5050 Telephoto / Wide Angle opinions?

[Lexiticus]

I have an Olympus 5050z, and since I generally only take scenery and panoramic's with it, I wanted to get the Telephoto and Wide Angle lens kits for it.

I live in Canada so its impossible to find lens's offline, So I checked Ebay and tried a few official stores. But generally speaking I will have to order from the States or Japan.

One guy in Canada was selling the 5050 with Both lens (Looked like the official Olympus ones too) So I asked him to sell me just the 2 lenses, (And when no-one bid on it (he was asking 450 USD, with a reserve price) he emailed me back

But he wanted 400$ for both lens and the adapter ring. Which to me seemed very pricey. So Now i'm back to looking across the border.

I see a lot of 50$-100$ ones that aren't officially olympus, and they look fine, but I was wondering if anyone has any experience with them? (usually 2x 3x or .45x)

and if so what name brand, and any other information you care to share.

Thanks

(PS I moved this from the Olympus forum, didn't realize there was an add-on Lenses forum)

[bilzmale]

I would recommend you stay with the Oly lenses. I assume you have looked at the TCON-17 and the WCON-07. I have both and can definitely recommend them. A useful review is at http://www.wrotniak.net/photo/c5050/wcon-tcon.html


Bill

[Lexiticus]

Ahh thank you! This type of review was exactly what i was looking for!

Ya these are the 2 lenses the guy wanted to sell me for 400$, (CAD)
How much did you pay for yours? Because I can't actually get these in Canada without paying at least 200$ for each of them.

[plg3]

Take a look at "Permaraal On-Line" (http://www.pemaraal.com/index.html ) run by Peter Liontas. They carry both the TCON-17 and WCON-07. -- total price for both lenses about $220 US plus shipping. I bought both of my add-on lenses (B-300 (predecessor to the TCON-17) and WCON-07) from Permaraal and was 100 per cent satisfied with the transactions. Good communications and no surprises. BTW, both of the lenses are top quality and I've really enjoyed using them on my Oly C-730. You will also need to purchase an adapter, Olympus CLA-1. And if you use either the TCON or WCON, you will also need a step up ring, 43mm to 55mm. Hope this helps.

Paul in Northern Virginia (NoVA)
Oly E- 500 C- 730
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stoney_g/sets/

[bilzmale]

I purchased them separately and total price was about $470 Australian, so $Cad400 seems about right but you may do better buying from US.
Olympus produced several versions of these lens (for C5060, 7070, 8080 etc) so make sure you get the 55mm thread and the Oly adapter CLA4 (or CLA1 plus generic step-up ring).

Bill
Lexiticus wrote:

Ahh thank you! This type of review was exactly what i was looking for!

Ya these are the 2 lenses the guy wanted to sell me for 400$, (CAD)
How much did you pay for yours? Because I can't actually get these in Canada without paying at least 200$ for each of them.