H9 Wide Angle Lens - worth it?

[steadierfooting]

Hi, I bought a sony h9 last month. I travel fairly often, and do a fair deal of landscape photography. In December I'll be traveling to the southwest US, visiting the grand canyon, monument valley, and other misc national parks. On all the travel forums they all say, "bring a wide angle lens!"

The H9 comes with the (obnoxiously large) adaptor for the WAL. So I looked online for some. There is a good deal of choices for the lens, not sure what to get. Has anyone purchased this adaptor? What brand did you get, and are you satisfied with it? Does it distort the pictures noticeably around the edges?

The average price is about $100 for the lens, I'm willing to put out that much, and deal with the awkwardness of it if I get that one fantastic shot with it.

Thanks!

[CDixonM]

Hi, I bought a sony h9 last month. I travel fairly often, and do a fair deal of landscape photography. In December I'll be traveling to the southwest US, visiting the grand canyon, monument valley, and other misc national parks. On all the travel forums they all say, "bring a wide angle lens!"

The H9 comes with the (obnoxiously large) adaptor for the WAL. So I looked online for some. There is a good deal of choices for the lens, not sure what to get. Has anyone purchased this adaptor? What brand did you get, and are you satisfied with it? Does it distort the pictures noticeably around the edges?

The average price is about $100 for the lens, I'm willing to put out that much, and deal with the awkwardness of it if I get that one fantastic shot with it.

Thanks!
I'm not sure about the H9, but last year I bought a wide-angle from Sony online for my H2 (earlier version of the H9). It cost about US$120, and is very high quality. I've been glad I have it many times, and always keep it in my camera bag. It helps me create really dramatic landscapes when taking pictures from West Virginia mountain tops.

[clockdoc]

Have you thought of using a stitching program to create a wide angle view without the need for a supplemental lens? A great FREE program is available at www.autostitch.net I have joined as many as 12 images together with this program. While it works best to use a level tripod it is very forgiving of hand-held panoramic shots. Just remember to allow about a 30 percent overlap between pictures.

[Dotcoza]

Would like to know if you bought the wide angle lens for the H9? I'm also interested, but like to hear you review on it. I believe you also get the macro filter? I bought the tele conversion lens and have difficulty with focus. Working on it :)

[fishfool]

wow that autostitch thing sounds really useful

i was considering the h9
but does anyone have any experience using it for aquarium/reef photography?

we're having a discussion on our board (http://www.thereeftank.com/forums/f75/camera-poll-102370-2.html) about what wide angle lenses are best to use for underwater photography. A lot of use there are you know, neophyte kind of photographers, most of the people using Canon and Nikon. Does anyone have any suggestions that you could offer something to the aquarium enthusiast that maybe we just haven't had the exposure to? Of course, we have to take the lighting and water refraction into consideration, as well as the desire to capture the color in as most vivid a way as possible. Thanks.