Saw the Sony Wide angle .8 lens today

Steve Shovlar

Steve Shovlar

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On the Sony stand today it had an EX1 with the new Sony wide angle .8. It fits by bayonet and is a nice lump of glass. Playing with it you can zoom through, and showed little in the way of CA. ( I didn't see any)

Meant to come out in March wih a list of £300. I will buy one straight away.
 
that's before VAT. But yeah. It's pretty nice! Odd to have it on the display ex1 all the time as it confuses people...anyway, I have one on order, been told two weeks by Mitcorp who today were taken over by Creative Video creating an monster new company in the UK that will completely dominate...in a good way I think though!
 
Philip,

Excuse my non-EX-1 question... So, what percentage of VAT is added to the price and is it the same for everything?

Best Wishes,

Bob Diaz
 
I plan on getting a wide angle adapter for my EX1, I like to go wide. I wonder what's better quality, the Sony version or a third party like Century/Schneider Optics? And is this high-end glass and I wonder if it affects the sharpness in any way?
 
Hello Buck on a more pleasant thread!

I haven't seen the Century one and it isn't due out for a couple of months. I think it is .7x? All I can say is both Steve above and I have seen and played with the Sony .8x and it's great. We couldn't see any loss in resolution and still sharp edge to edge and best of all it's dirt cheap! I have ordered one, been told two weeks. It will also make fitting a matte box onto the ex1 much easier. Which is great. Both Steve and I had a right result at this exhibition, one stand was selling 4x4 Formatt filters. I bought loads of grads, 7 in fact for $60, not each, $60 for the lot!
 
And I now wish I had purchased a load more. Been playing with them this afternoon on the camera and they are all gooduns. Formatt 4x4's are not cheap either. The sellers had purchased them as a job lot from a company that had gone pop. They were raking it in. Cash too.

As for the wide angle, £300 +VAT is a bargain for this WA. I normally buy Century but they are likely to be 3 times the price, as I doubt very much they will be three times better.
 
I spoke to the Sony product Manager about the WA Adapter at the show and he said it's approx 90 days from being ready to release. Apparently the one on display at the show was the first of few that was close to producing the results Sony are looking for.

It's nice to know that they are making sure it's spot on before releasing, I too am keen to get hold of one. It's much more compact than the WG-H72 I used on my XH-A1, almost looking the same external diameter as the focus ring.
 
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When he said 90 days, I thought he said 9, so he confirmed his time frame by saying "probably in June". Maybe they are going to let you have a pre-production model? Or he might have just be playing it safe when I asked, I guess time will tell.
 
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I've just ordered one through my supplier who told me 2 weeks, which was confirmed by the XDCAM main guy. It's already 2 and a half months late! Fingers crossed it isn't June.
 
jagstang said:
When he said 90 days, I thought he said 9, so he confirmed his time frame by saying "probably in June". Maybe they are going to let you have a pre-production model? Or he might have just be playing it safe when I asked, I guess time will tell.
Click to expand...

When I told my dealer (the same one as Phil's) that I'd heard it wouldn't be available until March he was quite insistent that was too pessimistic a view and that it should be out "in a couple of weeks".

I'd say it was salesman over-optimism except when everyone else was quoting several weeks for PMW-EX1 he said "about 2 weeks" and delivered in one!

UPDATED 28TH FEB 2008: Seems the Salesman WAS being too optimistic as I'm heading off to Vegas this weekend without it and March looks like being the date after all. I'm currently being told it should arrive NEXT week. I know some folks have already had one from the same dealer so there are some about (Lesson learnt: When you place a large order don't pay a bundle price that includes goods available "soon" - hold the cost of the delayed stuff back so you have some bargaining power)
 
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