Metabones Speedbooster for Nikon to x mount initial impression

GaryLH

GaryLH

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Christmas came a bit early. The expected delivery date on this was around 2-4 weeks away. Anyway they never sent me a notification that it had shipped. So I received a surprise delivery today.

My Nikon to Fuji X-mount Speedbooster on my XP1
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The adapter is well built and made of good material. All the latches have a good feel. It also has a tripod mount on the bottom. If u do not use something like the Fuji Grip adapter, the tripod mount does not allow the camera to sit flush with the surface. It is designed to work w/ the new Nikon G lenses that do not have an aperture ring. In order to use older lenses such as the AIS, you will need to set the f-stop on those lenses to max f-stop (f16 to f32 depending on the lens). There is a number detent ring on the adapter with numbers representing relative f-stop values (both full and half stops).

It works as expected. My 35f1.4 is a 35 and 50f1.4 is a 50 again. You do gain that extra stop as advertised as well. Here are a some quick and dirty shots to show the effect of the speedbooster. I forgot to reset the Fuji m mount lens adapter info between the 50 and the 35 mm lens so please ignore that photo info about the lens in the embedded jpg photo info. All shots were taken at approximately the same location.

Nikon 35f1.4 AIS w/o speedbooster 750@f5.6
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Nikon 35f1.4 AIS w/ speedbooster 850 at approximately one stop higher aperture
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Nikon 50f1.4 AIS w/o speedbooster 850@f5.6
_DSF5046.jpg


Nikon 50f1.4AIS w/ speedbooster 750@ approximately one stop higher aperture
_DSF5047.jpg


I was using the latest fw update. It turns out that in bright enough light the focus peaking was very usable compared to my testing late last night in my study.

Will try to get some shooting in with this setup during the next couple of weeks and try to post some pictures..

Gary
 
coolio.

there is as big thread over on FM with images from speedbooster adapted lenses, and it definitely seems fun.

the guy who did the optics for these, Brian Caldwell, is very good at what he does. the price is a bit high, but if I shot mirrorless I would definitely buy one myself.
 
Gary, thanks for starting this thread. I'm very much looking forward to any additional comments you have after using the adapter for awhile.

I'm planning on getting the adapter. With it, I'll be able to use it or my fotodiox F-to-X adapter and my Nikkor 28mm and 50mm lenses to create a kit of 28, 42, 50, and 75mm focal lengths. The cost of the Speed Booster adapter pays for itself quickly when you realize that it doubles the number of lenses in my kit.
 
Just had a chance to check inf w/ this adapter...my copy is spot on. Given what they are asking for it, the build quality and everything else about it is as expected.

I never sold my Nikon slr kit, so I have got lenses from both the film and digital era around. Outside of buying the Fuji 27 pancake, I am not sure I will need any additional lenses given what I have in Nikon lenses.

I need to try my favorite travel zoom as well :D the 24-120..

W/o min. Speed for autoiso, I am using full manual to set my min. Shutter speed and letting autoiso adjust accordingly.

Gary
 
Interesting.

Hmm.. It's probably not possible to make this for M-mount to Fuji X is it?
The register difference seems like it would not be enough to fit the glass elements between camera and lens.
 
Right now the lens is flush w/ the rear bayonet mount that mates to the Fuji side. The only way I c a chance is to have the lens protrude into the other side of the Fuji mount point...but if u do that then u start to get into a more complex adapter lens design to account for how the light hits the sensor is what I would suspect. Just a humble guess on my part here.

The Leica to Fuji adapter is pretty thin.. Probability would be pretty slim it would be doable.

Gary
 
redisburning said:
coolio.

there is as big thread over on FM with images from speedbooster adapted lenses, and it definitely seems fun.

the guy who did the optics for these, Brian Caldwell, is very good at what he does. the price is a bit high, but if I shot mirrorless I would definitely buy one myself.
Click to expand...

The getdpi thread was what got me interested.. But it seems just about everyone over there is using the speedbooster to Nex adapter.

Yeah.. I agree price is a bit high. I think there are copy cats already from China, but I would rather pay more since it is both tolerences and optics which will drive the picture quality.

Gary
 
f16sunshine said:
Interesting.

Hmm.. It's probably not possible to make this for M-mount to Fuji X is it?
The register difference seems like it would not be enough to fit the glass elements between camera and lens.
Click to expand...

scratch what I said.

you need huge amounts of space to put one of these in. Caldwell says in the whitepaper that size constraints had made them impossible for SLRs, so I doubt that the M register distance offers a great enough space even for an NEX.
 
I use the cheaper version in canon FD mount so I can use both M42 and Nikon lenses. Results are great but there are a few downsides (not sure if it is isolated for the cheaper version): some barrel distortion in the middle (pretty easy to fix) and in certain cases where flare would happen, blue dot appears in the images.
 
are you referring to the lens turbo?

the speed booster has very minor complex waveform distortion in the outer 1/4 of the image circle.
 
Classique said:
I use the cheaper version in canon FD mount so I can use both M42 and Nikon lenses. Results are great but there are a few downsides (not sure if it is isolated for the cheaper version): some barrel distortion in the middle (pretty easy to fix) and in certain cases where flare would happen, blue dot appears in the images.
Click to expand...

By cheaper do u mean non-metabones version?

Can u post some examples of the problems u discovered?

Thanks
Gary
 
This all reminds me of adapting FD lenses onto the EOS System.
I have a 5D. It seems really hard to justify a glass adapter at $400 that will degrade IQ (even if relatively marginally).
Nikon works great on a 5D (as does Leica R, OM, and Contax as well as many others).
I'm interested to see how these work in different shooting situations/conditions :)
 
redisburning said:
are you referring to the lens turbo?

the speed booster has very minor complex waveform distortion in the outer 1/4 of the image circle.
Click to expand...

Yeah. The less than 200 dollar copy.

The distortion is a simple barrel in the center so it is a quick fix. Otherwise, I am pretty happy with the adapter.

It's actually so much fun to use more specialized lenses like zenit fisheye or 85mm 1.4 with the adapter due to the "full frame" view and boost in light gathering. I want to someday try 1.2 lenses and see if the camera can literally see in the dark.
 
GaryLH said:
For those that have only seen the blog write ups and not had a chance to read the white paper... It is pretty interesting.

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

Gary
Click to expand...


Great link. I just read it start to finish. My skepticism has evaporated slightly.
I look forward to hearing what you guys think. I guess I could get an Eos to Fuji X mount and use all my other adapted manual focus lenses that way.
Still Seems weird but, the technical descriptions in this paper make a compelling case.
 
The bad news --> no eos to Fuji mount adapter yet only the eos to Nex. Even if u don't have eos lens, an eos to Fuji adapter if it ever comes out is the most versatile. The eos flange to sensor distance is shorter then many other slr cameras and there are plenty of third party lens adapter.. The eos to Nex is only smart adapter, I wonder if they are working on a smart eos to Fuji adapter?

Time for u guys to petition metabones for one.

Here is link showing all current available adapters.

http://www.metabones.com/buy-speed-booster

Gary
 
Last edited:
Poor man's Noct.?

Poor man's Noct.?

Correction, my 35f1.4 and 50f1.4 become f1.0 not f1.2.

We are talking "noct" territory for the price of the speedbooster...

Until I re-read the white paper last night (was a long time ago I read it last), somehow I had gotten it into my head the theorectically max was 1.2... So that the best a 1.4 could become was a 1.2.. It turns out that the theorectically max is 0.95 and if u have a 50f1.2 it becomes a 0.95.

The last time I looked, the Canon 50f0.95 which can only mount on a canon 7 type body is going for over 2.5k on the used market.

Wide open image quality is probably going to be going to the real Noct from Leica.. Never actually wanted to own a Noct since the focus on them is so razor thin.. Nor did I ever want to put that much money into a lens. But w/ cameras that support mag view and focus peaking, it does help a lot.

Gary
 
While the old manual focus lenses like my 35f1.4 ais works fine w/ the adapter, it is a pain to keep on accidentally using the aperture ring instead of the pseudo ring on the adapter (for g type lenses). If this was a permanent solution, I would probably taped the aperture ring down... But I still use them occasionally on my film camera (f3hp).

I ended up digging out my af lenses instead to use w/ the adapter. A 50f1.4g, 24f2.8d, 35f2d, 85f1.8d and a 24-85f2.8-4d.. I picked this set of lenses for the parts in the Fuji lens lineup I am missing.. W/ the one stop of speed I pick up, this set of lenses will be pretty fast. The zoom for example becomes a 24-85f2-2.8 and the 50 a f1.0..

For those that feel the price of the speedbooster is a bit expensive, the way I look at it, since I already had these lenses, the adapter paid for itself..

Not sure when I will be posting some more shots to this thread.. Depends on what opportunities roll my way in the next couple of weeks :)

So far I have not encountered any other problems.

Gary
 
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