Your expertise is required...

Deliverance XXV

Hey guys. I need your help. I'm still a beginner so forgive my ignorance...

Right, I'm off on hols next month. I wish to have my camera equipped to deal with all possible scenarios over there. My camera is a Sony DSC-H7.

The question I have is would there be much of a difference buying off the Sony Accessory shop online or off eBay off of a reputable buyer for much much less?

Here are examples...

Telephoto conversion lens

1.7x Sony shop about €220

3.0x Telephoto lens Ebay €75 (includes other accessories)


A spare battery €13 eBay

Macro Rings Ebay €36

And finally, supposing I have the 3x telephoto lens added to my camera, coupled with the standard 15x optical magnification what would the total optical magnification be? Hardly 45x?

DaireQuinlan

Honestly, I wouldn't bother with any of these. With the possible exception of the spare battery, in which case you'd probably be better off getting a proper Sony branded one, or at least some reputable brand. There's a lot of complete crap peddled on Ebay.

Your camera already has (according to DpReview) a optical zoom range of 31-465mm. This is pretty enormous. I'd say you'd be hard put to find any DSLR users here that would go on holidays equipped with anything like that range.
Anything you stick on the front of your lens will degrade the quality of the image. Those cheap telephoto converters are notoriously bad. The macro capabilities of the camera also look quite reasonable, without jamming another couple of magnifying glasses on the front.

Just get a UV filter for the lens so if the worst comes to the worst you can screw up the UV filter and not the front of the lens, and some sort of lens hood, and you're away.

Deliverance XXV

Thanks for the fast reply. I only ask as he has a great reputation on eBay for selling these things. I went through a couple of his negative feedbacks and they all looked like competitors trying to get an upper hand/or a genuine mistake? As for the battery, my camera is supposed to have the battery power for 1000 shots. I havn't tested that out yet, but seeing as the eBay battery was only a few quid I though it might be handy to have?

EDIT: As for trying to add some more magnification, I'm a big fan of taking photo's of things like jetski's or faraway boats and birds/wildlife etc so I thought (hoped) a tele conversion might someway benefit me?

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

Honestly, I wouldn't bother with any of these. With the possible exception of the spare battery, in which case you'd probably be better off getting a proper Sony branded one, or at least some reputable brand. There's a lot of complete crap peddled on Ebay.

Your camera already has (according to DpReview) a optical zoom range of 31-465mm. This is pretty enormous. I'd say you'd be hard put to find any DSLR users here that would go on holidays equipped with anything like that range.
Anything you stick on the front of your lens will degrade the quality of the image. Those cheap telephoto converters are notoriously bad. The macro capabilities of the camera also look quite reasonable, without jamming another couple of magnifying glasses on the front.

Just get a UV filter for the lens so if the worst comes to the worst you can screw up the UV filter and not the front of the lens, and some sort of lens hood, and you're away.

DaireQuinlan

King Nothing wrote: »

EDIT: As for trying to add some more magnification, I'm a big fan of taking photo's of things like jetski's or faraway boats and birds/wildlife etc so I thought (hoped) a tele conversion might someway benefit me?

It might do, depending on how concerned you are about the image quality. More than likely it'll result in a soft or blurry image that's low in contrast. Those adapters are compromises, in most cases poor ones. It'll transform your lens at its longest into a 1395mm lens and probably knock a couple of stops off it. I'd say you'll be disappointed even for only 75 euros. Thats why these things keep on selling. People try them, picture is ****, they say ... wellll it was -only- 75 euros, toss it into a box and forget about it.

Stephen

Your camera has more range built in than most. I'd have to use a bunch of lenses with my 1.5x crop dSLR to get the same.

Deliverance XXV

Okay thanks for the heads up guys