The Vivitar .43x Auxillary Lens

This is an editorial. A few years ago I bought one of those cheap Vivitar .43x auxillary lenses. I wanted it to fit on my Tokina 28-70mm f/3.5 lens (which it did perfectly without an adapter). The reason I'm writing this is that I am finally very impressed with the versatility this lens gives me.

It comes in two parts. There is a 2.5x (focusing at about 4 cm) close-up lens at the back and the convex wide-angle converter at the front. You have to use both parts screwed together to get the wide angle conversion.

 

 

With this lens, my 28 mm Tokina lens gives me the effect of a 21 mm wide angle lens, which is a very nice wide angle since I also have a Nikkor 10.5 mm fisheye.  With my combination I have 10.5mm (which gives me the DX equivalent of 15 mm), a DX equivalent of 21mm, and a DX equivalent of 42 mm. Edge to edge sharpness isn't the greatest, but I work around it.