Metabones Announces New Speed Booster: Conflicting Reports Over What It Actually Does

Metabones has announced something that has rocked the industry today; but there is conflicting information on what the adapter actually does. First off, it’s called the Speed Booster. So far it works for Fuji X series and Sony NEX series cameras. Hang tight Micro Four Thirds users, they promise that compatibility will come soon. Their product pages list the stats, which you’ll see after the jump. But something doesn’t add up here.

Tech Specs

Specs pulled from the Metabones page for the Canon EF to Sony NEX listing

Features:

Increase maximum aperture by 1 stop.
Increase MTF.
Makes lens 0.71x wider.
Optics designed by Caldwell Photographic in the USA (patent pending).
Electronic integration of aperture diaphragm, controlled by or from the camera body.
Partial autofocus support for late-model (post-2006) Canon-brand lenses.
Powered by camera body. No external power source required.
The tripod foot is detachable and compatible with Arca Swiss, Markins, Photo cam ball heads.
High performance 32-bit processor and efficient switched-mode power supply.

Now Here’s the Weird Part

Andrew over at EOSHD is saying that the adapter will make a 24mm f1.4 lens adapted to Sony NEX act like a 24mm but gain an extra stop of performance: making it nearly an F1 lens. This means that you’ll get full frame performance on an APS-C sized sensor.

We’ve also ready on Phillip Bloom’s website that it turns a 50mm lens full frame lens into a 35mm equivalent.

Personally, the latter doesn’t make sense as that means that it’s designing a totally new imaging circle whereas Andrew’s explanation basically takes what’s there are projects it onto the APS-C sensor.

We tried sending an email to Metabones with no luck; but hopefully someone will clear up the confusion.

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Tagged as: canon, fujifilm, lens, metabones, sony, speed booster

trivialequivals

I think it’s an equivalence confusion. EOSHD is saying 24mm FF = 24mm (35mm on a FF) APSC , where as bloom is saying a 50mm FF = a 35mm APSC which is like a 50mm on A FF… Okay, I confused myself… but I think they’re saying the same thing but talking different equivalencies. Makes the lens a wider angle on a smaller frame. Super cool stuff.
- http://www.facebook.com/chrisgampat Chris Gampat
  
  I don’t think they are. They’re saying:
  
  Bloom: 50mm full frame will become a 35mm full frame equivalent field of view on APSC
  Reid: 24mm full frame will become 24mm full frame field of view on APSC
Adam Czuprynski

It is effectively a focal length reducer, but it is placed after the lens, not before it. It takes the 35mm image circle, and condenses it down to the size an APS-C lens would throw. This means that a full frame lens goes from a 1.5 crop factor to a 1.1 crop factor, making wide-angle lenses far more useful. This condensing also has the added benefit of boosting the light gathering capabilities of the lens by one stop. However the depth of field will stay the same based on the apparent change in focal length, being opposite and equal to the change in aperture.

Example:

A 50mm f1.4 FF lens on an APS-C sensor normally equates to a 75mm f1.4 lens.
With the adapter, that same lens now equates to a 55mm f1.0 lens
- ChrisGampat
  
  That’s what Andrew Reid is saying. Bloom isn’t saying that.
  - Taiga
    
    You’re making this way too difficult Bloom is speaking in full frame terms, others are speaking in full frame equivalent terms.
    
    Bottom line is it makes EF/FX lenses work with 1.1x crop instead of 1.5x crop. 50mm is 55mm.
ZT

Woohoo, I like it alot! Now i’m thinking about the modification, to take out the shutter from my Canon APS-C DSLR and put this Metabones lens inside the camera. That would be awesome, to have a fast wide angle on APS-C! Ofcourse the cost of mod (this adapter including) might be no less than just a new 5D mk2 )
I’m sticked to Canon, and looking for a FF, but if I hade something like GH3, it would a super awesome thing to use full potential from FF lenses. Now I can sleap peacefully, there is no advantage from FF camera from no own, and I can look to a wider range of cameras when i will finally consider to do that. Now I just think, that we need to wait for just a perfect camera for Yourself, because the sensor size makes much less difference.
These guys have done a great job!
optionalD

Reid and Bloom are saying the same thing (remember Bloom is the less technical of the two). Adam and Trivial are right in that the confusion is equivalencies. A 50mm on an APS-C sensor looks that same as a 75mm on a fullframe sensor. A 35mm on an APS sensor looks that same as a 50mm on full frame. So if you use a 50mm on a NEX it’s going to act like a 75. If you use a 35mm on a NEX it’s going to act like a 50mm. So if you take an adapted 50mm (that usually looks like a 75 on NEX) it will now look like a 50 looks on fullframe. So a 50 on fullframe = a 35mm on Nex = a 50mm with speedbooster on NEX. They are saying the same thing (also explained in the metabones whitepaper).
- http://www.facebook.com/chrisgampat Chris Gampat
  
  How is that possible? You realize that means that Canon 14mm f2.8 becomes like a 9mm f2, correct?
  - Peter Arbib
    
    Zeiss did this years ago (1950′s) with an added rear element block to some fast telephoto lenses, to make some super fast lenses. it is not new technology. I am surprised it took so long to make an modern adapter for current mounts. we have had 1.5x to 3x Tele-extenders for decades. Which reduces the f/stop and shortens the focal length.
    > This adapter is just the reverse, it is a Wide-extender (per-say), that boosts the f/stop and widens the focal length by shear optical design physics.
  - optionalD
    
    No, you’re going the wrong way. If you put a canon 14 2.8 on a APS sensor the field of view acts like a 21mm. To get something that LOOKS like a 14mm on fullframe you need a 9mm on APS. Speedbooster adapter gets a 14mm to look like a 14mm. So technically you could say it turns a 14mm fullframe into an equivalent 9mm APS ( but all you’d really be saying is that the 14mm looks the same on both sensors)
    - ChrisGampat
      
      Not according to reid’s new post.
      
      Also what you’re saying would be teleconversion.
      
      - Chris Gampat
      Editor in Chief
      The Phoblographer
      - http://www.thephoblographer.com/ Felix Esser
        
        No, it wouldn’t. He explained exatly what happens. The adapter reduces the effective focal length of the lens, making a 14mm f2.8 lens effectively a 9mm f2 lens (larger relative aperture since the focal length is reduced, but the physical aperture size remains the same). On an APS-C sensor, that 9mm lens renders an angle-of-view like that of a 14mm lens on full frame. Thanks to the adapter, the lens is faster now, but the a-o-v and d-o-f are exactly they same on APS-C (WITH adapter) as they would be on FF (W/O adapter). I don’t care what Bloom and/or Reid say or don’t say – this is what happens and what the adapter does. It’s simple physics.
      - optionalD
        
        A lot of people these days don’t use fullframe or have never shot on 35mm film. So maybe that’s the confusion issue. If you’ve only ever shot on a crop sensor (APS, micro 4/3, CX, etc.) then you don’t have the same frame of reference. If you take a lens made for a fullframe camera (digital or 35mm) and put THAT lens on a crop sensor then you will see less of the image (field of view) than when you shot with the same lens on a fullframe sensor. That’s why they call it a crop sensor. The crop factor for APS is 1.5 (Micro 4/3 is 2). So a 50mm lens on an APS sensor shows only 70% of the image that you see on a fullframe sensor. The fullframe has 1.5 times more field of view than the sensor in a NEX or Fujifilm X-Pro 1. So if you use a 50mm on a fullframe sensor and want the same look on a crop sensor then you need to get 35mm lens. A 35mm lens is about 75% wider than a 50mm lens, so when the sensor crops into it the scene looks the same as the 50mm does on the fullframe. That is equivalency. That’s the math you have to do to get a crop sensor to look like a fullframe image. With the speedbooster you no longer have to do the math. The speedbooster only works on crop sensors. It will do nothing for a fullframe sensor. The point of the speedbooster is to reduce the image to fit in the cropped area. So a 50mm fullframe lens now looks the same (even though technically the image is reduced to the equivalent of a 35mm image circle to project onto the smaller sensor). Bloom and Reid are saying the same thing. And the reason they are both excited by this game changing technology is because they can now shoot on a crop sensor camera like the GH3, FS100, or black magic cinema camera and have the look of a fullframe sensor. Due to the math of a crop sensor this was sometimes impossible because certain types of equivalent lenses just don’t exist for crop sensors.
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