58mm Wide Angle Lens 0.45X For Canon Rebel EOS 18-55mm

 

 

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I ordered this lens add-on simply because (a) I'm a new budding photographer with a great DSLR that is better used in someone else' hand at this point (I'm a noob with my new Canon T2i DSLR) and (b) I'm cheap and I have no camera budget, so this price was just right. I realized that the lens quality would not equal that of an "actual" $1000 wide angle (us frugal shoppers may be cheap, but we're not delusional). The $15(ish) price tag was cheap enough to experiment. I received the lens (very quickly I may add) and unpacked it. First of all, the lens comes with a pleather-ette packing bag (nice touch) and the lens itself is constructed from metal and glass (surprising!). Yes, after you screw this lens onto the end of your camera lens, you'll notice that when you're zoomed all the way back (the farthest from your subject that you can be) you see the round curvature of the lens. In other words, the corners of your picture will be rounded off (blacked out). It's like you're now looking through one eyepiece of a pair of binoculars. Also, the brightness of the picture goes down (but of course, you're using a DSLR and almost ANYTHING can be compensated for. That's the reason you go DSLR, isn't it?) If you zoom in slightly towards the subject, the curvature corner loss disappears (yay!). The curvature and brightness problems bring the product down from 5 stars to 4 stars, but for approx. 98.5% off, you get a lens that works, just not as clear and bright as the "real deal" of course (but don't forget that it WORKS and it's 98.5% off...). You'll be surprised how well this lens actually does work. Now for the "surprise" part. I re-checked the description on the item on Amazon's site and I don't think I simply missed this - but this lens is actually two lenses in one. Do you see in the product photo where it says "macro" in orange near the bottom? This lens is two lenses screwed together. Unscrew the Wide Angle top part off and you're left with an actual macro lens (a lens that allows you to get in close for details and focus on tiny items like bugs (etc.). BONUS! Again, the brightness and corner "cutting" problems still apply - but zooming in slightly eliminates the corner problem and camera settings can eliminate the low brightness. Outdoor macro shots should be just fine (by the way) for brightness. $15 bucks, people. Do yourself a favor and BUY THIS LENS. (or you could be a "real" photographer, assume this lens is ridiculous, and spend $1000 on a "real" wide angle lens and another $300 on a "real" macro lens. Meanwhile, us "hobbyist" photographers will have lots of fun with this lens in the meantime (and save almost a thousand bucks). If you are a professional photographer needing wide angle shots of hotel rooms to trick travel site shoppers into thinking every hotel's rooms are humongous (ha ha) - you go buy the more expensive lenses (of course).
Actually, those guys won't even be on this product page..... : )

I bought this lens attachment because I thought "for 23$ how can you go wrong". I'm a beginner photographer and don't have a huge budget to buy a $1000 lens, But i wanted to play around with a wide angle. Its great! at the widest you get some vignetting but it looks cool anyways and to get rid of it just zoom a bit. you don't get as much of a "fisheye" effect that I was hoping but my next purchase will definitely be the wider fisheye version. The macro part of this lens is neat too. You need to get super super close (like an inch away) from your subject but does what it needs to do :) All in all for the money it was totally worth it to have this in my beginner collection. My friend is planning on getting one too!

Don't kid yourself, this isn't going to do the same job as the real deal (what kind of glass quality would you expect at this price?), but it still works great in a pinch. The only thing I noticed is that it vignettes the corners heavily when you're at full wide (18mm) with the kit lens. I didn't actually try autofocus or the flash with it yet. If you go slightly less than full-wide, then it really isn't a problem. Really good for when you're in a small room and need to get a lot of stuff in your shot. You definitely get the fisheye (straight lines appear slightly curved) effect at wider angles, but sometimes that actually adds to the uniqueness of the picture. I'm glad I have it in my kit for special tasks.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Just thrilled
I bought this item and 2 others for my Canon Rebel. I figured, for the price, how could I go wrong. Well, I was wrong! I was wrong to think that this stuff would be cheap. Read more

Published 9 months ago by Mostly Happy

3.0 out of 5 stars Worth the price. Good
Worth it for the price. Dont expect it to do wonders but does give interesting looking effect on the pictures. Read more

Published 10 months ago by Vj

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