I bought one partly out of curiosity and partly just for the heck of it to use should the need arise. With it's 58mm thread it would fit both my Sony 717 and the Canon kit lens without need for an adapter..
The image quality is pretty bad, chromatic aberrations, etc. I took a couple pics with it and knew there was no way in heck I'd ever use it for anything I remotely cared about. Its also heavy - too heavy (which I suspected it would be from my research) for the kit lens..
Obviously I can't speak for all of the wide angle converters, just mine. The one I have though seems pretty well made and of very build quality..
Good Day,Roonal.
'Money doesn't buy happiness, but it makes for an extravagant depression' by golf tournament sportscaster..
The most likely outcome is that it will turn your Nikon into an Argus...
Lens-front wide-angle converters can work well but only on the specific lenses for which they've been designed. You will get dismal results if you try to use one on your digital SLR..
If you're on a shoestring budget and want to do wide-angle, there are still a couple of options:.
(1) Stitch. Put your camera on a tripod, pan around, take pictures, and use a panorama stitching program to create your final picture. Pros: great image quality. Cons: lots of work to do well, and interiors are particularly complicated..
(2) Zenitar 16/2.8 fisheye lens for $100 and change. De-fished with Photoshop or Panorama Tools or something similar it'll get you a field of view comparable to about an 10 mm rectilinear lens on your camera. Pros: you can get it in one shot. Cons: stop-down metering and manual-focus only, image quality decent but not spectacular..
Then there are the 10 or 12-something zooms; the Nikkor is rather pricey, but the ones from Sigma and Tokina are a good deal more reasonable. If you can save up, they're certainly worth the money..
/Petterihttp://www.prime-junta.net/http://www.flickr.com/photos/primejunta/..
Hey thanks for the great replies. You probably saved me from wasting $50 and time...
I was just doing a search with the same question, though I'm still a bit curious..
Do the cheap (eBay) fisheye filters give any "interesting" results, or are they basically poor to bad? Anyone posted an example here for comment?..