Nikon P5100 as Digital Holga

Nikon Coolpix P5100, Opteka 3.3x Tele Converter

I received this as a gift, having placed it on my wish list. I was curious how it stacked up to the enormous and expensive Nikon equivalent, the TC-E3ED 3x Tele Converter.

Opteka 3.3x AF High Definition II Telephoto Lens

It sucks. But, it has redeeming qualities, namely that it turns my P5100 into a digital Holga of sorts. It gives me a range of 115.5-405.9mm full of chromatic aberration goodness, lomographically speaking. It’s inexpensive and relatively compact, and I like it a lot. If it cost and weighed as much as the TC-E3ED, I wouldn’t like it as much.

If I need to get this close with the P5100, and still have a reasonably sharp image, using the 4x digital zoom or cropping in Photoshop would be a better option. But neither of those options can duplicate the qualities this lens imparts.

This begs the question, would a similarly inexpensive, moderately wide Opteka converter give me similar lomographic results? It wouldn’t be a big investment to find out.

incidentally, these lenses work just fine with SLR lenses.