Canon G6 Converters

The Canon Powershot G6 arrived today and I'm very pleased with its overall condition. 

I was keen to get a Canon G series camera because of their handling, image quality, ease of use and features. I used a G2 about 10 years ago and loved it. I've wanted another ever since. I was especially keen to get this G6, because it also came with wide and telephoto conversion lenses.

The lenses are from Opteka, and simply screw on to the front of the adapter tube that can stay on the G6 at all times. The tube allows the use of 52mm filters or, of course, the lenses.

So what sort of difference do they make? I fitted the adapter on the G6, placed the wide conversion lens on, and took some images to find out.

First, without the wide angle, the lens on the G6 goes down to 35mm. This is what it looks like.

So what happens when you put the wide conversion lens on with the adapter...?

Oops. At the extreme wide end it gets, well, extreme. You can see the adapter tube showing at the corners - not really a good look. Don't know if this happens with the official Canon wide angle conversion lens - but it certainly does with the Opteka brand. You can crop in a little, and still get a wider image than you get without using it. Looks like this...

Even cropped, the image is probably still around the 28mm mark, and is obviously wider than the wide end of the G6 without the adapter.

If you zoom in a little so that the adapter edges go away, you get this...

Probably around the 30mm mark. Wider than the G6 lens, but not super wide. Don't know if I'd bother pulling it out and using it on a regular basis, but if you need to get a little wider it's good to know it's there.

The same is true for the telephoto converter. Without the adapter lens the Canon lens goes to 145mm.  This is how close it got me without changing my position for the wide angle shots.

When I attached the Opteka telephoto and kept it at the greatest telephoto setting, this is what I got...

Is it closer - yes. Is it remarkably closer - nah. Again, it works - but... Not sure it's going to find me reaching for the teleconverter for this kind of result. 

So all-in-all, even though I was excited about the possibilities the wide and tele converters would afford me, the actual results with the Opteka converters are less than impressive. I'll hopefully get outside this weekend and have a better play. But initial results ain't that impressive.

I am happy with the G6 though. Great little camera with a stellar lens, and really good image quality from a compact sensor. Looking forward to capturing some great travel images with it.