Nope. I went with the zhongyi Mitakon after reading the CheesyCam review ( and because the other adapters looked very generic ), and so far I've been very happy with it. One test that I want to perform is adjusting in-camera sharpness when using the Mitakon adapter, as my Lumix lens settings are way too soft for the Nikon AI-S lenses, so I want to see what's the optimal camera setting when using this adapter and Nikon AI-S lenses.
GH4 Zhongyi "Lens Turbo" EOS - M43 quick sloppy review
- Thread starter wwjd
- Start date
Nope. I went with the zhongyi Mitakon after reading the CheesyCam review ( and because the other adapters looked very generic ), and so far I've been very happy with it. One test that I want to perform is adjusting in-camera sharpness when using the Mitakon adapter, as my Lumix lens settings are way too soft for the Nikon AI-S lenses, so I want to see what's the optimal camera setting when using this adapter and Nikon AI-S lenses.
M. Gilden
Canon DSLR Moderator
After doing a lot of comparisons and research on the cheap adapters, I went with the RJ Camera ones, directly from RJ Camera. A real focal reducer (such as the Speed Booster from Metabones) should sharpen your image, not soften it, since the soft-focus fringes are reduced and made smaller along with the rest of the image. You are less zoomed in so everything appears sharper. Some of the cheap ones introduce too much of their own softness, such as some of the Mitakon batches I see folks mentioning here.
The quality control of the RJ seems to be better from what I've read (don't get the original batch that might be selling on ebay from other sellers, that's why it was recommended I buy from RJ directly), and my lenses are absolutely sharper wide open when using it. Edge sharpness is another story- the edges are a bit softer wide open, but stopping my 2.8 zoom to f/4 gets rid of most of it, by 5.6 it becomes completely invisible rendering the entire thing sharp.
Here's a quick test I performed the day I got mine:
Also, for those who are saying you now get an "s35mm crop" with this... You're actually getting a bit wider.
MFT is a 2x crop to full frame photography, s35mm is 1.5x (APS-C cameras are 1.6x, which is close enough for most to call it "s35 size", but actually still a bit more of a crop). The speed booster makes your sensor 0.7x larger. That means a MFT sensor becomes a 1.4x, which is wider than both APS-C AND S35 technically. If using the GH2 and its multi-aspect sensor, you're pushing up towards 1.3x in movie mode, which is actually APS-H or a Canon 1Dx sized sensor. My Tamron 17-50 actually vignettes with the speedbooster on my GH2 when on the widest 17mm setting! Its definitely wider than s35 crop!
I definitely get a wider FOV using my RJ than I do mounting my lenses on my crop Canons. Really cool stuff, I highly recommend them!
The quality control of the RJ seems to be better from what I've read (don't get the original batch that might be selling on ebay from other sellers, that's why it was recommended I buy from RJ directly), and my lenses are absolutely sharper wide open when using it. Edge sharpness is another story- the edges are a bit softer wide open, but stopping my 2.8 zoom to f/4 gets rid of most of it, by 5.6 it becomes completely invisible rendering the entire thing sharp.
Here's a quick test I performed the day I got mine:
Also, for those who are saying you now get an "s35mm crop" with this... You're actually getting a bit wider.
MFT is a 2x crop to full frame photography, s35mm is 1.5x (APS-C cameras are 1.6x, which is close enough for most to call it "s35 size", but actually still a bit more of a crop). The speed booster makes your sensor 0.7x larger. That means a MFT sensor becomes a 1.4x, which is wider than both APS-C AND S35 technically. If using the GH2 and its multi-aspect sensor, you're pushing up towards 1.3x in movie mode, which is actually APS-H or a Canon 1Dx sized sensor. My Tamron 17-50 actually vignettes with the speedbooster on my GH2 when on the widest 17mm setting! Its definitely wider than s35 crop!
I definitely get a wider FOV using my RJ than I do mounting my lenses on my crop Canons. Really cool stuff, I highly recommend them!
Compared to my Lumix lenses my Nikon AI-S lenses are definitely lower resolution and lower contrast, which is fine with me. I actually find the Lumix glass often to be too sharp, so I set in-camera sharpness at it's minimum setting when using Lumix lenses. I expect that keeping in-camera sharpness at zero will probably give me better results with the Nikon AI-S lenses on my GHx cameras, with or without the SpeedBooster adapter.
I am comparing Nikon AI-S lenses against modern m43 lenses. The m43 lenses are higher resolution and higher contrast than my Nikon AI-S lenses, and shooting the same scene with the Nikon AI-S lenses with or without the SpeedBooster, the Lumix glass is noticeably sharper. I normally set in-camera sharpness to it's lowest setting with Lumix glass, but this does not work as well for Nikon AI-S lenses. I haven't had time to test yet, but I am pretty sure I'll get better results from the Nikon AI-S lenses by using an in-camera sharpness setting of zero. ( same goes for Canon L lenses )
negativespace
Member
Thanks for this, M.!
I'm on the fence about which speedbooster to get, and I can't wait until metabones drops a dedicated GH4 version. Let me ask a few questions...
1) Did you experience any of the blue dot flare business? I saw a little when you shot the backlit tree...any problems with that?
2) How long was shipping to the US? On the RJ site, there are a few shipping options, but just curious if you know offhand