Metabones Speedbooster for Nikon to x mount initial impression

[GaryLH]

I thought about it some more and decided to double post here and in the legacy lens section for a bit.. So below are the shots from the 85f1.8 that I posted to the legacy thread..

40% crop

100% crop

Shot wide open (f1.8 becomes 1.2 on a speedbooster) converted to BW using SEP2

Some shots today from the 50f1.4 AFS G - from my normal walk around the local reservoir

Pano crop shot about f2 (2.8 setting).

Converted to B&W using SEP2

Today I wish I had a long lens on me --> the following shots are either 75 or 100 percent crops..

Here are some shots to show what is happening between wide open and then 3 stops down.. these are all 30% crops shots

Now a look at 100% crop from the last picture

Gary

 

[GaryLH]

Two more from the Nikon 50f1.4 AFS G

Gary

 

[Jamie Pillers]

Well Jamie, still planning to get one?

Gary

Its finally on its way. I'll start posting some in this thread when it arrives. The lens I'm most looking forward to using with it is my Nikkor 24/2.8. With the SB, it'll be a 26/2. 25mm has always been my favorite wide lens. I'm also looking forward to trying out my Nikkor Ai-S 50/1.8 pancake lens... 54/1.2 ... my fake Noct Nikkor! 😛

 

[GaryLH]

Great. Can't wait to c your shots. 🙂.

I was just thinking.. When I first bumped into u on college ave., I had a cv 40 on my xp1 and now we are talking old manual lenses again almost a year later.

I keep eyeing the 1.2 at KEH now that I have the sh. A real Noct is an arm and a leg these days. The Nikon 50 f1.4 are pretty decent wide open compared to the 35f1.4 I have.

Have fun w/ it.

Gary

 

[GaryLH]

There is some hope for dx lenses

There is some hope for dx lenses

Just for kicks, today I tried two DX lenses on my speedbooster setup... some very interesting results.. The two lenses were 18-200 and the 12-24. One of the known issues with a DX designed lens has been the image circle would not cover a full frame sensor. In fact someplace on the Metabones site, I think I remember seeing a warning about not using DX lenses with it. But I remember reading on a blog a long time ago about people who tried their DX lenses on the D700 and found that at the longer focal lengths of various DX zooms, the vignetting would disappear.

The 18-200 was a wash. Any visible vignetting did not go away until I got to 200mm. The 12-24 was a different story though. By 18mm the vignetting had disappeared in my quick and dirty testing. It was really bad at 12mm but at 15mm u could take a pano crop out of it with very little vignetting if at all.

Not sure when I will have time to do much more than a quick a dirty with this.. so I thought I would post what I got. All three shots were taken wide open with focus set at infinity. Results may differ once I put it through the paces but it is pretty interesting. With two zoom lenses, I essentially cover from 18-85 (12-24 plus 24-85).. w/ 15mm pano covered as well 😀

@12mm - very heavy vignetting - the pano crop u could take out of this would essentially be at the 15mm setting.

@15mm - vignetting can still be seen, but pretty easy to take a pano cut out of it

@18mm - maybe some minor vignetting - hard to tell - not enough to worry about from the shot

Cheers
Gary

 

[Jamie Pillers]

Just for kicks, today I tried two DX lenses on my speedbooster setup... some very interesting results.. The two lenses were 18-200 and the 12-24. One of the known issues with a DX designed lens has been the image circle would not cover a full frame sensor. In fact someplace on the Metabones site, I think I remember seeing a warning about not using DX lenses with it. But I remember reading on a blog a long time ago about people who tried their DX lenses on the D700 and found that at the longer focal lengths of various DX zooms, the vignetting would disappear.

The 18-200 was a wash. Any visible vignetting did not go away until I got to 200mm. The 12-24 was a different story though. By 18mm the vignetting had disappeared in my quick and dirty testing. It was really bad at 12mm but at 15mm u could take a pano crop out of it with very little vignetting if at all.

Not sure when I will have time to do much more than a quick a dirty with this.. so I thought I would post what I got. All three shots were taken wide open with focus set at infinity. Results may differ once I put it through the paces but it is pretty interested. With two zoom lenses, I essentially cover from 18-85 (12-24 plus 24-85).. w/ 15mm pano covered as well 😀

Cheers
Gary

Thanks for the info Gary. I've been wondering if the 35/1.8 G lens would vignette. Have you seen anything about that on the web? Thanks.
Jamie

 

[GaryLH]

I have a 35f1.8 g around I could try. Since I already had several other 35s I did not bother w/ it. I did it out later today and check.

Gary

 

[GaryLH]

Here u go Jamie

Here u go Jamie

The Nikon 35f1.8 DX lens does OK with the speedbooster. There is some minor vignetting that can either be cropped out or maybe your photo SW can clean it up.

Same setup as before.. shot at infinity wide open.

Gary

Ps. Now u can add another lens u can play w/ when the sb gets to u. Btw no more dx lenses.. Only ad three that I can remember about.

 

[GaryLH]

I shot this for Raid's view from my window thread.

Fuji XP1 - Speedbooster - Nikon 12-24f4 @between 18-20mm setting

Gary

 

[GaryLH]

So here is the 12-24f4 on the speedbooster. This shot was taken at between 12 and 15 setting. I would guess slightly over 13mm. U can c the image a dust spot on the top left side area and the vignetting caused by the lens hood without there u would still get the image circle related vignetting as well. I choose this particular setting for maximum pano crop effect.

and of course the pano crop.

So an XPan shooting w/ the 30mm would need a center filter to cut the vignetting, which would essentially be shooting around f8 to f11 someplace if I remember correctly (would need to double check). The 30 is about 15mm in pano mode. Versus the 12-24f4 which ends up a f2.8 w/ the speedbooster and I end up getting maybe 2mm wider as well. Buying the 10-20 Fuji would give me a 15mm like the what the equiv from the 30 XPan would have been but I would not have the f2.8 max aperture thru the zoom range. Reality is that a lens this wide really does not need af at all. So I believe w/ this combo, I now have my version of a digital XPan 😀.

Reality for me is that the lenses from 24 to 200mm are my most used focal lengths followed by the 21. When I am shooting a 21-40 combo. I tend to use the 21 for tight spaces, landscape, pano and crop for 24 or 28. A step back w/ a 40, it is essentially a 35. A step forward and it is a 50. A 40 can be cropped to around 70-90 fov without problems. Anything wider than 20/21, I tend to use for crop pano anyway. So being able to use my old 12-24f4 AFS DX lens for this purpose is just icing on the cake given I don't go out very often these days to shoot panoramic.

Gary

 

[GaryLH]

Someone else's impressions of the speedbooster

Someone else's impressions of the speedbooster

Found this blog post today.

http://aboutphotography-tomgrill.blogspot.gr/2013/08/metabones-speed-booster-nikon-g-lens-to.html

He has posted links to hires downloads of his examples from his blog.

Gary