I'm shopping for a camera that has a built in wide angle. Several of the cameras offer 4x or 10x or 18x wide angle which know is for a wide angle that is built in. What exactly is the difference between the different sizes. I need this camera to take photos of houses. The wide angle is needed to capture small bedrooms. Do I need more than a 4x wide angle to do this. How is the 18x that much different than the 4X?
A: 10X refers to how zoom it has. It doesn't really tell you the focal length.
For example: 100-400mm is 4X, but so is a 10-40mm.
You really should be looking at focal lengths, not zoom.
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Comments: 2
The quality of the pictures with the converter is going to be very low. You can check lens reviews on http://photozone.de/ and http://dpreview.com you should be able to find reviews of the lenses that interest you and compare them
The why it is going to be lower quality is a more complex answer, but it comes down to the fact that the corrections that were built in your lens do not assume additional optical elements in front or behind them. It is the same for tele converters...
The real wide angle lens would be best if your looking for quality pictures. The converter is usually a separate lens that screws on the front of another lens and makes it appear like wide angle. That's why they are usually much cheaper, but your not getting the full wide-angle that you would be gettiing from a true wide angle lens that would fit on your camera like any other lens. Hope this helps
A wide angle lens replaces (temporarily) your standard lens, while a wide angle lens converter screws onto the front of your existing lens (it requires that you get the right one based on the filter thread at the front of your lens).
If it were that simple we'd all be using wide angle converters and there would be no market for wide angle lenses, however there is, so why? Well, the reason is very simple, every wide angle converter I've seen causes horrendous chromatic...