Metabones Speed Booster

Hey All

Speed booster arrived today. Tried it on a quick shoot i was doing.. i was using Zeiss 50mm 1.4 glass on it. Adapter to canon mount then to the speed booster. I actually
found the image to be too soft. I think i was doing a good focus but to be honest it was in a gymnasium.. I did notice a bit of a rainbow effect on the lights. ( halo )??
Still willing to work on it but initially it softened the entire image. Any Thoughts??


I was actually waiting for this specific post, and expecting to see it more and more often as people realize that most of the 1.4's are not going to be viable with the Speed Booster. That Zeiss 50/1.4 is already terribly soft wide open, I expect that the softness and/or coma is just amplified.

There aren't many 50/1.4's, and even less 35/1.4 and 25/1.4's, that are actually great wide open to begin with. And by great I mean sharp. For some ODD reason people think that the Canon's are sharp wide open... or, even worse, the Voigtlander 0.95's... which are absolutely TERRIBLE wide open. IMO the benefit of the Speed Booster's in 2~2.8 glass that's reasonably sharp wide open, or glass with an aperture of 1.2, that gets fairly sharp as you approach F1.8~2. The 1.4's likely to be no bueno, but again that's just been my hunch from the announcement date.

Willing to bet that if you threw up the SLR 35/0.95 (which does cover APS-H and will work on the FS700) against a 50/1.2 @ 1.8 + Speed Booster combo, the SLR 35/0.95 would out-perform at least up until 2.8 in terms of sharpness.

JUST my hunch... feel free to disagree and of course, we'll see as more people get their hands on it and really start to test.

I also think MFT could go either way, better or worse. Some glass performs much better at the center, so you double your advantage, and some are terrible performs at the center so you may end up right back where you started.

Looking forward to more videos.
 
There was an entire episode of House done on a 5D if i remember, the main reason was DOF in a confined space. It worked really well and it was in focus.

And they spent a ton on roto, masks, tracks and sharpen filters, almost two weeks of 24 hour days in a high end finishing system - and enough $ that "it would have been cheaper to shoot it on 35mm" - that's rumored to be a quote from the producer

It was not me that did the job, but NDA's mean i can't really say much more...

d
 
And they spent a ton on roto, masks, tracks and sharpen filters, almost two weeks of 24 hour days in a high end finishing system - and enough $ that "it would have been cheaper to shoot it on 35mm" - that's rumored to be a quote from the producer

It was not me that did the job, but NDA's mean i can't really say much more...

d

That doesn't surprise me, the footage out of the 5D is pretty suspect IMHO. There does seem to be quite a big disconnect between pre/production and post in terms of planning and testing - so much is basically rebuilt in post these days that budgets upfront could be seriously reduced.

Of course in the case of that House episode they'd have to shoot it on 70mm (ish) to get the DOF they wanted (which is what i believed the original reason was for emphasising the claustrophobia), the 5D was the only choice with it's full frame at that time.

interesting tho!

Back to topic though. Wide open most lenses are pretty soft, the design and engineering required is really quite substantial, you just have to wade through Erwin Puts Leica books to understand some of the decisions Leica take to push quality as far as possible. A benefit of the speedbooster could be that you could have that 1.4 at 2 and then gain the extra stop - that should be sharper perhaps in the end.

I would guess that these 35/f0.92 lenses (of which i have a mitakon and there's the SLR magic one which is supposed to be a different design) are just 50mm that have the elements of the speed boost tacked onto the back of the lens in one unit. I'm always a little suspicious that suddenly all these things appear at the same time. Great for us though!

Would like to see a sample of the rainbow effect as well?


cheers
paul
 
Not true. First lets assume you are talking the same language. We are talking full frame
field of view here I assume (correct me if I am wrong). If you put a 70-200 on a
FS700 with the speed booster, it will be roughly 70-200 in FF terms. Not sure why you
think the speed booster makes the lens 'more telephoto' but it doesn't. Now if you
were to put that same 70-200mm lens on the FS700 with the regular metabones
adapter (the non speed booster one) then you would have your 105-300 FF FOV.
Does that make sense?

The above was framed as a ? not a statement. I never said the SB adapter makes the lens "more telephoto"
I wish there was some consensus on the functionality of this adapter on the fs700 and what it does with EF glass

I'll try again. With the regular MB adapter a 70-200 lens looks like 105-300 on the fs700.

If I put a 70-200 lens on an fs700 w/ SB adapter...will it essentially be 70-200 @f2 or 50-140ish @f2?



Thanks!
 
The above was framed as a ? not a statement. I never said the SB adapter makes the lens "more telephoto"
I wish there was some consensus on the functionality of this adapter on the fs700 and what it does with EF glass

I'll try again. With the regular MB adapter a 70-200 lens looks like 105-300 on the fs700.

If I put a 70-200 lens on an fs700 w/ SB adapter...will it essentially be 70-200 @f2 or 50-140ish @f2?



Thanks!

So your focal lengths are FF35 equivalents? But your fstops are not? I really think you have to be clearer about what you mean, but I'll play anyway:

In the terms of your confusing ff35-equivalent-speak, a real 70-200 f2.8 will look like a 105-300mm f4.5 when you put it on an fs700 without speedbooster. With speeedbooster, it will look like a 75-215mm f3.0... confused yet?
 
errr....

I only think in s35mm, no real experience with a stills camera beyond snapshots and VFX plates (and for that i have conversion chart on my phone)

i mount my Rokinon 85/1.4 with a Nikon->e adpt on my FS and i see close to the field of view & stops i expect to see with a 85/1.4 on a Arri 435 for example

I mount the Rokinon 85/1.4 on my FS with the speedbooster and i see closer to the feild of view & stops i would expect to see from a 50mm/1.2 on the same Arri 435 right?

Ignoring the stills crapola, we are not shooting stills ;-)

d
 
this thread is 11 pages of painful

can people please, please, just use http://www.abelcine.com/fov/

for goodness sake, just put the 5d on one, and any s35 in the other, and look at the difference yourselves and for pete's sake, keep in mind the adapter only works in this way for FF/vistavision/EF glass and not apsc/s35 glass.

it can be that simple, i promise.
 
So your focal lengths are FF35 equivalents? But your fstops are not? I really think you have to be clearer about what you mean, but I'll play anyway:

In the terms of your confusing ff35-equivalent-speak, a real 70-200 f2.8 will look like a 105-300mm f4.5 when you put it on an fs700 without speedbooster. With speeedbooster, it will look like a 75-215mm f3.0... confused yet?

Yes. Thank you for playing (eye roll).
Mine just arrived, so I'll just go and figure it out...
 
FS + SB = Makes it wider and faster

Shoot some footy, post some grabs blown up 300% and tell us if....
FS + SB = Makes it wider and faster and BLURRIER.

I'm on a job right now where I've been shooting with the speedbooster with my speedbooster and a whole set of f2.8 zooms and generally things have been vety sharp, never notice any softness when checking focus at 4x expanded focus. Some shots have been on the nonspeedbooster adapter with my 18-250 and it is definitely softer than than my speedbooster stuff when looking at expanded focus, but that is not a particularly sharp lens and its almost always wide open since its so slow.

A little more internal vignetting than without speedbooster on the same lenses but that is more likely just because I'm seeing more image circle. Its been great to have f2.0 zooms since normally I stop down a little when I need to reduce flaring but jow I'm still shooting faster than f2.8 and getting the same flare protection.
 
I was actually waiting for this specific post, and expecting to see it more and more often as people realize that most of the 1.4's are not going to be viable with the Speed Booster. That Zeiss 50/1.4 is already terribly soft wide open, I expect that the softness and/or coma is just amplified.

There aren't many 50/1.4's, and even less 35/1.4 and 25/1.4's, that are actually great wide open to begin with. And by great I mean sharp.

I was worried about this as well, but after I saw Roger Cicala's MTF test with the Canon 50/1.2, which show a whopping 22 percent increas in mtf, and even more stopped down into reality (still wide, just not crazy wide), I am hopeful that some combos will for sure be awesome. Plus, m/43 may be even sweeter. I would even consider buying that lens, which is pricey, if these numbers hold up, but I'll try my $35 Rokkor first.
 
How do you guys feel about using the speed booster with a Zeiss 21mm CP 2.9 prime EF. Im planning of adding the fs700 to the 5Dmarkiii that i already own. This new speed booster sounds like a great idea. extra stop of light and closer to 5Dmarkiii sensor sizing. Will this speed booster with a Zeiss lens be sharper now?

Thanks
Chris
 
Any lens will be way sharper on the FS700+MB than a 5D3 when shooting video, especially wide shots (I have tested both setups). The 5D3 is a ~1620x910 camera vs. the FS700 (1920x1080). The FS700+MB with a Nanoflash looks excellent (422 100Mbit long GOP MPEG2) under challenging conditions (the internal 24Mbps AVCHD codec works well in most conditions). The 5D3 will get clean 422 out in April (resolution won't likely be increased, though (beyond doubling chroma)).
 
Any lens will be way sharper on the FS700+MB than a 5D3 when shooting video, especially wide shots (I have tested both setups). The 5D3 is a ~1620x910 camera vs. the FS700 (1920x1080). The FS700+MB with a Nanoflash looks excellent (422 100Mbit long GOP MPEG2) under challenging conditions (the internal 24Mbps AVCHD codec works well in most conditions). The 5D3 will get clean 422 out in April (resolution won't likely be increased, though (beyond doubling chroma)).

1620x910, does the 5D3 really has that much resolving power?
 
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