Canon WD-H43 ... Where?

eBay (straight from Japan) May have to wait a bit...

there is another company (if you froogle the model number) but AVS won't allow me to post the link or the name even. That may indicate this is a problem retailer (A V A L I V E)

B & H Photo

They don't list the "H" on the website, depending upon stock status you'll see two WD-43 lenses on their website, one priced at $129 the other $199. If one or the other is out of stock it may not show up at all on their site.

The $199 2072B001 is the "H" model, received mine last week and the lens is marked WD-H43.

They also carry the TL-H43 telephot (nice lens) and the DM-50 microphone. DM-50 works well and does help to attenuate tape transport noise during quiet ambient background moments.

for Canadians, try contacting amazingphoto.biz (their temporary website). I've just picked up mine yesterday for CAD$220 (essentially less than B&H photo, not to mention the shipping fee).

B&H has it in stock, just order it via their web link

Your search for "wd-43" returned 1 item(s)


Canon Price : $ 199.95

Shipping Cost

WD-43 43mm 0.7x Wide Angle Converter Lens

Mfr # 2072B001 B&H # CAWD43Q
Availability : In Stock

Quantity

is it WD-43 or WD-H43? those are two different lenses.

Canon's part number is 2072B001, WD-H43 is descriptive nomenclature.

Reread my original post, it should answer your questions. B&H doesn't post the "H" designation on their website but they do have the lens for sale, use the Canon part number and not the description.

Yeah, I read that, but if the description says WD-43 and they in the end send the WD-43 as described and not WD-H43, you're SOL.

The Canon part number indicates that it is a WD-H43:. Besides, with B&H you can return it if it's not what you want.

I've lead the horse to water, I'm done!

I bought my WD-H43 from mediasupplystore.com. I believe the price was $159, something like that. I love the lens!

LOL.

What camera's does this lense work with? HV-20?

i ordered the century optics 0.55x 37mm wide angle adaptor for my hv10 this morning from b&h. i did call them up to ask the difference between this model and the canon one other than the obvious that the canon is 0.7x.

[this hv10 is the absolute first camcorder i've ever owned although i'm a longtime still photographer. so far i've only 'shot' about 5 minutes of video in my front yard to make sure the camera worked. that's the extent of my video experience. [g] anyway, in 40 years of still photography i've never put such an adaptor in front of one of my lenses and i'm pretty restrictive about my use of, or choice of, filters as i assume that anything in front of a lens degrades the quality somewhat unless engineered and designed as an adjunct to the lens.]

after praising my choice of the hv10 (!) the sales agent said that you could use zoom with the canon adaptor and that the century adaptor had to be used at the wide end of the zoom only because it would not focus while zooming or at longer focal lengths.

i ended up ordering the century adaptor due to the wider angle and because it was about 1-1-1/2 inches shorter than the canon. but i'm sort of having pre-arrival 2nd-guessing already. i admit i was envisioning having a 20-200mm zoom which is about 10 times more useful than 40-400mm

can anyone who has used both let me know more of the pros and cons? or if a 3rd brand might be even more useful.

thanks,

/guy

thanks for the information. i know that in optics you never get something for nothing. perhaps even if it gives me 20-40mm or 24-90mm with only slight distortion it might well be worth keeping for the price.

i'm wondering why it is that video cameras don't seem to come with what i consider a wide angle lens? i typically see 4-6mm (is this the equivialent of about 30-40mm?) in my 35mm world not having a lens that goes to at least 28mm at the wide end is a severe handicap. for my nikon d200, even though i have the 18-200 (which is actually 28-300 when you factor in the sensor difference compared to 35mm) i also have the 12-24mm which is the equivalent of 18-36mm.

i should have it tomorrow or wednesday, so i'll report back the results as i see them.

thanks,

/guy

well, one should see the regular camcorders as the point and shoot of movie cameras. Most point and shoots are starting around 36mm equivalent and most camcorders are at 39mm. The main reason is that most buyers are into zoom power (look, my camera comes with 2 bajillion X zoom!) and it's easier to make more powerful zoom if it starts from a not-wide-angle focal length. Furthermore, creating a cheap wide-angle lens is very expensive making them prohibitive for any consumer-level camcorders.

that makes sense. for my p&s camera i selected a panasonic that has both a 28mm lens and 16:9 format. but you are right, a 28mm is the exception and, afaik, is the widest available from the major p&s brands.

my hv10 manual has a totally confusing section in the lens specs:

Movies HDV/DV (WIDE): 43.6-436 mm
DV (NORMAL): 53.0-530 mm
Still images 16:9 still images: 43.6-436 mm
4:3 still images: 40.0-400 mm

which seems to imply that the lens is wider in the 16:9 mode than the 4:3 mode when shooting video, but exactly opposite (wider in the 4:3 mode) when shooting stills.

also, i guess i need to go find a conversion to find out how much more of an angle-of-view you gain by going from 4:3 to 16:9. or are those focal length figures above already taking this into account?

thanks,

/guy

yup. HV-20 16:9 capture is 39mm and 4:3 (still) is 36mm.

double yup regarding the 28mm lens in P/S cameras. As an aside, IMO 28mm in 16:9 mode is useless because none of the print paper is in 16:9 (3:2, 4:3, 4:5, 5:7, 3:1, but no 16:9 paper standard). Does your Panasonic actually capture 4:3 or 3:2 at 28mm equivalent?

hi david:

well, on the face of it that seemed an easy enough question to answer, but i failed. i have the panasonic lx2 which has a 10m sensor which is native 16:9. the number of pixels goes down to 8.5m in 3:2 mode and 7.5m in 4:3 aspect ratio.

but neither the camera manual nor the in-depth dpreview revealed what the focal length equivalent of the lens was at other than 16:9 aspect ratio where it is 28-112mm. nor were there any figures on degree of angle or field of view on any of the aspect ratios.

and i don't print, so that doesn't bother me. i picked this camera over others with higher quality (panasonic is notorious for noise above 200asa) because it's all wide all the time and displays so beautifully on my mac cinema display and 1080p television.

/guy

well if you hardly print, then the 16:9 mode is the perfect match for your viewing habit. I personally wish they have 16:9 paper and photo albums because it's a nice compromise between APS panoramic and APS 3:2 (after all, the old APS format had 3 AR: 3:2, 16:9, 3:1 albeit it's only a matter of cropping).

got the century optics .55x converter in today and although i didn't actually shoot anything through it yet, i formed some quick impressions ...

you are right about the distortion. loads of barrel distortion at close distance. but i expected that.

what i didn't expect was having to turn off the insta-focus mode and go back to normal focus mode. you would think (or, i thought) that the external focus sensor would be a help, not a hindrance. but canon is right, i could find focus only about 5% of the time with insta-focus on.

using regular autofocus there was less hunting, but the focus is slower. and, as expected, focus was not attained past about 40% of the focal length. so at a rough calculation you would have what would, in the 35mm world, a nearly ideal ~24-80mm/~f1.8-2.5 lens. actually that was about what i had hoped in my original post.

i sure don't like having to go into the menu to change the focus mode. but, i've decided to keep the converter in spite of these negatives for the following reasons:

it's schneider and i doubt any better quality is available. very well built and includes back and front caps, a vinyl case, and step-down adaptors.

it's tiny, only a couple of mm's longer than a filter. fits in a cranny in my already small hv10 bag.

and i discovered that i could hit the 'focus' button to go into manual focus. since i mainly want this for panoramic vistas i suspect that most of the time i could hold the 'focus' button for 2s to go directly into infinity focus.

the bottom line is that in spite of the clumsy workarounds, they are worth it for the benefit of having a 24mm (43.6 * 0.55 = 23.98) lens coupled with the 16:9 format for those occasions when you can't have it too wide short of the fisheye look.

thanks for the help.

/guy