Quality?? Cheap Wide Angle and Telephoto Lens' on Ebay

Can anyone comment on the quality of the lens conversion kits available for the G3 and G5 on Ebay.co.uk. They are selling cheaper asian made lens' for approx. 55 pounds sterling for a converter attachment, wide lens and telephone lens. Seems like a good deal but it's not really worth it if the quality of the lens' compromises the original canon lens.

I believe the important word is "cheap".

-Darryl

But cheap isn't always a bad thing, is it??. Maybe the lens' are being made at the same production site as the Canon badged ones but are sold at a fraction of the price because they don't come with the Canon big-name branding. We shouldn't always equate price with quality.

Don't buy it!!!
At some point I was considering one of the cheap lenses on ebay. The seller was kind enough to send me sample pictures. The quality was below any critique. All pictures showed horrible distortion outside the center circle.

G series cameras have a very good lens. Putting anything in front of it will affect quality. If you really must have a converter go with trusted brands: Olympus, Canon, Kenko, Tiffen. If you think about it, the price difference is not THAT big.

Thanks for the advice, I think in that case I think I'll steer clear of them.

I want to get as much telephoto as possible so I can get some quality surf photos. If anyone knows of a decent add-on set-up for a G5 which doesn't cost and arm and a leg, please let me know

I don't remember the brand that cheap lens anymore, but I can show you one of the pictures he sent me. See for yourself. The lens you are considering may be better or may be worse, and I'm quite sure that you are going to experience problems similar to what you see on that picture.

http://pantheon.yale.e​du/~vm49/6-15-03-005.jpg


There is a guy in Japan that made a lot of tests of different converters with G series cameras. I remember that he recommends Olympus TCON-17. Check out this site: http://kazutoku.maxs.j​p/converter/index.htm . I used TCON-17 with my G2 and did not notice any weird problems. You can get one for about $100.

I bought a cheap fisheye on ebay for $40. It's not the best but it's usable. It has a lot of CA (especially blue on the vignetting, (it's 46mm, didn't know that when I bought it..)) and it gets soft on the edges. For just taking fun photos you could buy a cheap lens like that, but now I want one that works better with my camera. Any suggestions for a 52mm fisheye, post them.
Here's a shot from yesterday with my lens:

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