The Metabones Speed Booster adapter with X-Pro 1 and Leica R glass by Daniele Cametti Aspri

38 Comments

1. very true

2. The lenses I’d like to use on a Speedbooster (Leica R to Fuji X) would be the 28mm Elmarit R (last version) and the 50mm Cron R (last version). When looking on BHPhoto, they say both “require modification” to be used with the speed booster (on metabones site it no longer specifies which lenses require modification, but it used to).

   I wasn’t going to get the adapter after learning that two of the lenses I want to use are incompatible…but now I see here it’s being used with the Cron 50 R.

   Can anyone chime in if they have successfully used the Speedbooster with a 28mm Elmarit-R or 50mm Summicron-R (last versions, ROM or not) and be able to use it at all distances (infinity)?

   Cheers

3. The weight of the Booster is of my great concern, because I have several R lenses which weighs a bit. The combination of the booster and the body are the same or equal to a SLR in terms of weight (like my R 8 body), I suppose!
   I am now looking into the EX 1 instead or just wait for the full frame.

4. Hi Steve
   Am a long-time follower of your blog, but only just came across this post while researching a decision (X100s vs X-Pro 1) and saw that you like playing different lenses on camera bodies. Thought I’d let you know I love doing the same and often try Hasselblad lenses on my Canons and Mamiyas. Oh yes, the results are oh so sweet!
   Here’s one from a MotoGP shoot. All the ‘wrong’ equipment. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=464674240235481&set=a.464674226902149.94832.266136773422563&type=1&theater
   Mamiya 645AFDiii with a Hasselblad 180/4 and Fuji Velvia 50. Not too shabby. 🙂
   Cheers, A

5. just purchased the Speed Booster leica-r to Fuji.

   It is excellent on my 80lux, while not as good with the 21 SA. I have to say that the 21mm is not good even without the speed booster, with a standard adapter. Maybe the sensor is not optimized for the 21..

   I will try the 35 cron-R, 1st version, very soon. I hope it works with the fuji!

6. Great shot!!

   Ti ho scritto sul tuo sito per i complimenti, e anche per chiederti come sei riuscito ad acquistare il metabones e per capire come ti trovi…

7. Great shots! Especially those with wide angles..

   Ps: ti ho mandato email sul sito…voglio troppo sapere come funziona questo metabones!

8. There are people who disbelief the tech behind this adapter but it’s rather simple actually.
   1) Take a 50mm/2 lens. The aperture is actually 25mm in size (50/2 = 25). Now the adapter has widened the image to be 35.5mm focal length (0.71 x 50mm) with the same aperture size of 25mm. The resulting aperture speed is 35.5/25 giving f1.42 or about f1.4. This means the lens behaves like a 35/1.4 lens. Is this not clear enough?
   2) Lenses that are NOT adapted to m43 or Nex or FujiX will not usually produce the best image on these cameras. The adapter helps to focus the image better for a smaller digital sensor. Also widening means reducing and reducing means reduction of aberrations. So yes, it is possible in physics to make the image better than using the original lens without the adapter, on the m43 or Nex camera. But it does not mean that it will make the lens better than it’s original purpose, which would have been for full frame or DX frame. It just means it will make the lens better adapted for m43/Nex/FujiX then without the adapter.
   3) So what does all this imply? Say you have a full frame 24-70/2.8 lens. Mount the adapter and lens on m43 and you get a 35-100/2 lens full frame equivalent. Now can you go buy such a lens for m43? How much would it cost?
   4) This adapter opens up the possibility of having very high speed primes for the shorter range like super wides to short tele. It may not make sense to widen a super tele lens unless you want to gain one stop of speed and reduce the magnification as well…
   5) But it also opens up a whole slew of economical zooms for full frame and make it faster and more practical for m43 and Nex/FujiX.
   6) For Nex/FujiX take a 24/2.8 lens and it becomes 25.56mm/2 lens equivalent. A 50/1.4 becomes a 53mm f1.0 equivalent. An 85/1.8 becomes a 90mm/1.2. How much would such high speed lenses cost? How large would those fast lenses be? Heck I am tempted to buy a used Nex5n just to use the Metabones just so I can have a very compact mirrorless system with ultra high speed, very sharp, practical sized lenses. The overall depth of field will remain THE SAME as a full frame camera. Meaning if you love full frame for that bokehlicious out of focus background, then you now can get that same look with a Nex/FujiX.
   7) For m43 however, its a different story. You will not get that amount of widening so the same 24/2.8 lens becomes a 35mm/2 equivalent. But you could use many cheap full frame or DX zooms with apertures of f3.5 to f4 and turn them into f2.5 to f2.8 pro speed zooms. The size of the slower cheap zooms is usually much smaller than pro zooms so you gonna benefit from speed and not get penalized on weight. I would have preferred a 0.5x adapter for m43 instead. That would truly make the m43 able to compete with the full frame guys for versatility, speed, Bokeh, compactness, practicality. It would be a paradigm shift.

   • > There are people who disbelief the tech behind this adapter but it’s rather simple actually.

     Agreed. Metabones have actually released a detailed white paper describing the principle:

     http://www.metabones.com/images/metabones/Speed%20Booster%20White%20Paper.pdf

     As Jiunn-Kai Wang said, there is a trade off going on. You get some performance gains at the expense of others. Whether or not this matters is up to the photographer. That is why it would be nice to see some real world comparisons (with/without) – these will come.

9. Today DPReview.com posted a review about this adapter. it seems work as Metabones had claimed with some gains(wider FOV, faster aperture,etc) and loses(corner softness, CA, etc.). So it’s an interesting product. Maybe some other lens manufacturer will come up with better performance.

   http://www.dpreview.com/articles/2667195592/first-impressions-metabones-speed-booster

10. Although I think such an adapter is great for apsc style cameras, it’s utter nonsense to say it creates an extra stop of light. That goes against the laws of nature. The amount of light measured by the cavers remains the same.

    • Which laws of nature? Perhaps the marketing is just odd?

      I think it is a very clever reversal of the teleconverter concept.

      You are correct though. It does not create extra light. It was always there to begin with! Note that the adaptor is specifically designed to mate full-frame lenses on APS-C/MFT bodies. With your vanilla flavoured adaptor, light is ‘wasted’ by illuminating a full-frame image circle on the sensor plane. With your blinged out, super dope (or whatever the kids are saying) adaptor, light from the full-frame image circle is condensed down to an APS-C/MFT image circle. You havent added anymore photons to the system but there is a greater number of photons per unit area. So your camera will indeed measure more light.

      How did they do this? They change the chain of optics with the “un”teleconverter. The focal length is reduced slightly, increasing the field of view and of course increasing the effective F-number. Bravo Brian Caldwell!

      (Thanks for the post Daniele)

      • whoops: I should say “decreasing the effective F-number”

11. These are good pictures. Brilliant is something different. I’m sure you would have gotten the same results if you would have used your Fujinon 35mm.

12. These photos are FANTASTIC. I don’t know what my friends here are complaining about. They have more of a full frame look and feel in my opinion. I love the choice of black & white for these and the “grit” to all of them helps give it that rock & roll feel.

    • I agree with you. i’m bright enough to work out what the effect is. This adapter looks like it works brilliantly. GREAT pics.

13. very nice pictures on your website Daniele! And very nice music too 😉

14. I am not a black and white guy. I have no idea whether the picture are good or not. I am happy if there will have some color picture later….

15. Like the mood in the concert photos, but the beach ones are totaly awesome 🙂

16. I don’t know… many shots seems intentionally overexposed… or is it a characteristic of the adapter?

17. Sorry for my “newbieness” here but when I read, “Fuji” and “Speed Booster” I immediately thought, “cool, an accessory that will make Fuji’s auto-focus faster and more accurate”! Doh! I was wrong.

18. Nice shots especially the beach ones love em so this was an adapter on an adapter? Not bad

    • Just went to metabones site one adapter odd they didn’t make this for M lenses first?

      • Not enough room behind M lenses (according to Metabones)

19. Ok Daniele, tomorrow I’ll steal your Speedbooster and all of your equipment.
    Beware, I know where your house is.

20. Great shots!! Even better website!! Thank you for sharing.
    Love to see comparison shots between with and without metabones adaptor.

21. foto bellissime, complimenti! (credo anche di aver riconosciuto qualcuno…)
    questa accoppiata lente-adattatore è fantastica!

22. Ok Ok. Tomorrow I will play again with Summicron 35 with and without the Speedbooster and in color so u can see with your own eyes. (the only reason I can’t do right now is because here in Italy are9.00 pm…)
    Believe me is terrific!
    Thanks for appreciating my pictures indeed!!!

    Daniele

    • Thanks Dan! That would be excellent.

    • Thanks for your post. Looking forward to see your next post. I had some Leica R lenses too. I just find they have L/R to E mount Speed Booster. What a dream addition.

23. Very nice! For a real comparison it would be great to see some photos without heavy post processing.

24. Man…. …………………………………………………………………what wonderfull photos in your site…. I love each and every photo. Thanks for sharing…. Thanks Daniel and Steve.

25. I didnt understand(you didnt show) how different speed boosters are….. but ur results are just stunning…..

26. I think we all want to see a shot with and without the Speedbooster. Also if you could please shoot in color so we can see how the Sppedbooster renders color. The pictures that you took there look very nice and have a very classic look- really makes the x look different than with regular lenses. Once again, everyone really wants to see a shot in color and a before and after shot with and without the Speedbooster- preferably with the 35mm summicron shot wide open because we need to see if the end result really is like a full frame 35mm- also the summicron wide open is F2 so with the “Speedbooster” it would be useful to see if it really does add a full stop of F speed.

    Thanks for sharing thus far.

27. Caro Daniele,

    Queste sono bellissime fotografie che traducono un ambiente caloroso. Grazie!

    Ernesto

28. How are we supposed to tell if there’s less crop or improved depth of field unless there are photos with and without the speed booster? Nice photos, but they show me nothing.

    • I agree. These photos show me nothing.
      For all we know, don’t tell us you used the SpeedBooster, and we would have never known.
      These photos have way too much noise. Please post colors and OOC jpegs too.
      Thanks! I can’t wait!

29. Stunning results! They seem shots from a fullframe camera!

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