I received an email message about another photographer’s impression of the Canon Wide Angle Adapter for the Canon Powershot G9. It differs greatly with my own experience.

“I think your Canon WC-DC58B lens for the G9 must have been a bad sample. I’ve had reasonably good results from the little work I’ve done with mine. The corners are definitely soft, and there’s a lot of CA and barrel distortion. The latter can be corrected in SilkyPix and the former can *mostly* be eliminated in the same software. Here’s an sample taken using my G9 and WC-DC58B (on a Lensmate), developed using SilkPix:

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/ajcarr/2341545476/>

In ‘All Sizes’ you can see the full-resolution image to pixel-peep the corners, but I certainly don’t have any objections to the centre or even edge resolution (just the corners). It must be said that the Canon TC-DC58C for long focal lengths is a much better piece of glass (probably far easier to design, as well). Looking at the samples on the Lensmate site, the Raynox lenses are substantially worse than the Canon lenses (although the Raynox macro adaptor DCR-250 seems to work extremely well).

Anyhow, many thanks for your very informative and interesting blog.

Best regards,

Alun”

I respect the opinion of others who have tried the same gear as I have. And frankly, Alun’s shots are excellent.

Just goes to show you, opinions vary. Always consult more than one person when making a decision about gear!