Metabones Speed Booster - An Unbelievable Adapter on Vimeo

Metabones Speed Booster

Looks like a fantastic investment!! Check out what it can do for the NEX cameras.

Very expensive as well but will give you a new set of lenzes :) I wish he had filmed some more real life stuff instead of the toys, those images don't say much.

I plan on ordering the Metabones adapter this week. But not this one. According to Metabones neither one of them AF very well at all. I am getting one out of necessity to use my Canon glass.

This thing makes some pretty outrageous claims. It would have to be explained to me how adding another glass element between my lens and sensor is going to make it "sharper and faster".

Well, if it lives up to it's claims I"m getting one, not immediately since my bank account is still recuperating from buying the Sony but in a few months yes, just the fact that you can get a total different focal length with the same pair of prime lenses and a stop of extra light sensitivity is unique. I already have a simple non electronic simple adapter that utilizes the cropfactor and then the speed booster could give me 3 new focal lengths for my 3 primes.

Just have to wait and see until more user experiences appear.

It did throw me for a loop. Here I am about to order the normal one today and now they have this one.....

I don't care a lot about the focal length change because my Canons will have a huge range covered with the standard adapter. So that leaves their claim for sharper and faster.

My glass is all Canon "L" series. That is damn near as sharp as you can get. How is adding another third party's piece of glass going to make my lenses sharper?

Faster, now that interests me. But I can't wrap my head around how it works.

For the extra 200 bones I think I will go standard for now. A DVINFO user will have to tell me they really gained a full stop on every lens.

Steve

Made my decision and ordered the standard adapter today. Even if the MAGICAL speed booster tuns out to be the real deal I can always order it later. For now I need to get my Canon lenses back in the line of duty.

Call me a cynic, but making my good glass sharper and one stop brighter seems like, "to good to be true to me" and that means it probably isn't true. I will be glad to eat my words if I'm wrong. Time will tell.

Steve

I think metabones is a company that cannot afford to trow out false claims as they have a very good reputation for building quality stuff, but I must say I"m asking myself why no-one has ever came up with the idea to build such a device before? It does eliminate the cropfactor AND makes the lens a stop faster, that sounds revolutionary to me. If it would also eliminate the moire and aliasing I would drive over to metabones to get one now :)

It is old tech - not new Klingon tech - it will shake the market....
First approaches from 1928 are not so good but the new Mirrorless Design allows it to push it to High End State of the Art Level.
Two Optical Cracks gurus Brian Caldwell and Willfried Bittner are the Designer
Made the Top Class lens Coastal Optical systems Designer 60 mm UV IR (4650! Lollis)

http://www.metabones.com/images/metabones/Speed%20Booster%20White%20Paper.pdf


and here other facts FS700 Speed Booster adapter:


24mm T1.5/36mm crop1.5 = full frame 24 T1.1
35mm T1.5/52.5mm crop1.5 = full frame 35 T1.1
50mm T1.5/75mm crop1.5 = full frame 50 T1.1
85mm T1.5/127.5mm crop1.5 = full frame 85 T1.1


FS700 crop 1.5 MB EF-->E adapter


24mm = 36mm
35mm = 52.5mm
50mm = 75mm
85mm = 127.5mm

A DVINFO user will have to tell me they really gained a full stop on every lens.

You'll gain a T-stop, not an f/stop, but yes the image should be brighter.

Straight from the bosses mouth guys.

Hey Chris, you probably don't remember me being around but I was really active here back when this place was the XL Watchdog. I went on hiatus for several years and recently returned. Congratulations on turning this into the most informative site on the web for us video pros!!!

Steve

Of course I remember you, Steven -- much appreciated! And a belated welcome back!!

Hey Chris,

I came to research a new camera purchase and got caught up in all of the great information and community here. I'm hooked again!

By the way, because of the research I did here for that purchase I had to go over to the dark side and buy a Sony after fifteen years of being a Canon guy! Who says old dogs can't change.

Has anyone here tried the speed booster with the Rokinon Cine lenses? Amazon.com: Rokinon CV85M-C 85mm t/1.5 Aspherical Lens for Canon with De-Clicked Aperture and Follow Focus Compatibility Fixed Lens: ROKINON: Camera & Photo (http://goo.gl/yRyp2n) and Amazon.com: Rokinon Cine CV35-C 35mm T1.5 Aspherical Wide Angle Cine Lens with De-Clicked Aperture for Canon EOS DSLR 35-35mm, Fixed-Non-Zoom Lens: ROKINON: Camera & Photo (http://goo.gl/q3JnrL)

I've used them with other Cine lenses, but not the Rokinon one. Just make sure the flange distance works.

The most obvious thing you lose, because there is no lens control means there is no aperture control, no IS, no AF. (not that AF is very usable with EF glass anyway).

Tests of this adapter with various lenses:

Sony NEX-FS700 with MetaBones Speed booster and Tokina 11-16 / Canon 24-105 - YouTube

I've had mine for about 2 weeks. Use it with my ancient Nikkors. Amazing tech without question. Worth evry penny IMHO.

In low light, the tech is unreal. Day for night, in most instances, will go away.

I'm using mine for a few weeks now.
It's a nice addition when you use fullframe photo lenses.
You gain approx. 2/3 of a stop, but don't forget that chromatic
aberrations and resolution falloff at the edges of your picture will increase too.

There's no magic with the speedbooster. This kind of technique is used
for many years in some focal reducers in EB-lenses and some photo lenses
too.

You really need to find out, if the benefit is worth 600 bucks for you.

As I need a reasonable fast run'n gun lens and the Sony 18-105 doesn't work
for me and my FS100, the speedbooster with a Canon 24-105/4,0 makes
some nice stabilized f2,8 lens throughout the range.

Hey you guys --
if you're shooting fully manual, you might be into this:
FD FD lens mount focal reducer speed booster adapter to Sony NEX 5 6 7 FS700 FS100 VG20 EA50 (http://www.rjcamera.com/ocart/index.php?route=product/product&path=20_65_66&product_id=58)
its a $140 non-electronic speed booster for using old fd manual focus canon glass on your EA50….
i've been buying tons of great super cheap lenses, & with this adapter get full frame goodness as well as an extra f-stop! i've hoarded @ 7 lenses, & paid on average @ $50 apiece.

Made my decision and ordered the standard adapter today. Even if the MAGICAL speed booster tuns out to be the real deal I can always order it later. For now I need to get my Canon lenses back in the line of duty.

Call me a cynic, but making my good glass sharper and one stop brighter seems like, "to good to be true to me" and that means it probably isn't true. I will be glad to eat my words if I'm wrong. Time will tell.

Steve

what do you mean by "standard" adapter. if you mean the "smart adapter" thats not a speed booster. thats something else

Made my decision and ordered the standard adapter today. Even if the MAGICAL speed booster tuns out to be the real deal I can always order it later. For now I need to get my Canon lenses back in the line of duty.

Call me a cynic, but making my good glass sharper and one stop brighter seems like, "to good to be true to me" and that means it probably isn't true. I will be glad to eat my words if I'm wrong. Time will tell.

Steve

its obvious you are skeptical, so i'm assuming you haven't seen one of these videos. this was posted here like a year ago.

Sony NEX-EA50 - Metabones Smart Adapter II vs. Metabones Speed Booster on Vimeo

To me the "standard" one is the one that still gives you a speed increase so it has a lens element inside it BUT doesn't communicate with the camera so you have no auto focus and no auto iris either!

Over here the full blown adapter is crazy prices like $600.00 ++ but you can get a speed booster as per the post 2 up from this for as little as $140.00 ...Chris Young sent me a link to much the same for a Minolta to NEX that also has the same features and is manual as most Rokkor lenses are also vintage and manual anyway.

I figure I don't need the fully auto version anyway ... as long as you are able to change aperture manually (Nikon lenses don't have an iris ring!) then shooting in manual is fine.

Steven? Is your metabones once without the glass element or not??

Chris

Chris Q,

You dug up a very old post of mine, not in terms of years or months, but in progression. This site has Metabones stories all over it. The problem with that is, it is an adapter made to work with many different camera models and lenses. So there is no, singular good place for the posts.

Chris H.

For clarification: Metabones still offers both types of adapters. The Speed Booster has the glass element that functions as the focal reducer and speed booster. The Smart Adapter has no glass element. In fact, they both operate from the same firmware. The Smart Adapter is named that way because it does communicate with the lens and camera to provide aperture control and other functions.

My old stories are not worth digging up. Here is multiple posts and the story summarized.

I bought the Metabones Smart Adapter II almost at the same time the Speed Booster was released. That is the post you just dug up. I was skeptical about the Speed Booster at the time. It was later proven to all be true, the Speed Booster works and has many happy users.

Early on, I did have problems with my smart adapter. Initially, I was very unhappy with the response I got from Metabones and documented the long story on this web site. When Metabones finally got involved in my case they did it in a big way. Their response was over and above the service I would have received from just about any other manufacturer I have dealt with. In fact, they proved to me that MY NEW CAMERA was faulty and needed to be returned to Sony for repair. It was returned to Sony and repaired. Metabones updated my firmware, and everything has worked since. I am more than happy with my adapter. That adapter means I have five expensive Canon lenses in service on my EA50. That was the plan when I chose the EA50. I had to work out the kinks in the faulty camera (factory repair) and update the adapter firmware before I got everything working as it should.



Steve

Edit : Chris Q. The video above was not out when I made my purchase, but I have seen it. I have also eaten my skeptical words many times. I am thrilled I have an adapter that lets me use my old Canon glass on a modern video camera. Metabones rocks!

You may wish to see the video I shot in Japan and Taiwan last last year with Zeiss primes on the Metabones Speed Booster. AVCHD 50P @ 1/50th, 0-12dB Gain and F1.2 - F2.0 at the sensor. All post production completed in 10 bit ProRes 444 and exported as a 10bit .DPX Image Sequence.

'Good To See You' - seven minutes of cinema! on Vimeo

Scenes from my video have been used to demonstrate certain features of ClipToolz new 'COLOR' tool: ClipToolz Examples (http://cliptoolz.com/ClipToolz-Examples.html)

Chris Q,
You dug up a very old post of mine, not in terms of years or months, but in progression. This site has Metabones stories all over it. The problem with that is, it is an adapter made to work with many different camera models and lenses. So there is no, singular good place for the posts.

Edit : Chris Q. The video above was not out when I made my purchase, but I have seen it. I have also eaten my skeptical words many times. I am thrilled I have an adapter that lets me use my old Canon glass on a modern video camera. Metabones rocks!

oops, so sorry. must have read date wrong. it said january, so i must have thought it was january 2014