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Metabones Speed Booster review


Andrew Reid
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According to Metabones, the maximum aperture of the lens being adapted, mostly due to space constraints, is f/1.2, resulting in approximately f/0.9.  Roger Cicala over at Lens Rentals is going to try a Canon 50/1.0 on it just to see what happens.  

 

http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2013/01/metabones-magic

 

The Speed Booster white paper talks about the Kubrick NASA/Zeiss f/0.7 lens, BTW, which used a focal reducer as well.

 hmmm ... ok. Interesting.

 

 

 

the slr magic lenses for m4/3 actually have this type of speed booster within them.  they're just the same as a f1.4 full frame lens with a reducer (like the speed booster) in them  they dont cover full frame, and have too short flange focal distance so cannot be used with this type of adaptor anyway..

 

Ok. And, what about other faster lenses. Anything in the f.95 range which can be brightened further? A Y, I am looking forward to a test, too, which pushes it beyond the f.90 threshold too. hmmm ... 

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"In no way is the Metabones adapter giving us a poor man’s full frame image here."

 

Uh oh... just wait for it. :)  You know this is going to be the talk of every indoctrinated 5D fanboy on the planet. "Don't let those speed-booster shooters fool you... they're not shooting on REAL FF cameras!"

Anyone want to take bets on when the "real full-frame look" cine-meme will show up? I say 2 months.

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Barrel distortion and not as sharp.

 

Still a great product, but this hurts being used on narrative film.

 

Doc users will be all over this. Maybe BMCC users as well because they are in dyer need of wide. I don't think F5 or F55 users would touch this if given for free.

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@lafilm

 

Barrel distortion is a function of the lens.  If you see it with this adapter it would show up on a FF camera.  Next.  (forgetting the fact that strict prohibition of barrel distortion of any magnitude is kinda silly outside stodgy industrials and ENG stuff that tends to be flavorless in every way anyhow...).  Oh, and your "not as sharp" comment is 100% incorrect.

 

Your second comment makes no sense at all.

 

Wide options exist for M4/3 and BMCC type films.  I seem to remember wide shots in Slumdog Millionaire.  Oh look, it's even smaller than the BMCC.  Oh look, it won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography.  Who'dathunkit?  Not folks that handicap based on a spec list and their preconceived notions instead of the observation of reality and results.

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All of this is great IMO.  The Cons of the Metabones Speed Booster are insignificant IMO.  There's always some limitation of flaw in the effort to get more and more out existing lower cost tech.  As it always has been.  Right now tho, this opens up a lot of possibilities and I can't wait to see how this all plays out.  Hopefully the m43's version works out just as good.  

 

 

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thank you for this very informative test andrew.

 

but don´t be fooled. you are not getting a ff camera, you are getting a wider lens, that´s all.

 

a crop image with the same dof as a full frame or medium format will always look different. that´s why people shoot hasselblad. because the physical size of the sensor defines how space is rendered. it has little to do with the lens or that actual focal length. a large format shot at f64 with everything in focus from 1 meter to infinity will look very different from the same shot on a smaller format with the same dof. i can´t tell you why, but my eyes tell me. the larger the format the more "relaxed" the image looks i think.

 

also a lens is a complex system where each component is produced specifically for it. the same glass for every lens out there doesn´t sound like a great idea. that´s probably why nobody really did it yet. andrews great test shows it. works for some, for some it doesn´t.

 

i´d rather get an actual 35mm on s35 if i want the angle of view of a ff 50mm. especially if i have to stop down anyway for the same corner sharpness.

 

the added stop in sensitivity will come in handy no doubt, also for wide angle on the bmc this might be a blessing until someone builds fine lenses for that format (if it will survive the next 2 years.) but it is in no way a game changer.

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Remember the lens needs to have space behind it between the sensor and rear element to work with the Speed Booster, so Leica M mount stuff won't work with it. Only SLR glass.

 

But doesn't the 35mm T0.95 have a longer flange distance than that of MFT lenses? Of course it wouldn't fit on an EF to MFT adapter, but maybe a different one, like perhaps a specialized Leica-M to MFT Speed Booster adapter that requires no electronic connectors?

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@BurnetRhoades

 

I am 100% correct. It's not a sharp. Period. As for those films you mentioned shot on 16mm film with very nice budgets and a full 100 man + crew - yes, there are exceptions to every rule.

 

It's not the norm...and for the peeps ordering their BMMC for indie films to shoot for nothing and hire their friends and local actors...so be it. Let me know when they are nominated for Oscars or win Sundance. Thanks, chief.

 

And yes, wide angles on the BMCC are a bitch. If you want to add the adpater fine, but it will not be as sharp. And not full frame. Simple physics.

 
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@BurnetRhoades

 

I am 100% correct. It's not a sharp. Period. As for those films you mentioned shot on 16mm film with very nice budgets and a full 100 man + crew - yes, there are exceptions to every rule.

 

Sorry, you seem to be wrong here.

 

From the testing article:

"Again, the images were from different distances so that the chart filled the image with both shots. It’s not an optically critical test, but I’d call it a complete success for the Speed Booster. Even spotting the original image 1 stop of light, there’s no significant difference in resolution to my eye."

 

I mean, MAYBE, at like 6k resolution their may be some loss of sharpness. But for something like 2.5k Blackmagic footage, I'm gathering that it's pretty much a non-issue.

 

If anything, wouldn't it actually increase the perceived sharpness of something like cheaper EF glass? As the speed-booster is compressing the image, as opposed to magnifying it with an extender...

 

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It's not the norm...and for the peeps ordering their BMMC for indie films to shoot for nothing and hire their friends and local actors...so be it. Let me know when they are nominated for Oscars or win Sundance. Thanks, chief.

 

I don't exactly understand what you're really trying to say here? This is how many undiscovered directors have got their start. Crews of 100+ are not WHY films are good. Good films come from talent, not crew-size and money. Well produced films typically HAVE allot of money and crew, but it's not "why" they are good.

 

Seems like you're bitter about something. Threatened by the innovation and falling costs/sizes of production? But then again, maybe some people should be... the days of hacks who could never make it in the creative aspects of film-making, yet still getting paid $1500 a day to hand people lenses, are coming to an end.

 

Technology is finally freeing the creatives from the "brush-holders" of the industry. This is great! Should be celebrated!

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Noirist, I'm still trying to get my head around it but I don't think this normal (and normally correct, by the way) logic applies to the Speed Booster. The equivalence that you mentioned is applicable when mounting a full-frame lens onto a normal, "dumb" adapter, to use it on a S35 sensor. In this case, the image circle that the lens projects, is the same size as it would be on a full-frame sensor, far bigger than it needs to be to cover the smaller S35 sensor. A lot of this wider image circle falls outside the sensor area and is basically wasted, with just the central portion being recorded. For this reason, the brightness is the same but the apparent DOF is greater as you're basically cropping into the same image with a smaller frame; not dissimilarly to if you cropped the image in post (though obviously without the decrease in resolution etc).

 

The Speed Booster is a whole different kettle of fish. The optics that are built into it actually focus the larger image circle down to the smaller S35 sensor. This means that the image is actually brighter as the light is concentrated (think of burning holes in things with a magnifying glass in science lessons!). Because the same image circle is captured by the S35 sensor as would be captured by a full-frame sensor, the DOF is actually the same as on full frame.

 

Therefore, when using the Speed Booster, using that 24mm f/1.4 that you referred to would give you baically the same image as using a 24mm f/1.4 on full-frame (same apparent depth of field) but the image would be one stop brighter due to the concentrating effect of the optics.

 

If I've got my head round this thing, then I THINK that's all correct!

RossF, your reasoning is correct. The only tricky part is that if you use the speedbooster on an aps-c sensor, then the aperture setting shown on a full frame lens will be the full-frame equivalent aperture setting, which is one stop more than how the aperture setting appears to the aps-c sensor.  So if you set a full frame lens to f1.4 without the speedbooster, it looks like f1.4 to the aps-c sensor, and is equivalent to setting the same lens to f2.0 on a full frame sensor. If you set a full frame lens to f1.4 with the speedbooster, it looks like f1.0 to the aps-c sensor, and is equivalent to setting the same lens to f1.4 on a full frame sensor. So when Andrew is comparing pictures taken on the speedboosted FS100 versus 5D Mark III, he needs to set the lens to the same aperture settting to have equivalent pictures.

 

Andrew's review incorrectly states "It is perhaps fairer to compare the same lens wide open on a full frame camera and stopped down 1 stop on the Speed Booster to match the effective F-stop. For example compare optical performance shooting wide open at F1.4 on the 5D Mark III to shooting stopped down to F2.0 on the FS100. In that situation sharpness is always better in the centre with Speed Booster and almost evenly matched in the corners with the right glass."  The fair comparison is to compare the same lens at the same marked aperture setting on a full frame camera versus a speedboosted aps-c camera.

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but don´t be fooled. you are not getting a ff camera, you are getting a wider lens, that´s all.

Strictly speaking, you are getting a wider and faster lens, that produces an image on a smaller sensor that is equivalent to the image produced by that lens on a larger sensor. If the metabones adapter were optically perfect, the two images would be mathematically indistinguishable. Creating a lens that is both wider and faster is a big deal. Video readout from the smaller sensors is currently more complete (higher resolution, less aliasing) than the video readout from larger sensors, which means the ultimate image coming from the smaller speedboosted sensor will be superior to the ultimate image coming from the larger sensor.

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