well beyond a 100 metres are the outline distortion effects most perceivable. However these effects can only be discerned on zooming into the image (for panoramic views), but are somewhat more evident for portraits with a distant background [in which the focus lies on the person close at hand].
I bought this item based on the reviews...and because the wide lens that I wanted was not available. It's a nice cheap sub but you can't use the auto focus on your lens and if you have to focus quickly it's not a good sub.
So. It you are going to take the time to focus on every shoot then it's a good sub...but if you are changing positions and going from shot to shot then best to go with an original lens.
wanting to take some wide angle shots without buying another lens, I decided to give this a try. It mounts exactly as specified, just screw it on. In fact, I screwed it on to existing filter, however, probable makes better sense to take the filter off. Field of view is noticeably improved in some test shots I took. Also tried the macro lens with good results.
Can't beat it for the price. - Lens - Adapter - Four Thirds - Canon'
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