KENKO .5 OR KENKO .42

[bigG 0]

I have finally decided to buy either a KENKO .5 or KENKO .42 wide angle lens for my PC110.

I am looking for a general all-purpose wide angle lens mainly for filming freefly fun jumps, where I don’t have to be very close to the subject being filmed.

What I understand (correct me if I am wrong) from reading past posts, is that KENKO .5 is more suited.

Any suggestions from people who have jumped a KENKO .5? Any Pros & Cons of this lens that I need to know?

Any suggestions?

[quade 4]

See if you can get someone to loan you one to jump with.

Different lenses work differently on different cameras, so, realistically, there's no way to tell you if this will work for you without you trying it.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[Deuce 1]

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See if you can get someone to loan you one to jump with.

That's a great suggestion that hadn't occurred to me.

BigG, you'll get more responses if you put more stuff in your profile. If you're from Zhills or Deland, post that and ask if somebody here will meet up with you and let you try the lens.

I use the Kenko .5 for tandems and RW and it works fine. Funny, shooting the formation loads at Eloy, Dave was flying chase and when he got down to the formation he was closer, but his video was farther and I have a .5 and I think he had a .5 or a .43. So the camera/lens combination does make a difference, and I think there's a difference from brand to brand at the same length.

The Kenko's are like $35 so you have nothing to lose. To shoot inside, or anything within about arms reach, get the Diamond .3 if you have the bucks.

[AndyMan 7]

A word about the Kenko .5's.

Quade, LtDiver, and myself did an experiment a few weeks ago. We compared LtDivers Sony .6 with my Kenko .5

LtDiver's Sony .6 was in fact considerably wider then my Kenko .5. The difference in lens was unrelated to the cameras - we tried both lenses on both cameras. I had a PC-120, I forget what LtDivers was. Without lenses, both cameras showed the same image.


The difference was considerable. At a range of roughly 10 feet, LtDivers .6 gave an image a good 3 feet wider then my Kenko .5

Conclusion: Either the Sony .6 is particularly wide, or the Kenko .5 is not. More testing required.

There's a whole lot more to lenses then the stated ".number".


_Am

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You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

[quade 4]

Lori's camera is a TRV-8.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[Deuce 1]

Andy, isn't that Sony quite a bit bigger?

Quade, is the field of view different from lens to lens of the same focal length, like binoculars?

[quade 4]

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Quade, is the field of view different from lens to lens of the same focal length, like binoculars?

In theory, if you had the same focal length making images on the same size imager, then the field of view would be exactly the same regardless of manufacturer.

In REALITY, that's just not what happens. Unlike a piece of 35mm film, the imaging chips vary in size in their functional areas. They might all be 1/3 inch chips, but in camera model "A" there may be a few more edge pixels used, while in camera model "B" maybe a few less. This could be for a number of reasons. For instance, the Sony image stabilization systems use up a few extra edge pixels and make the effective imaging area a bit smaller than "advertised".

Further, the wide-angle lenses themselves are designed to go with specific optics. My -guess- is that when Sony says they're giving you a 0.6 lens, it probably really is pretty damn close to being a 0.6 lens. Other manufacturers, on the other hand, have really no idea what camera you're going to put their lens on, so it's kind of a crap shoot as to whether a Kenko 0.5 is really a 0.5 or not. Maybe if you put one particular run of Kenko 0.5 wide-angle lenses on your Sony camera, it'll behave as if it's a 0.7.

Step-up or step-down rings also play a part in this. They also play a part in vignetting.

The only -real- way to -know- if a particular wide-angle lens is going to work for your particular application is to try it out.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[AndyMan 7]

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Andy, isn't that Sony quite a bit bigger?

Not significantly. LtDivers TRV-8 is obviously horizontal while my pc-120 was vertical.... The TRV-8 might be longer, but it's shorter, too.

Anyways, I think the comparison was valid because without any wide angle, with both cameras zoomed all the way out, they showed the same picture.

_Am

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You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

[Jiggs 0]

Case in point, my wide angle is listed as a 0.5, whereas it is actually 0.47. Ohh well, life goes on!

"Don't blame malice for what stupidity can explain."

"In our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart and in our despair, against our will comes wisdom" - Aeschylus

[AndyMan 7]

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Case in point, my wide angle is listed as a 0.5, whereas it is actually 0.47.

What method did you use to determine this?

_Am

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You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

[Jiggs 0]

It's direct from the manufacturer. You could also calc it if you really wanted to but that would require a lot of work for very little return.

"Don't blame malice for what stupidity can explain."

"In our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart and in our despair, against our will comes wisdom" - Aeschylus

[Deuce 1]

Thanks Q, thanks Andy.

Andy, I was referring to the physical size of the Sony .6 lens vs. the Kenko. The Sony .6 I've seen is pretty big, but I figure this has something to do with the higher quality of it being able to transmit more light into the camera.

[AndyMan 7]

yeah, the sony .6 is dimentionally wider (aka, larger) then the kenko .5

I don't know nearly enough about optics to say much more...

_Am

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You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

[garywainwright 0]

I noticed this a while ago. The kenko 0.5 is like a sony 0.7! Because the Kenko isn't particulalry wide its great for 4 way video. You can really fill the frame and be incredibly steep.

http://www.garywainwright.co.uk

Instagram gary_wainwright_uk

[alain 0]

>...You could also calc it if you really wanted to but that would require a lot of work for very little return...


put your cam without the wide angle in front of a wall, lets say 1 meter away from the wall. whach in the viewer and have a friend to mark on the wall where are the limits of the field you can capture.
measure how wide it is, call it W.
[0.5xW]=tan (A) just a little trigonometry with a calculator will tell you the value of A
2xA = angle without wide angle lens

do the same with the wide angle on the cam

[angle with lense] / [angle without lens] = ratio of your wide angle lens.

do they teach you math at school in the states ?
(kidin')

alain

[psw097 0]

Kenko makes several different .5 and .42 wide angles. They do not have the same field. I use a SGW05 Pro most of the time and it is very wide for a .5. I use a KUW042M for very wide needs. These are both very large lenses. I used to have a cheap Kenko .5 and did not like it.

[jose 0]

Of these lenses that are being discussed, which have threads for filters? Im not referring to the camera, but the wide angle lens itself. Also, please excuse the ingorance, but how does the lens number correlate with how wide the angle is? Lower number, wider field, or vice versa.

Thanks

[tictoc 0]

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Of these lenses that are being discussed, which have threads for filters? Im not referring to the camera, but the wide angle lens itself. Also, please excuse the ingorance, but how does the lens number correlate with how wide the angle is? Lower number, wider field, or vice versa.

Thanks

Yes lower the # wider the shot. If I am corect the 110 has the same optics as the 100 if this is the case I would go with the .42 As the lens will thred streight on. If this is not the case and you need to use a step down ring I would use a .5 because the step down ring pushes the lens away from the lens of the camera, thus changing its angel. If you have a .5 and push it away from the camera you end op with something like a .47. All angels are in refrance to a 0 if you move the 0 than it changes the angel. The Kenko .42 is the only one that has the threds for a filter, the .5 does not.

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Some one must go to the edge for others to be able to find it. But if you go be sure you can make it back.

[Deuce 1]

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Of these lenses that are being discussed, which have threads for filters? Im not referring to the camera, but the wide angle lens itself. Also, please excuse the ingorance, but how does the lens number correlate with how wide the angle is? Lower number, wider field, or vice versa.

Thanks

The Kenko .42 is the only one that has the threds for a filter, the .5 does not.

Not true. Kenko makes severa different grades of lenses. Some of them have threads out front, and some do not. At $35 or so, you could consider just replacing the lens if it were scratched or something. the higher grade lenses, obviously, are more.

[tictoc 0]

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Not true. Kenko makes severa different grades of lenses. Some of them have threads out front, and some do not. At $35 or so, you could consider just replacing the lens if it were scratched or something. the higher grade lenses, obviously, are more.

Thanks for the clarification Deuce. All of the .5 lensas I had seen didn't have the threads.

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Some one must go to the edge for others to be able to find it. But if you go be sure you can make it back.

[AndyMan 7]

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The Kenko .42 is the only one that has the threds for a filter, the .5 does not.

My Kenko .5 does have threads for a filter. A quick look through bhphotovideo.com shows 3 different .5's in the same thread size.

_Am

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You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.