Metabones speed booster.

[Legion]

So, I have been keeping my eye on these things for a little while now. They look VERY interesting.

The skinny is, you basically take a full frame lens, and stick it on a cropped sensor body using the speed booster like a teleconverter. The speed booster increases the f stop by one, and has a focal length multiplier of 0.71x.

So... If I have it right, if I was to put my Nikon 50mm f1.4 on my Fuji, it would become about a 35.5mm f1 lens. The focal length view is back to more or less what I would expect on a full frame camera, but it is now super, noctilux type fast.

Yowzas!!

Here is my problem. As far as I know, nobody imports these things to Oz yet, and before I drop $500ish on one, I would like to try one out. Or at least hear some impartial reports on how well they work. Has anybody got one? Anyone even played with one? This is a pretty exciting product if it works as well as it says on the tin.

http://www.metabones.com/

 

[Alacrity59]

Interesting but pretty pricey. I guess another lens could add distortion. It probably wouldn't matter for the photos I take.

 

[fast14riot]

What's the crop factor on your fuji? For Nikon DX its 1.5x, so a 50 becomes 75, then with the speed booster it would be back to 53.25mm. Interesting device, I can see it making sense for expensive glass, long lenses with small apetures. But if they made it so I could mount my Leica glass on my Nikon D200 that would be cool, though at the price of a quality lens anyways it seems moot.


-Xander

 

[Legion]

What's the crop factor on your fuji? For Nikon DX its 1.5x, so a 50 becomes 75, then with the speed booster it would be back to 53.25mm. Interesting device, I can see it making sense for expensive glass, long lenses with small apetures. But if they made it so I could mount my Leica glass on my Nikon D200 that would be cool, though at the price of a quality lens anyways it seems moot.


-Xander

The fuji has an aps-c sensor, so pretty close to Nikon DX. There is no reason I can see why you couldn't make one to put Leica R lenses onto a DX body.

The thing is, they are not at all pricey when you consider what they are making. For example, a canon 50mm f1.4 = ~$400, add the speed booster for ~$500 = $900. You now have the equivalent of a Canon 50mm f1. The Canon 50mm f.95 is what? $4-$5k? A f1 Leica noctilux is about $11k?

 

[fast14riot]

The biggest selling point I am seeing of this is the +1 full stop. Either way, its not somthing I have a need for currently. Interesting piece of hardware though!


-X

 

[Legion]

Yes, the speed boost is the only point. It is a bit like if you drove a family car and someone handed you a $500 part, saying "bolt this to your engine and you will do a ten second quarter mile"

a full one stop increase on an already fast prime lens is huge. I can't believe Nikon, canon, Leica and the rest haven't been able to come up with this themselves. They've just held it back to keep the market price high on the top end glass.