Sony VCLE07A Wide Conversion Lens for Sony MiniDV and Hi8 Camcorders

I've had this gear for almost a year or more, using it quite often with daily use over weeks straight, and it's getting a 3 rating because the lens quality isn't up to snuff. I'd love to give it 4's since it's terrific... I mean, terrific... to quick-snap the lens on or off, instead of having to unscrew it, like most of the lens adapters out here. In a snap (pun-intended) you can switch from the wide lens to a telephoto adapter (if you have it) or just use the camera's lens naked. But there's a bit too much purple fringing, and the edge softness is too much to warrant anything more. I'd be almost willing for knocking another star off because, after all - it's about image quality - but these Sony cameras need wide angle vision, more than the manufacturers provided.

One other thing to warn you wonderful reviewers and end-users is that this lens does *not* allow for complete zoom-through recording. In other words, after zooming to about 4X, the camera loses focus and can't focus on far distances. It drops off a cliff by the time you reach 6X, and you're shooting the middle of a cloud any point beyond that. So if you want that option, look for a zoom-through wide angle lens. There are some out here that deliver good quality. Raynox and others, for instance, have a bunch of lenses (and even ultra wide and true fish-eye). Some are better and yet there ore others that just don't cut the roast like other lenses.

Buyer, beware. Any time that any manufacturer - even the original camera manufacturer - designs any optics for mounting in front or behind a wide-range zoom lens, there is a good chance that image quality will have been deteriorated significantly from the original lens. All those zoom optics moving in the camera means there's a good chance that you'll have vignetting, chromatic aberrations, color fringing, edge softness or worse.

It's hard to find a pattern of reviews for all the lens manufacturers out there, so quite often, you may take a gamble by purchasing without trying, since generic lenses are sold for all cameras they'll fit (and, imagine the tons of cameras out here!), so they usually aren't made for any camera at all, but more for making a profit. Look here in Amazon, and in camcorder and digital camera forum sites, to help you with your search, and please, post as much information in reviews here and elsewhere, to help all of us.

Again, this is from a shooter who's worked in one company for 25 years plus. I'm being as fair and forthright as possible.

Purchased this converter as I wanted something more compact than other wide angle converters. If you want the fisheye look, then get this lens, otherwise it's unusable for regular shots as it distorts perspective too much.

I have always put a wide angle converter on my miniDV and HD cams. I have a couple of Sony and Canon wide angles that cost anywhere from $100-$180. Those have little to no fisheye distortion and most of the time you can just leave them permanently on your camera for close range shooting.

I wanted to like this lens solely because it's compact and can easily be removed, but the image is just unacceptable.

Browsing around Walmart, I found this lens for $20 so I snagged one for my older Sony TRV-240 (Digital8 camcorder) All in all, it's a nice lens. I was hoping to maybe go a tiny bit wider, but anything much more than .7x would cause very noticeable barrel distortions. The mechanism to swap out the filters is nice too. It makes it easy to remove the lens quickly (leaving the converter on the camera) if you need to capture something without the distortion. Now I can't tell that this lens is coated, so it may get some flaring and such around lights or the sun.

Someone complained about it's size. Honestly, it's about perfect for my camera. I do wish it were a bit smaller, then it would fit on a 52mm adapter. Using a 52mm filter would give you a good template if you'd like to see about how large the lens is.

I bought this lense for a DCR-HC28 MiniDV Handycam® Camcorder, it does bring the adaptor for the camcorder, but the lense is so wide that it covers the focus sensor so it is impossible to use it this way.
It is a shame because the seller wouldn't take it back since the package has to be "broken" to take the lense out, so I'm stock with it for good. Even Sony Style has it advertised as compatible to my camcorder, WHAT'S UP WITH THAT!

I already own the VCL-0637H lens which is about twice as deep and is also about twice as heavy. I found this lens on clearance at a Walmart for $21 so I thought I would give it a shot. It was SO much lighter and looked much nicer because it didn't protrude from the camcorder as much. The carrying case for it is really cute too. I was so happy until I tried to zoom.

For some reason my camera can't zoom at all with it on, but I had no problems zooming in with the other wide angle lens. I only get about 1/3 of the way into the zoom and everything goes blurry. Maybe it was because the other lens was a 2-lens system and this is only 1? I tried slowly going into the zoom but it still didn't help. I get to that magic point in the zoom and everything went blurry. I know most folks probably won't be zooming in with the wide angle lens on. So, this lens may work just fine for them. But this meant that I would have to take it on/off more often. So, I'm giving it 4/5 because it was almost perfect.