Decent telephoto & wide angle lenses for Canon A80?

Does anyone have recommendations for telephoto & wide angle lenses
for the Canon A80, other than those that Canon makes for it? Each of the
Canon lenses sell for about $150/160 Canadian, + $30 adaptor. I know that
with lenses you usually get what you pay for, but other postings have lead
me to believe that there are some reputable third-party lense makers around.
As an example I enclose a recent post from a Nikon Dpreview forum:

Forum
Subject Re: Telephoto lenses
Posted by Ching-Kuang Shene [CLICK FOR PROFILE]
Date/Time 7:44:32 PM, Sunday, April 18, 2004 (GMT)

I classify converter lenses into three categories:
low-end, mid-range and high-end. Those in the low-end category are cheaper
but has the following problems: power is not necessary the marked one (i.e.,
2X may be only 1.5X), soft to very soft image quality off center, and
significant chromatic aberration (e.g., strong purple and green fringes).
The three lenses listed above are in this category. The converters in the
second category are acceptable and usable but not necessary cheaper than
those in the high-end category. Raynox lenses are in this category. Some
Raynox lenses are very good that can be in the low end of the third,
high-end category. As for the high-end category, these lenses are all very
good to out-standing (w.r.t., consumer grade optic quality). For example,
Canon, Minolta, Nikon and Olympus all have excellent converters.

If you prefer to have quality over cost, size and weight,
consider the TC-E15ED 1.5X, TCON-14B 1.45X and TCON-17 1.7X, in this order.
The TC-E15ED is small and of light weight, and should be your first choice.
See an overview of these lenses on the "Converter Lenses" page of my 5700
user guide.

When you mount one of these converter lenses on your
camera, it is very likely the zoom range becomes very limited. You can zoom
back a little but not by much. As a result, you will have a gap between the
maximum focal length of your on-camera lens and the minimum focal length
(with the converter on) without vignetting.

Hope this helps.

CK
http://www.cs.mtu.edu/~shene/DigiCam
Nikon Coolpix 950/990/995/2500/4500/5700 User Guide

 

There are reputable lens makers around, but will their lenses work well
in conjunction with the existing A80 lens?

In the case of a SLR, when you change lenses you remove the old lens and
mount the new one. Thus, the designers who create each lens know that
it will be used on its own, and they can completely chararacterize the
performance of that lens, making tradeoffs as appropriate.

But the A80's lens isn't removable, and these add-on "telephoto and
wide angle lenses" are really just afocal lens systems that act to
change the field of view. The converter plus main lens work together,
and this cooperative arrangement can work well or badly. Canon's
converters are designed to couple specifically to the A80's lens.
Third-party converters are either designed for some other lens
(e.g. Nikon, Olympus, or a Canon converter other than the recommended
one), or are designed for no specific lens at all.

Thus, I'd expect the recommended Canon converter would work well, while
others may be good or not so good. You should at least be prepared to
test any other converters before depending on them.

Dave