01Apr Panasonic LX100 Wide angle adapter AG-LW4307, old but it works.
In the days of DV cameras, if you wanted a shoot with an angle any wider than the built in lens offered by the camera you had to use a Conversion Lens. With the advent of interchangeable lens cameras, this type of adapter has basically been forgotten. However, that doesn’t mean something like this isn’t useful today.
The $39 AG-LW4307 43mm adapter (above) isn’t needed for interchangeable lens cameras, but it is the perfect size for a Panasonic LX100. With this low price light weight adapter, you end up with some ultra wide angle option out of a camera that is otherwise limited to a 24mm focal length.
Here is a shot at 24mm from the Panasonic LX100. There is nothing wrong the image and it is reasonably wide, corner sharpness isn’t bad, and center sharpness is as good as you could expect from a point and shoot.
However, when you add the $39 AG-LW4307 43mm adapter, you can now see the entire bookshelf. With a 0.43x adapter at 24mm, your 35mm equivalent focal length becomes something close to an 11mm lens. Is the image even remotely sharp in the corners? Absolutely not. You won’t be using this adapter for the excellent image quality, instead, it is simply a cool effect that you can get out of an adapter that was originally meant for cameras that were manufactured 10 to 15 years ago.
It does look interesting and for $39, I can think of a few things this effect would be perfect for. It is hard to believe that I’ve been a filmmaker for over 15 years and that after all this time, I still have a use for old focal adapters like the AG-LW4307. Just something to think about, I bought this adapter for well over $200 to use with a Panasonic DV camera way back in the day. Now the AG-LW4307 43mm adapter sells for less than a 1/4 of that price.
I’ll definitely have to come up with some good excuses to bill out this adapter in the next few months. It is a cool look and I’m pretty sure it would make a very effective drunk/sick POV style image. Challenge excepted.
