| Telephoto attachments, wide-angle attachments, and filters expand what your camcorder can capture.
Ever since little-known Dutch optician Hans Lippershey demonstrated the first refracting telescope in 1608, astronomers, photographers, filmmakers, and video shooters have been trying to get the maximum out of their lenses, those critical pieces of glass. The lenses that come standard with 99% of today's cameras are great for basic work with a normal (50mm) view, but at some point everyone needs more. Maybe the room is too small, and the shoot requires a wide-angle lens attachment. Or the subject is too far away, and the lens has zoomed as far as possible, so you need a telephoto add-on. Or maybe there's a call for a polarizing filter to reduce glare and make colors pop. Using optional accessories enhances your camera and lens, helping you customize your results easily and inexpensively.
Every camcorder can benefit from expanded emage-capture options via add-on attachments. The Sony VX2000 is shown here with a variety of Century Optivs products, including the .65X wide-angle attachment and the 2X Tele-Converter.
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If your camera features an interchangeable lens, a wide-angle or telephoto accessory lens can expand your options. Make sure that the accessory lens is suited to your particular camera. The size is printed on the original lens in millimeters (50mm, 49mm, etc.). Also, adapter rings can expand your options. Running a test in the store yourself is always best, but the prices you can find online are hard to resist. In the store you'll want to check for “vignetting” or unsharpness, and make sure the edge-to-edge sharpness is retained at the relevant focal lengths of your camera's zoom. Even though most DV cameras don't have interchangeable lenses (the Canon XL1 is the notable exception), that doesn't mean you're limited to the range of viewing angles offered by your camera's lens alone.
Computer-aided design has improved the quality of all lens optics. All but the very cheapest offer acceptable results, so chances are good that the lens on your camera will be an adequate base for a wide-angle or telephoto lens attachment.
On almost every shoot, at one time or another I use my .65X wide-angle converter lens attachment from Century Optics. Part of Century's Digital Series, it's made expressly for DV cameras. Whenever quarters are close, the converter provides me with enough extra room in the frame — 35% extra to be exact — to get the shot. If you are doing any indoor stuff in small rooms, it's a must-have. There's no fuzziness around the edges, like you'd get from a less expensive lens, even when zooming. It's only at the extreme ranges of my camera's zooming that objectionable edging occurs.
My only complaint is that the glass of the optional lens sits right at the front, with no metal lip to protect it. One must take extreme care near the front of the camera's lens and at both ends of the attachment. The Century product is just a huge piece of glass that, because of its size, cannot be protected by anything other than the included lens cover. Of all the accessories I own, this is the one I use the most next to my polarizing/skylight 1A filter on the camera lens itself. The .65X wide-angle attachment goes everywhere with me.
The Canon XL1 is among the few DV cameras that supports interchangeable lenses.
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I also have a 2X Tele-Converter from Century Optics that produces similarly superior results. However, I find that 2X is usually not enough, and what I really need for Christmas is a 4X for those ultra-close shots of wildlife. Featuring black anodized housings, both of my Century lens attachments screw on and off the camera in seconds. They come with handsome leatherette pouches for storage.
Of course telephoto and wide-angle lens attachments are not the only solutions available to customize your camera and what it captures. When it comes to effects, filters are hard to beat. I've used a starburst filter to shoot stage videos and polarizers out on the water. I have also used a dark blue filter to simulate nighttime during a daytime shoot. While your camera can record only what its “sees,” it can see very differently when outfitted with filters.
For example, when doing head and shoulder shots, I soften fine details to help people look their best. For this task I use a Soft/FX or Diffusion/FX filter from Tiffen. On outdoor shoots, I balance an overly bright sky with the darker foreground using Tiffen's neutral-density Color Grad filter. I can bring out the clouds in the sky or remove reflected glare from windows and water with a polarizing filter. I have purchased various adapter rings so I can use many of my old filters designed for still cameras.
There are tons of other accessories for today's camcorders beyond what I've described, so a visit to your local camera store or a search of the Web might be in order. New stuff comes to market almost every day. With only one professional-level DV camcorder offering interchangeable lenses, these products are not just nice — they are necessities. As more and more filmmakers look to the DV format as a cost-effective alternative to celluloid, I think we'll see more advanced add-on products for DV cameras. Possibly because there are so many optional third-party accessories for lenses, manufacturers are not coming to market with cameras that have interchangeable lenses. With the wide-angle and telephoto lens attachments from Century Optics, I am able to capture shots that the camera alone could never get.
There's a filter or an attachment to suit every need and every budget. Options for the new video formats are now appearing, and lens add-ons exclusively for HD video and the 16:9 aspect ratio will soon become ubiquitous. Today's optional accessories let you customize your camera and extend its flexibility in order to capture outstanding video.
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