Good addition for digital cameras.

I bought this lens converter for my Canon PowerShot G3, which has a 4x zoom. The convert makes the lens the equivalent of a 6x zoom. The purchase price was $60 on eBay, which included the required adapter.

The pros:

At first I was a little disappointed when I first used the lens in my living room because the difference between 4x and 6x didn't seem all that significant. However, I was blown away by its performance on my trip to Alaska. At full zoom, the converter was the difference between seeing a gray squirrel-shaped blob on a branch at 20ft vs. filling the frame with the squirrel and being able to count its ear hairs (the squirrel's not the lens'). The same went for my landscape shots as well. I wish I could attach competing pictures because it's hard to imagine how your subject looks 1.5 times bigger in the frame. I had the luxury of comparing shots taken of a bear with my film camera (Pentax PZ1-P) and a roughly equivalent focal length lens (28-105mm) vs. the G3 (140mm lens) plus the converter. The difference was incredible. If my calculations and assumptions are correct, a perfectly square bear that is 2" on a side in a 4"x6" print (24 square inch area) has an area of 4 square inches and accounts for 17% of the area of the print. With the 1.5x converter, the square bear is now 2.8" on a side with an area of 7.8 square inches, which translates to 33% of the area of the print. The increased area of the subject makes for a more detailed and eye-catching composition that pops.

All of this is accomplished with no loss of image quality. The image quality with and without the converter was totally indistinguishable. The detail captured with my little 4 megapixel camera was absolutely amazing.

Lastly, the converter is easy to put on and remove so there's no problem going from unextended to extended shots. However, because of the design of the G3, the lens cap can't be used unless the lens base cover is replaced after removing the converter adapter.

The converter is relatively compact and light weight, especially compared to the G3. The lens, adapter, lens caps, and leatherette pouch weigh 8.8oz total. The pouch containing the lens and adapter is a cylinder measuring 3.5" wide and 5" tall.

The cons (only 2, both minor):

The converter can only be used near full zoom, otherwise, there is vignetting. Canon probably could've made the adapter differently, but it doesn't really matter since I really bought the converter to extend the maximum zoom.

The converter lens itself is not threaded so filters can't be used. I'm a big fan of polarizing filters, but I'm out of luck with the converter lens. The vivid function of the G3 does a great job of saturating the colors, but there's no way of easily reducing glare without a polarizer. It wouldn't have been too difficult to thread the lens. Points off for Canon there.

Conclusion:

The photos I was able to take of bears and glaciers were worth the $60 and 2 minor gripes many times over. I would highly recommend buying the converter lens to make a great camera even better.