Digital Concepts Telephoto and Wide Angle Lens Kit for the Canon S3 IS

I've owned 4 digital cameras, 3 Kodak, one Canon. My favourite is the Canon S3 IS. It's a 6 megapixel beast which sports a 12x optical zoom. You can't beat a good fast camera with a high optical zoom. For going to the zoo, the park, nature pictures this is a really nice camera to own. Mine cost me around $450, but they can be had now quite a bit cheaper than that. I expect to see even further price reductions now that Canon has come out with the S5 IS. From what I can tell, the S5 is basically the same camera, but uses the digic III processor instead of digic II and is an 8 megapixel vs the 6 MP from the S3.

But this entry isn't about the camera itself, but on the cheapy lens kit that I purchased on eBay.

The lens kit I purchased is the Digital Concepts Camera/Video Widge Angle & Telephoto Lens Set. This set is compatible (with some adapter rings) with a number of different digital cameras including mine, the Canon S3 IS.

The set itself appears to be of high quality, it comes with a 2x telephoto lens, a wide angle lens, an adapter tube, some adapter rings and 3 filters. The quality seems to end at the apparence.

So, I slap the new adapter tube and telephoto lens on the camera and take a couple of pictures...is "crap" a good word to use in a review. The pictures remind me of ones I would take with a cheap camera, a cheap camera whose lens is covered in bacon grease. I am so dissapointed with this purchase that I wouldn't even give it away.

So, buyer beware. I have no idea what the quality of pics would be like with the "real" lens kit from Canon, but the piece of cow manure that I purchased off eBay isn't worth putting in my camera bag.

I still love my S3 IS and fortunately with 12x zoom it's still a nice long distance camera. I guess if I want to move my zoom up a notch I should be looking toward a full digital SLR camera. I just thought I'd try to go the cheaper route this time, big mistake.