Collinscraft .5x Redeye review

P

PDX_DVX

Veteran
I recently acquired a Collinscraft .5x Red Eye adaper. Alot of people on this forum like to see what a certain lense adapter "looks like" before they decide to buy one. So here it is, a few grabs and some photos of the red eye, and the image it produces. The Red eye is a .5x aspheric lense adapter that claims to increase the field of view of your lense by 50%. For more information on the lense itself, visit www.collinscraft.com. You can also purchase them from www.vfgadgets.com

The first thing I noticed about the adapter itself was how simple, yet well built it is. It's made for for ENG community, and so it's quality is meant to withstand the everyday wear and tear involved. Surrounding the glass is an anodized aluminum enclosure with a textured surface that makes it very easy to thread onto the lense. Unlike some other adapters, the red eye actually screws into the 72mm threads on a DVX, so you know that it's secure. As a comparison, the overall size of the red eye is similar to that of a scre in filter, which allows it to be used even while a matte box is attached. In these grabs, I had the unit screwed on top of a UV filter, and also had the stock DVX lense hood attached, and I got no vignetting from the lense. It is a non-zoom through adapter, so you must use it at full wide on the DVX.

A few photos of the adapter:

http://static.flickr.com/33/57264366_ccc1d67729.jpg?v=0.jpeg

http://static.flickr.com/27/57264365_91e9e45b34.jpg?v=0.jpeg

http://static.flickr.com/25/57264364_a2ccf95371.jpg?v=0.jpeg

http://static.flickr.com/33/57264363_026afa76e1.jpg?v=0.jpeg

*When using the adapter, it's really important to make sure you have no dust on the lense. I usually dust off both the DVX's lense, and the red eye with a can of compressed air prior to mounting. The reason that dust is such an issue, is because to use this adapter you must use the macro focus on the camera, making it very easy to actually focus on the dust that is on the lense.

In this set of grabs, the lense is about 3'' away from the box of MQ tapes (I figured I would use something that we all could relate size to). Iris is at f2.4

http://static.flickr.com/29/57264368_e497279eac.jpg?v=0.jpeg

The same scene, same framing WITHOUT the red eye. f2.4

http://static.flickr.com/29/57264367_d4dfec8a7e.jpg?v=0.jpeg

The next set was taken from a distance of approximately 47''. In these you can see some obvious barrell distortion along the edges of the closet door.

http://static.flickr.com/28/57270120_a3d4db0298.jpg?v=0.jpeg

Same framing, without the adapter:

http://static.flickr.com/28/57270121_7ae9a0507b.jpg?v=0.jpeg

With the adapter:

http://static.flickr.com/30/57270122_00b3a0bee7.jpg?v=0.jpeg

without:

http://static.flickr.com/25/57270123_89af04bf93.jpg?v=0.jpeg

http://static.flickr.com/33/57270124_a91ccb957e.jpg?v=0.jpeg

There you have it. Now you know what you're getting if you decide to buy a collinscraft .5x red eye. Sorry for the low quality of the grabs, I didn't have much time to set any of this up.




 
great pictures. thanks.

so the questions is... would you recommend buying this lens to others?

i have the CE .7x W/A (which is definitely great) but i'm now heavly thinking about picking one of these up.
 
I would deffinetly recommend this lense. I haven't used it too heavily yet, but it's so simple you can't really go wrong. It's easy to use, and actually works pretty well with auto focus on if you wanted to go that route.
 
PDX_DVX - Thanks for the review! I considered the Collinscraft .5x Red Eye adapter at one time, but after the lack of first hand testimony I ended up with the CO 0.7x.. Your grabs look really clean and I might consider picking up one now.. The "low" form factor is definitely a huge bonus... especially when compared to the CO Death Lens (fisheye..)
 
I have the Red Eye normal wide.. and was pretty impressed by the results of a single element system.. they use good glass.
 
Can this red eye work with the wide angle or do they work separately? cuz im looking for some attachment that works inconjunction with the wide and not separate ententes.
 
Next time, take some pictures using 4:3 , outdoors, and point the camera at something like concrete, where we can see the sharpness of the lens. And use png compression.
 
Will do.....I might do a more in-depth test of it, it was really dumb of me to do it with letterbox. It was sort of one of those things I did in haste out of excitement of having a new toy....Maybe over spring break I can do some more...
 
dang, thats a bummer. It was the perfect compromise for me between a big heavy expensive fisheye, and a not so fishy .6 century wide angle......I bought mine used for about 250.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top