Wide angle converters

Can I ask all you experienced snappers some advice (this is my first thread)?

I am thinking of changing my 17-85 lens for a 24-105L, mainly because I think the upper focal length would be more useful to me as a walk around lens, but also because I want an L lens. The only problem is that I think I shall miss the 17-24 range. Do any of you have experience of the wide angle converters (available on e-bay) that screw to the front of the lens and increase its angle of view? Any information and advice would be much appreciated.

sure they are a load of tosh and going to waste the quality of the glass, i was tempted but the science doesnt convince me and i remember putting one of those distorting wide angle convertors on a P&S a while back and was shocked how distorted the photos were. Save up for an ultra wide instead or a fish.... or even better wait for a full frame 24mm is wide enough

Yep, absolute rubbish. Horrible fisheye distortion and if you use them on the wide end of your 24-105 they will almost certainly produce massive vignetting which can only be salvaged by cropping down to the centre of the image (it's so bad that PS can't recover it with any degree of realism). If you do crop it of course, you cancel out most of the extra FOV you gained in the first place.

There are some better quality ones available from better manufacturers, but these aren't the ones found in large numbers on ebay.

WELCOME! - Don't even think about it, they are cr*p!

With my 24-105 I have the Canon 10-22mm for the w i d e stuff

You can bet that if they worked Canon would offer some very nice overpriced ones

Thanks to all you folk for your advice - my favourite comment was 'You can bet that if they worked Canon would offer some very nice overpriced ones'.

Thanks again and I'll save for a 'proper' wide angle!