Kenko KCW-042 Wide Conversion Lens  

by J. Beale Aug. 9 2003

Kenko-042 Lens

This Kenko wide-angle adapter lens has a 37mm thread to fit many video cameras. In the image above it is mounted on the TR7000, a first-generation Digital 8 camera.  It makes your lens focal length 0.42 as long, giving you a very wide-angle view with some barrel distortion (not a true "fisheye", but close). I tried it on two Sony Digital 8 cameras: a TR7000 and a TRV720, and both showed vignetting (dark corners) at full wide setting.  Both these cameras use 1/4" imaging chips. I believe that many of the newer cameras use 1/6" chips and given the smaller chip size, might not show the vignetting with this lens, but I haven't tried it. The lens is designed for fully-wide use, and if you zoom in the image will become softer and smeared. I took the images below while standing in the same place, and zooming in from fully wide angle.  Both these cameras have 25x optical zoom: I only zoomed in about  2/3 of the way. You can go further but  the image becomes even more smeared.

Kenko KCW-042  +  Sony DCR-TR7000
TR7k-full wide TR7k-zoom2
 TR7k-zoom3 TR7k-zoom4

Kenko KCW-042  +  Sony DCR-TRV720
TRV720-wide TRV720-zoom2
TRV720-zoom3 TRV720-zoom4


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