Nikon 0.63x Wide Angle Converter WC-E63

General Information

The Nikon 0.63x Wide Angle Converter WC-E63 package comes with the lens and front and rear caps. See the image below. It is supposed to replace the older WC-E24. This new wide angle converter has a slightly better image quality and is more convenient in terms of using lens hoods and filters.

There are some important notes:

• After mounting this converter, the camera becomes heavy (see figure below). As a result, handle it carefully with two hands if necessary; otherwise, it is easy to break the camera's middle joint.
  Nikon 0.66x Wide Angle Converter Mounted on Coolpix 990

• Since this bulky lens blocks the viewfinder, use the LCD monitor for composition.
• This lens blocks the flash sensor completely and the internal flash partially. Moreover, the internal flash cannot cover the viewing area of this converter completely. Therefore, do not use the internal flash when this converter is mounted.

Since adding a converter on top of a lens always reduces optical quality, normally only the first one-third of this combined focal length (i.e., 24mm - 72mm), which cannot be obtained with the on-camera lens, will be used. The following figure shows the 35mm equivalent zooming range of this wide angle converter. The commonly used 35mm equivalent focal lengths 24mm, 28mm, 35mm and 50mm are shown on the scale. The relative positions are at 0 for 24mm, 10% for 28mm, 25% for 35mm, and 30% for 38mm which is the shortest focal length of the on-camera lens. If the combined focal length is larger than 38mm, use the on-camera lens.

Shooting in Wide or Regular Mode

You can use the WIDE mode on 950 or the Wide Adaptor mode on 990. See General Operations for the way of selecting a converter mode. Once this mode is selected, the on-camera lens is zoomed all the way out so that the combined focal length is 24mm (35mm equivalent) and both internal and external flashes are disabled. Please keep in mind that this mode is only available in M-REC.

You do not have to enter a converter mode to use a lens converter even if you are in M-REC. This means you can use this wide angle converter in the Regular mode. See General Operations for the details.

Close-Up

The minimum camera-subject distance is 9cm/3.51 in. If the distance is shorter than this, the camera fails to focus. Should this happen, you can use the Close-Up mode. In this case, the camera-subject distance can be brought down to about 3cm if the optimal close-up focal length is used (i.e., the close-up icon - flower - turns yellow). However, the front end of the lens barrel almost touches the subject (i.e., near zero working distance)!. The following shows an example when WC-E63 is used for close-up. The left image below is taken using the on-camera lens at the shortest camera-subject distance (i.e., about 2cm), the middle one uses WC-E24, and the right one uses WC-E63. As you can see, the magnification of the on-camera lens is higher than that of WC-E24, which, in turn, is higher than that of WC-E63.

On-camera lens, macro	WC-E24, macro	WC-E63, macro
Click on the image to see a larger one

Filter Issues

The filter thread size is 72mm. Vignetting may occur when a thick 72mm filter is mounted. Thus, test before you buy. And, if you can afford it, use a slim/thin polarizer to avoid vignetting.

Focus Distance

If you use Manual Focus in M-REC or use Infinity focus mode (i.e., the mountain icon) in either A-REC or M-REC, the focus distance is different from the actual distance. Consequently, you should ignore this distance and use the LCD monitor to make sure your subjects are in focus.

Examples

Here are a number of sample images. Most of them were taken using the widest focal length (i.e., 24mm), and hence the typical wide angle effect (i.e., converging lines) is quite obvious.

Click on the image to see a larger one

Technical Data

The following technical information are taken from Nikon's manual. These information are for 950 and 990 only, and should be different for other Nikon cameras.