New lens from Ebay seller

I have just received what I consider to be a "gift". I am an Ebay addict! I have to make an effort to stay away from Ebay because I find it so much fun bidding and winning or purchasing something I feel I cannot do without. I have bought all sorts of things, a hose for the swimming pool cleaner unit, bags for the vacuum cleaner, food saver storage bags - and all sorts of electronic and photographic gadgets!
My latest purchase was a last minute decision to bid on a wide angle lens that had only 13 minutes to go before the bidding was closed. I can't remember what limit I set for my bid but I know I was surprised that it was accepted and that I was the "winning bidder" For the princely sum of $27.50 (Aust) I actually became the proud owner of this.

My new lens is .45mm macro/wide angle that screws onto my 18-55mm Nikon lens.
I haven't really tried any close up photography other than play with the wrapping that was around the parcel so I will show what it is capable of another day. But I did try a couple of wide angle shots - the reason I wanted this was so that I could get more people in a shot or take more of a room when the camera was used indoors.
This was my first attempt at indoor wide with this lens. You will see some huge barrel distortion but I will then show you how that can be corrected.

To be honest I was blown away with just how much I was able to get in my shot. There is a black vignette which means that the lens behind (the 18-55mm) is seeing the outer rim of the lens. I shall have to be aware of that and not push the lens that wide.
In Photoshop this barrel distortion is corrected in Filter>Distort>Lens Correction and this is how much I corrected the barrelling.

The filter allows the image to be re-scaled to remove the distorted edges - but that is stretching the picture. I prefer to accept the correction and then crop the image. To be left with this . . .

 If I had taken this same angle of my home with the 18-55mm lens I would only have got half the bookshelf - to this side of the two white backed Encyclopedia in the middle shelf - and all the opening through to the dining room.
So I am going to have some fun with this extension!
AJ

Video for the Internet

Once again I have been experimenting with video for the Internet. I have installed yet another program on my "bursting at the seams" laptop and have actually managed to create a video that looks quite good when played back even though I converted it to WMF (a windows media file). I almost cringe when I confess to loading Pinnacle Studio 12 on my computer! But whatever works, hey! The program I bought off the net - AVS - kept the video quality and the sound quality but (and it was a big BUT) the pictures froze and then galloped to catch up several times which spoilt the fluidity of the video I had made.
I have removed the video made with AVS and instead I have put my newest upload there. Since you have not seen it anyway (I can tell) you will not remember what the first one was like!



I have made another attempt at putting the video into the blog. Lets see if it works for me today!
Using Pinnacle Studio I imported the video I had made on Premiere Elements and then used the feature offered that converted to wmf full screen size to file. It is possible to upload video that has not been converted but it would have taken over twelve hours. Once converted it only took 35 minutes.
I hope I have not bored you with my enthusiasm for this new technology! The kids have been doing this for ages and think nothing of it - I am a 'newby" and still get excited when I do something new!
Just in case the movie does not appear I had better include the link too!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb_kySXGfvo
AJ