I'm thinking of getting a sony f717 pretty soon (in the next few months) and i was looking at the additional lenses..
I'm pretty interested in getting both a wide andlge and a telephoto lense, but i had a few questions for those who might already have them
First of all, the 58 mm threaded lenses (VCL-HGD1758 and VCL-HGL0758) seem pretty high quality, but are also pretty expensive (especially me being in canada).. it seems the price of the 58 mm wide angle and telephoto together is the same price as the camera itself. I'm sure it's pretty good quality and all, but i was wondering how it compared to the 52 mm ones i've seen (VCL-R2052, VCL-MHG07A, VCL-0752H, VCL-R0752, etc). Do the 52 mm lenses have vignetting? are they noticably lower quality? i wont bother getting the 550$ (canadian) ones if i can get the 52 mm ones for 150-200$, if the difference isn't that bad...
actually, looking at a pic of the f717 .. does the 58mm count for the outermost ring? outside of the laser emitters and whatnot? would a 52 mm lense still be technically outside of the actual lense area?
just something i thought about when brainstorming on the subject.. of coruse this would be alot easier if i actually had the camera :P all in good time i guess..
I'm thinking of getting one in the next few months, too. Just can't afford a DSLR. Can't wait...
You'd want the 58mm...that's the diameter of the lens thread and not the lens itself. The lenses screw into the lens thread. If you bought a 52mm, you'd have to get an adapter ring and there would probably be some vignetting, at wide-angle at least.
The Sony lenses are fairly expensive compared to other ones out there...try Raynox for a bigger selection of more reasonably-priced ones.
i just checked out that site.. nice lenses.. but they all seem to be 52mm too :P i'm wondering if a 52mm lense would really cause that much vignetting at this point..
I have the Sony Wide angle VCL-MHG07A lens and the Sony Tele-converter VCL-HGD1758 lens.
The VCL-MHG07A wide angle lens is a 52mm thread and comes with a 52-58 step ring to fit the threads of the 7x7. There is NO vignetting at all. with this lens you must turn the Conversion lens feature on, or put it in manual focus. I have had a few pics not focus correctly when in auto focus mode. But those were generally low light shots. The image quality is great.
The tele-converter works great in full auto or manual focus mode and the HAF laser is not affected. NO vignetting with this lens either. and the image quality is great
Within the next couple of days I will be ordering my wide/tele for my camera. I have aftermarket tele and think I may be losing focus. When I zoom in on my LCD it loses focus.
As far as, my new lenses. VCL-HGD1758 (TELE) and VCL-HGD0758 (WIDE)
I will be ordering them from www.Provantage.com.
The wide lense is going for about US $210 the other I could not find on webside but a sales rep told me they had it. Currently getting info on price. I would think it would be about the same price or close to it.
I have both Sony wide angle and tele converter lenses. Even with a thread of 58mm teleconverter lens vignets between 1/4 and 1/3 of the zoom length at the wide angle of the zoom (which is perfectly normal). The 52mm tele woould make you buy a stepping up ring, and you will have a more severe vignetting, so you'll end up using the longest side of the zoom most of the time.
I have an Olympus B300 which I use with my '707. It gives 1.7x magnification and is about 1/2 the price of the high-grade Sony teleconverter. It has a 55mm thread, so I use a 58-55 step-down ring. There is vignetting at wide angles (as I guess there will be with most lenses of this type). I have a pbase gallery with a few B300 test shots
The B300 does introduce some CA, however, which can be a nuisance with certain subjects (edges with sharp colour contrasts, typically), but in most cases it's fine. I know other Sony users swear by the Olympus TCON-14B (the B is significant, there is a lower-grade, cheaper, non-B version) which gives 1.45x. For comparisons of the B300, the TCON-14B and the old VCL-HG1758, check out GoldenHammer's Tele Lens Comparison pbase gallery. He has various other tests in the parent gallery to that one - make sure you also look at his 707/TCON-314B gallery - a 707 with a total of 21.75x optical zoom!
I've read good reports of the VCL-HGD1758 and VCL-HGD0758 on the dpreview Sony Talk Forum - people who have them say they're worth the money. A search over there for the lens model number should turn up some useful threads.
People, is there any difference in image quality between HGD1758 and HG1758, and between HGD0758 and HG0758? Or are they the same lenses, with the only difference that the ones with "D" are silver, and not black, to match F7x7?
People, is there any difference in image quality between HGD1758 and HG1758, and between HGD0758 and HG0758? Or are they the same lenses, with the only difference that the ones with "D" are silver, and not black, to match F7x7?
I believe the 'D' models are newer, higher-quality optics.
