Adapters for the 170/150 coming!

Hi:

Received my .06 WA adapter for my 170 today from Century. I have not shot any footage with it yet, but did walk around the office with it. Very impressive for the money. Just beware that at full wide, it does exhibit significant barrel distortion around the edges. You can zoom in the lens quite a bit and still keep focus, which was surprising. Basically infinite depth of field. Based upon just looking at the 170 screen, I don't see any visible softness or degradation of the picture but I will have to shoot some tests and view on a real HD screen to really know if it does degrade the picture quality.

If the widest setting on the HPX170 is the 35mm equivalent of a 28mm FOV, then using this adapter at full wide gets you a 16.8mm FOV. Pretty wide. Great mounting system, feels solid.

Will post some stills or footy when I have a chance.

Dan
 
Still waiting on our guy from the west coast to get me some grabs.

I'm glad you got yours ok Dan.

Andrew Hoffman
 
Pardon my stupid but what's the difference between these lenses and those that already exist for a 72mm lens a la DVX?

Other than the bayonet mount I mean. Does the HD designation imply better glass or better translation to a 16 x 9 setup?
 
kidwoo said:
Does the HD designation imply better glass or better translation to a 16 x 9 setup?
Click to expand...

Bingo. This glass is optimized for HD. I have used a DVX100 adapter on a Z1 and it looked like crap, soft all around the edges and just nasty looking while it looked great on the DVX.

Dan
 
puredrifting said:
Bingo. This glass is optimized for HD. I have used a DVX100 adapter on a Z1 and it looked like crap, soft all around the edges and just nasty looking while it looked great on the DVX.

Dan
Click to expand...


Thanks for the response.


So does it then logically follow that HD specific lenses are better for ALL cameras, IE: the cleanest solution for SD cams as well?

The reason I ask is that I own a DVX.......with plans to buy an HPX170 in the near future. I WILL be buying some sort of telephoto, should I just go ahead and get the new one since it will obviously suit my future camera and potentially be better for my current one?
 
I have not tried it, but I don't know if the bayonet mount on the DVX100 is the same as the HPX170. That would a good question to e-mail Century on. Why not get it straight from the horses mouth?

The DVX100 adapter I used on the Z1 was not a Century, it was 72mm thread one.

Dan
 
Ok I got my lens today. I was not even gonna test it cause I am super swamped but saw the thread while I was waiting for something to render out. Popped it on and shot something really quick. Sorry no with adapter/ without adapter test. First impression much wider and more barrel distortion than the Super Fish of the Hvx200. Bummer I never have liked fisheyes all that much but really liked the look of that lens cause it was much more mild. Still this is a good lens and I will put it to use. My main gig is shooting snowboarding so I am sure most of the riders will love it cause of those things it's just my personal preference. I was always more of a wide angle lens guy myself.

http://www.jeffheit.com/fishtest.mov
 
this is good to see, i've been waiting to see how this lens was going to look before i bought anything, i was also looking into an hvx200a with an extreme fish or this if it was acceptable, due to the cameras smaller size and obvious advantages. If it isn't to big of a deal, i would love to see an actual picture of the lens on the camera, just for a reference compared to what my dvx100b with fisheye would be.
 
jeff, thanks for posting that up. that looks a lot better than my 16x9 lens.

terrell, just buy it already! gonna call you later bout eastern vid.
 
The lens is actually quite small. Just a lil bit bigger than a fisheye you would put on your digital slr.
 
i would love to actually see the lens mounted on the camera also. I still wonder how it compares side by side to a HVX with an Extreme Fisheye. I just don't see how the extreme fisheye could use so much glass and this lens, if it is the size i think it is, can use so little. there has to be some sort of catch to how cheap it is unlike the extreme fish of the HVX.
 
I think the reason this lens is able to use less glass is due to the fact that the lens on the camera itself is wider than an HVX200. Just based on the little clip I saw here I still don't think this lens is nearly as wide as the Xtreme fisheye. But it does have some decent distortion. I'd really like to see all this stuff in person before I buy it but I'm getting real antsy and I still can't think of a more solid choice in cameras right now than the HPX170, just gotta hope for the best I guess.

I'd love to see more footage.
 
Century lists the 35mm equivalent of the hpx fisheye as 13.2 mm with a horizontal field of view at 107.5 degrees.

On the hvx extreme the 35mm equivalent is 17mm with a horizontal field of view of 92 degrees.

Just as a comparison, the VX2100 with Mk2 fisheye is 35mm equivalent of 13.5 mm with a horizontal field of view of 125 degrees

So it looks like this lens is like a widescreen version of the MK2 with some more distortion.
 
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