extreme wide angle

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I would like to buy a digital camera with an extremely widangle of view. I usually shoot with a 20mm lens on a Nikon N90. I'd use a 18mm or 17mm if I owned one. (But I don't want to stitch together a panorama). The comparison chart on this site shows that the widest of digital cameras have a maximum angle of view equivalent to about a 30mm which is much narrower.

Is there a model I have overlooked, or models that take interchangeable lenses or at least supplemental wide angle adaptors. I know about the Nikon E3, but I can't spend $6,000. I don't need top image quality.

Thank you.

-- Steve Kane (skane@net1.net), October 09, 1998

Answers

Actually even the models which take interchangable lenses will do you no good because they all increase the effective focal length (most by nearly 2x!). I don't think you can even make a modern SLR lens mount based lens that's both rectalinear and superwide enough to overcome this.

There are some 28mm lenses in the current crop of consumer digicams, and I think there are some 0.7x adapters. That'd get you to 20mm (all 35mm equiv here). I don't know a specific combo of camera/filter that can do this. The result is not going to have the nice focus advantages of a 20mm prime, though.

-- Ben Jackson (ben@ben.com), October 09, 1998.


The Nikon CoolPix 900 has two accessory lenses that might be of interest: A "wide angle" adapter that takes the wide end of the zoom range out to ~24 mm (I think - check Nikon's product page for the camera to be sure). There's also a fisheye attachment for somewhat more money (I think around $300) with a 183 degree field of view.

Also, although it's a bit heavy and bulky, there is a high-quality 0.7x adapter for the Oly 500 & 600. On the 600, this would give a widest effective focal length of about 26mm.

The native zoom range of the Kodak DC210 and 220 is 28-56: A bit weak on the "tele" end, but wider than other digicams at the wide-angle end.

Finally, Minolta's newly-announced 1500EX has a "wide" version, in which (I believe) a whole separate lens/CCD assembly can be plugged onto the side of the camera. I don't know how wide this goes, but Minolta probably has data on their web site.

Hope this helps!

-- Dave Etchells (hotnews@imaging-resource.com), October 10, 1998.


Sorry, forgot this one - Bugeyedigital (http://www.bugeyedigital.com/ is selling a Raynox 0.5x wide-angle attachment that will fit the Nikon CoolPix (mounting threads are 37mm, it comes with adapter for smaller filter mounts though). The optical quality is almost certainly not up to that of the Nikon attachment, but this would take you out to better than 20mm, and the best part is it sells for only $59.95. Since you mentioned that you didn't need top image quality, the cheapie Raynox may be the way to go.

-- Dave Etchells (hotnews@imaging-resource.com), October 10, 1998.

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