RossF

  Would it even fit on their F5/F55 if they wanted to? They don't use the E-mount.

Hi Andrew.   You've mentioned in your last couple of posts about using the Speed Booster on the Sony F5/F55. How would you go about doing this as these cameras don't use the E-mount for which the Speed Booster is designed. They use the FZ mount instead, the same as the F3.

You mentioned that this could be used on an F5 or F55. How would you go about doing this as they have the FZ mount, not the E mount like the FS100 and FS700? Is there a way of adapting the F3, F5  anf F55 to E mount that's passed me by?

  Ah, I see what you mean. I do agree but I think I get what Andrew was saying. I guess he meant in terms of image brightness rather DOF. If my thinking's right, you could, for example, shoot a 50mm f/1.4 wide open on S35 with the Speed Booster at ISO1600 and have more or less the same image (exposure and DOF-wise) as shooting the same lens wide open at ISO3200 on full-frame. Does that sound about right? I think this might be what Andrew was referring to.

  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!

Thanks for taking the time to review this Andrew, it looks like a great product.   One question: you said that the adapter, "...turns the FS100, FS700 and Sony’s 4K monsters the F5 and F55 into full frame video cameras" but the F5 and F55 use the FZ-mount (the same as the F3), not the E-mount like the FS100 and FS700. Was that just a slip-up or do you know some way of making the metabones adapter work with the FZ mount cameras? I'm looking at getting an F5 and, if it's possible, would MUCH rather use the Metabones adapter for EF lenses on the F5, than the bulkier and non-full-frame-conjuring MTF Effect one.

Hi Andrew. Are you able to clarify the 4:2:0 or 4:2:2 hdmi issue or is this a "wait and see" spec for now?

I agree, you'll never get one camera that does it all (hence why I've got a collection that's growing out of control!) but, a broadcast "legal" GH3 would be a very unique proposition in its own right. I do a lot of snow sports filming, both action and corporate, and very occasionally have a need to shoot broadcast accepted footage. Lugging several cameras around a mountain isn't really an option so I have to make do with one system. To make matters worse, I shoot both stills and video! The C300 is probably the closest to a do-it-all at the moment (great image, 50mb/s 4:2:2 codec) but it has no stills capability at all and slow-mo is only at 720p. The FS700 with external recorder does stills but not properly (no raw, no flash etc), it's not weather sealed and, as much as I want to, I just don't like the look of the footage. I really like the footage that I'm seeing from the BMDCC but it's a complete non-started in terms of practicality for me (for starters, I'm not taking my gloves off to use a touch screen when it's minus 20 degress C!). The new F5 does look great but it's going to be too big and heavy, and basically overkill, for most of what I do. The 5D Mark III that I'm currently using (alongside a couple of GH2s) is supposedly getting a clean 4:2:2 HDMI out in March but the resolution is still going to be the mushy 720p-esque stuff that we have at the moment. I know that my requirements are very specific but, for me, a GH3 with the option of occasionally using an external recorder for broadcast accepted footage, rather than using an entirely different camera, is pretty attractive! So, if anyone knows whether it's going to be 4:2:0 or 4:2:2, I'm keen to hear!

Nice article Andrew, thanks. I'm another one of the guys asking whether the GH3 really does output 4:2:2 through the HDMI or, as many others have reported, only does 4:2:0. This is a pretty big deal as, if it's 4:2:0, there's basically no point in ever using an external recorder. If it can output 4:2:2, it should help with keying and, very importantly for some, might even get it officially accepted for HD broadcast work (if the moire isn't deemed to be unacceptable).