Century precision 0.6x wide angle , any good ?

No, he's invented a small hypothalmus stimulator that allows him to work for 23 hours straight and then have the 24th for his kids.
 
Have used it with my DVX. It's very sharp, but as Barry noted, does exhibit noticeable barrel distortion.

It's handy for super wide shots where you're not zooming (it works only on the wider part of the zoom range) and is quite a bit lighter and more svelte than the heavy .7 full zoom through adapter.
 
If you want wide for the HVX, with no barrel distortion, then I think the best way to go is with the Redrock M2, with a Nikon 17-35mm 2.8. No barrel distortion at all and extremely wide. if you want wider than that, get the Nikon 14mm 2.8 on the M2.
 
i have it and its great, it has a little zoom but u dont need it. I use it to shoot action sports so its just fine, have not noticed any distortion. well worth it.
 
Justyn said:
I'm interested in this adapter as well. How much zoom through does it have... if any?
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It does provide for some zoom-thru, but not a whole lot.

Also, anyone buy the full zoom through .75?
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I believe it's not out yet.

Another thing I need is a lens extender.. like a 1.5 or 2.5... any recommendations there?
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The only option available is the Century 1.6. I've got that one too and I think it's pretty darn good. Only knock against it is that it's only 1.6x, it would have been nicer to have a 2x, but hey, it's the only one in town. Works well. Can't zoom out too far though or it'll vignette.
 
Barry and all... Thanks for the info. I need to get both of those .. wide and tele adaptors along with a matte box...

Thanks


Justyn
 
Justyn said:
I'm interested in this adapter as well. How much zoom through does it have... if any? ...
Click to expand...

I played with it at the DV-Expo West Show. As I recall, the little bit of zoom allowed was ABOUT 2:1, but I may be a bit off. There wasn't a whole lot of range, but a slight amount to work with.

Bob Diaz
 
Bill Turner
Schneider Optics here,

The 4.2mm-55mm zoom on the HVX200 is a very good lens. It does, however have more barrel distortion (at 4.2mm) than the DVX (at 4.5mm). A wide adapter like our Century .6X adds distortion of its own and the combination is more than with the DVX. The quality is very good and you can zoom thru about half the range - if you use auto focus and allow the camera to track focus - before the image becomes unfocusable.

The larger size (82mm) and wider angle make most current wide converters for the DVX and similar cameras unuseable :they will vignette and clip the corners at wide angle and in addition they may not be able to perform at the high level necessary to match the camera's HD resolution.

We had to design a brand new converter from scratch for the camera. The prototypes have been completed and tested and the .75X will be officially introduced at NAB later this month. We expect to begin deliveries of production units in early May. Until then we believe the .6X Century wide adapter is the best option for wider shots than the camera lens alone.

Bill Turner
Schneider Optics
Century Division
 
This is somewhat off topic, but is a wide angle converter lense something to use if you were to try and emulate some of the stuff terry gilliam does? like, for example, that part in brazil where the one guy is trying to kill the fly which sets the whole story into motion?
 
spencer said:
This is somewhat off topic, but is a wide angle converter lense something to use if you were to try and emulate some of the stuff terry gilliam does? like, for example, that part in brazil where the one guy is trying to kill the fly which sets the whole story into motion?
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Yeah. Gilliam frequently uses wider lenses to showcase his sets and make them seem bigger and more expansive, as well as to allow for deeper focus/greater depth of field, and a bigger angle of view. The trade off is that if you're close on people's faces, they will distort as well, features will seem exggerated (noses, for example, will look bigger), but this can be a deliberate aesthetic choice.

The Century .6 for the DVX distorts a bit too much to leave on the camera all the time unless you're going for that type of effect for an entire project, but it's handy when working in small spaces where you can't get the camera far back enough or the stock lens isn't wide enough to allow you to get everything in frame that you want. Also useful for shooting architecture (though again, with distortion), building interiors (to make them seem larger and more impressive). For example, I used the .6 for a shot in which a guy falls down a flight of stairs, to the exaggerate the effect of the fall; the stairs seemed more imposing and higher.

In terms of 35mm movie camera super-wide lenses, there are fish-eye lenses and rectilinear lenses.

Fish-eye lenses allow for a wider angle of view, but noticably distort; the farther a straight line in your frame is from the center of frame, the more curved it will look (for example, the edge of a building). This is what the Century does (though it's not as extreme as a super-wide fisheye lens).

A rectinlinear lens is constructed to render all straight lines as straight, though this results in a linear stretching of the image that increases as an object gets closer to the edge of frame.

The 04/2005 issue of Arri News has a good explanation of the above, as well as stills from both types of lenses.

Check it out here:

http://www.arri.com/entry/news.htm
 
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Cool, thanks for the info. I was wondering how gilliam made those shots look so different from a standard shot, and just recently thought of putting the two together. Shows how much I know about cameras (at least i'm learning though)
 
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