Digital Concepts 0.45X Professional 43mm Wide Angle HD Lens with Macro Review

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(More customer reviews)I purchased this 0.45X Wide Angle accessory lens to attach to my HV30 Canon HD camcorder. For a lens under $30 (my price) it was more of an experimental purchase with little confidence that such a cheap piece of glass would compliment a $600 Hi Def camcorder. I am still in shock after performing a wide variety of test footage and stills over the past several weeks. In a nutshell, if I scratched or damaged this lens to make it unusable I'd have another on order as soon as I got back online.
There are many generic accessory lenses out there to fit the Canon HV30 43mm threads. And many have proven to be worth the equivalent of a fishing sinker with multiple problems like lens barrel vignetting, halo'ing, fringing, fisheye, blurring at the edges, inability to create sharp focus, and about every other performance flaw you can imagine. Its the old adage "You get what you pay for." This BUCKS the rule~! This lens, identified by the brand name Digital Concepts and made by Sakar in China (although the lens barrel says JAPAN) is everything those others are not.
I have filmed (video mode) recent ice carving sculptures and can't tell the difference between the HV30 normal lens and the sharpness and color reproduction of this wide angle lens nor can "blind tests" with my friends viewing the footage tell the difference. Corner to corner, side to side, ZERO Vignetting in full wide angle and no fisheye'ing, and oh what a pleasure it is to have so much additional "real estate" in the frame. The fireworks display I shot that night was no different than the normal lens quality except I had a much wider field of view of the bursts. Clear, sharp, colorful imagery. Absolutely no distortion of any kind.
Ranging through the Wide Angle to full Telephoto settings provide accurate focus, sharpness and no imaging problems except at full telephoto where a soft focus look was apparent. Backing off just a tad on the zoom setting put the scene immediately back into crystal sharp focus. This really is not much if any problem because you are getting the lens for WIDE ANGLE usage and so to use telephoto/zoom with it is contrary to its best use.
Even with a 62mm UV filter and a flower pedal lens hood/shade on the end I had NO vignetting of any kind in VIDEO mode. Switching the HV30 to Camera Still Frame mode showed some minor concerns that were correctable. Because the still photos taken with the HV30 have a wider view than the Video framing, there was some vignetting of still frames in the corners when at full wide angle. BUT this ended up being due to the UV filter and lens hood added to the front of the lens. A slight zooming will eliminate this vignetting. But when the lens hood and UV filter ring were removed, the still frames taken, even in wide screen 1920 x 1080 were sharp, clear, and clean with no vignetting or sharpness problems. When wanting to take still frame 3.1 MP photos, you just need to remove the hood and UV filter and shoot to your heart's content. BTW, when the flash is not needed for exposure, the HV30 will shoot 3.1 megapixel stills in high speed continuous mode at 10 frames in about four or less seconds. Pretty cool for shooting fast action sports for great still captures.
I've shot traffic intersection scenes in video mode at 1/8th sec. shutter speeds in low light with this lens with remarkable effect of motion blur and sharpness of static non-moving images at the same time. In MACRO mode, with the outer barrel removed, it will at least double your effective close up framing with absolute clear, sharp focussing no different than the normal lens.
Sorry for the long winded review. But this particular lens has far exceeded any expectations and with PERFECT performance. As I said, I'd buy another in a second if anything happens to this one. And because this lens has a 0.45X wide angle view, it FAR EXCEEDS the 0.7X CANON WD-H43 wide angle view which is 5 TIMES the cost of this lens. If you want more real estate in your frame, this is the one to get. IF I get the time in the future I'll try to do a Video Review so you can see for yourself. Be FOREWARNED....the 2X Tele Extender lens by the same company is a piece of crap and I had to send mine back. It was as useful as viewing through the bottom of a coke bottle bottom on the HV30~!

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Digital Concepts 0.45X Professional 43mm Wide Angle HD Lens with Macro.HD Digital Lens.Optimized for Megapixel Photography.Multicoated Optical Glass.High speed Auto Focus.Infrared Compatible.Includes Carrying Case & Caps.Lightweight Steel Barrel Design.

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Nikon Capture NX Software for Windows and Mac Review

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(More customer reviews)I was one of the first to download the full-featured Nikon NX software on a trial basis in July 2006. I was immediately hooked. This is a very innovative software program that most photographers who shoot in NIKON RAW format will want.
For those not familiar with RAW format, essentially a RAW format photo file enables the photographer to make post-shot changes to a photo to a much greater extent than is possible when shooting conventional JPEG file shots. So, for example, if one wishes to adjust the exposure on a RAW photo, you can do so and the effect is essentially the same, within the range of a couple of F/stops, as though you had shot the picture that way in the first place (there are exceptions to this beyond the scope of this review). The same is true for many other settings, such as Color Mode (SRGB versus Adobe, for example), White Balance, Sharpening, etc. You can modify some of these to some extent on JPEGs, but when you do there is always a loss of data--while there is no such loss when modifying RAW files. The bottom line is that if you botch a setting shooting RAW files you are much more likely to be able to salvage the photo if you shot RAW, as compared to if you shot JPEG. If you are shooting a wedding or some other critical event where failure is not an option, only a VERY competent expert would not opt to shoot RAW, in my opinion at least.
Capture NX enables the photographer to make very significant enhancements or adjustments to RAW, or to some extent JPEG or TIFF images. The centerpiece of the program is what Nikon calls "Control Points." The program enables one to place control points at various locations on a photograph, and thereby control or modify the color of selected portions of the image. What is even more amazing is that the program also enables the user to make very fine selective adjustments to other effects, such as sharpening or D-lighting, such that only selective parts of an image will be sharpened, for example.
Other programs have offered the ability to do what Nikon Capture NX can do, but in my opinion I have seen no other program that is so intuitive, and so easy for the photographer to learn. Many photographers, especially non-pros like me, want to spend more time taking photographs and less time behind the computer in the "digital darkroom" modifying them. Capture NX is designed for precisely that--it really is very intuitive and easy to learn.
I found the NX user interface to be better than that of Capture 4.4, which NX replaces. Others have differed on this point, but I very quickly became comfortable with the more orderly layout on Capture NX.
There are a few areas in which version 1.0 can stand some improvements in future upgrades. Certain menu options stubbornly return to default settings rather than remain at the user's last (and usually preferred) setting. Despite the good user interface, there are a few areas that will stand some tweaks in future upgrades. In short, NX V1.0 has a few rough edges as first-release versions of software usually do. Nonetheless, in most respects this is a polished product that certainly is ready for "prime time," in my opinion at least.
Like Capture 4.4 before it, Nikon NX want a LOT of memory. A fast CPU and at least 1 GB of RAM is recommended.
Overall, this is a remarkable product that I highly recommend to any photographer who shoots in Nikon's RAW format.

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Nikon Capture NX 2 Full Version Review

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(More customer reviews)As a long-time user of Photoshop, I was frequently disappointed with the colors in my digitally-manipulated photos. It's possible that it's because I'm not savvy at creating masks in Photoshop. After looking at demos on the Nikon website, I decided to give Capture NX2 a try and was very impressed with the color controls like D-lighting (simply shadows/highlights in Photoshop), and the ability to easily make local changes. One of the best features of Nikon Capture NX2 is the auto-retouch tool, which replaces a selection with something else in the picture with similar surroundings. I can't tell you how this has saved many wedding photos. To me, this feature alone is worth the purchase price.
Although I like this program a lot, the interface is extremely clunky. It's hard to browse the edit list on the right-hand side as the list gets longer. Capture NX2 is slow, even on a powerful desktop. I can't see it becoming part of a regular workflow unless performance is improved. One of the nice things that it allows you to do is copy the edit list from one file and apply it to another, but this is also painfully slow.
If you're looking to give this program a try, download the 60-day trial from Nikon before making a purchase decision since it won't appeal to everyone.

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