My thoughts on the Kipon Medium Format "Speedbooster"

[Mattias Burling]

When this thing was announced it totally blew my mind.
And I have been wanting one ever since the first time I read about it.

If you don’t know what this is all about just think of it as a Speedbooster.
But instead of turning an APS-C into Full Frame it turns a Full Frame into a Medium Format Camera.
And as you may know, medium format in digital is pricy to say the least.

I will have more info and go deeper into this later on, this is just my first impressions.
Opened the box literally just a few hours ago.

Its very sturdy and all metal. It balances well after putting on a hefty lens.

The lens I tested tonight was a 80mm f4 Macro. I have others but wanted to see some closeups to check sharpness.
Its much sharper than I expected. Sharp enough I guess...

Also Ive seen no excessive vignette. Any vignette in the samples are added in post.
I also added grain.

Portrait of GP

Closeup 

Selfie

Closest Focus

With vignette and grain.

Without vignette, still grain.

[Hitfabryk]

For what lenses can you use this?

 

[Mattias Burling]

13 minutes ago, Hitfabryk said:

For what lenses can you use this?

 

They sell versions for both Leica and Sony.

The lens mounts so far if Im not mistaken is Hasselblad, Pentax 645, Pentax 67 and Mamiya 645.

[fuzzynormal]

Thanks for being willing to give this a test and share here on EOSHD.  I've been curious as well. 

This setup, depending on how it renders DOF with wide open medium format lenses, might be ideal for documentary/corporate "talking head" interview production.  Extreme shallow DOF and good low light offers an ease of interview shooting that potentially could justify it?  I could see this as a dedicated rig for only that purpose if the advantage was there. 

If not, full frame and a 55mm f1.2 still looks awesome.

[zerocool22]

Cool can you make a test video? 

[tupp]

7 minutes ago, zerocool22 said:

Cool can you make a test video? 

I 2nd this!

@Mattias Burling

Also, could you do a DOF "equivalence" test between this set-up and your Digi-Bolex with a prime lens?

 

Thanks for showing these photos.  They look spectacular!

[Mattias Burling]

7 minutes ago, tupp said:

I 2nd this!

@Mattias Burling

Also, could you do a DOF "equivalence" test between this set-up and your Digi-Bolex with a prime lens?

 

Thanks for showing these photos.  They look spectacular!

I will make a video for sure. Not sure when though.

I will do some side by sides. But the reason why I like medium format has very little to do with DOF. Its about getting more in the frame using longer lenses at a comfortable distance. An equivalent lens wont be able to simulate that.

But I get what you mean and I know many care about dof. So I will do all the tests people wish to see.

[fuzzynormal]

7 minutes ago, Mattias Burling said:

Its about getting more in the frame using longer lenses at a comfortable distance.

Of course, that's good for interviews as well.  Allows a better report and interaction with the subject.  So often film making is not about the visuals.

[BasiliskFilm]

The medium format look was all about proportionally finer grain, allowing faster films, better in low light, and relatively shallow DOF. Faster full frame primes take the speed advantage away from a lot of medium format lenses.
I know this is a relatively slow macro lens, but your reducer is giving you 56mm f2.8 equivalence, with a fairly bulky set up. Do you perceive any advantages?

[Mattias Burling]

21 minutes ago, BasiliskFilm said:

The medium format look was all about proportionally finer grain, allowing faster films, better in low light, and relatively shallow DOF. Faster full frame primes take the speed advantage away from a lot of medium format lenses.
I know this is a relatively slow macro lens, but your reducer is giving you 56mm f2.8 equivalence, with a fairly bulky set up. Do you perceive any advantages?

Though question since I don't agree with your assessment of the advantages of Medium Format.
I still shoot film, both medium format and full frame (small picture). And I definitely don't use medium format to get faster films.
If anything I use the opposite. Thats why I kickstarter backed the modified Kodak Vison 50D from Cinestill.

A 56mm is till going to be a 56mm and nothing else. And if one likes the look of a 100mm one needs to use a 100mm. 
The DOF is identical on all formats but on the medium format you get more in the frame.

A good example is when I use a 17mm on APS-C. Its great for street photography with the deep DOF of a 17mm (on any format).
But I can fill the frame with a person without going as close as I would have had to do with FF. More like the distance of a 35mm on FF.
The problem is if I try to shoot a closeup of someone, then I dont get a look of a 35mm at all.
The person is all distorted with a huge head.

This is why medium and large format is nice and can't be simulated with equivalent lenses.
But I will test all this and this discussion is a never ending story so lets leave it for now.

If one only care about SDOF and firmly believe that a focal length can be changed with different sensor sizes. Then he/she can just settle with a 1" sensor like the RX100. Because with the "equivalent" theory thats just as good as FF, MF or large format. No difference at all.
But if one can see a difference between for example m4/3 and FF. Then he/she will see the same advantages and disadvantages between FF and MF.
And of course MF and LF.

[Timotheus]

https://***URL removed***/articles/2666934640/what-is-equivalence-and-why-should-i-care

Pricey adapter, but the innovation is of course great.
I'm not super familiar with medium format lenses, but I believe they tend to be somewhat slow-ish.
Are there fast ones that combined with this adapter would truly give you a unique, ultrafast FOV / DOF?

[cantsin]

4 hours ago, Mattias Burling said:

A good example is when I use a 17mm on APS-C. Its great for street photography with the deep DOF of a 17mm (on any format).
But I can fill the frame with a person without going as close as I would have had to do with FF. More like the distance of a 35mm on FF.
The problem is if I try to shoot a closeup of someone, then I dont get a look of a 35mm at all.
The person is all distorted with a huge head.

This is why medium and large format is nice and can't be simulated with equivalent lenses.

But medium format lenses normally don't go wider than 50mm (usually with f3.5, at best with f2.8). When you adapt them with a 0.71x focal reducer, you end up getting a 35mm (f2.4/2.0) lens. This a focal length where full frame 35mm doesn't distort. You also gain no DoF advantages in comparison to a native 35mm/2.0 FF lens - in fact, you can have shallower DoF with one of the many available 35mm/1.4 FF lenses (Canon, Nikon, Samyang, Sigma, Zeiss, Tamron).

[Don Kotlos]

1 hour ago, cantsin said:

But medium format lenses normally don't go wider than 50mm (usually with f3.5, at best with f2.8). When you adapt them with a 0.71x focal reducer, you end up getting a 35mm (f2.4/2.0) lens. This a focal length where full frame 35mm doesn't distort. You also gain no DoF advantages in comparison to a native 35mm/2.0 FF lens - in fact, you can have shallower DoF with one of the many available 35mm/1.4 FF lenses (Canon, Nikon, Samyang, Sigma, Zeiss, Tamron).

Exactly. Moreover perspective only depends on the distance from the camera and not the focal length nor the sensor size. Strap on a modern 35mm f/1.4 on a FF camera and it will be miles better than most ~50mm MF lenses with the speed booster.

[tupp]

1 hour ago, cantsin said:

But medium format lenses normally don't go wider than 50mm (usually with f3.5, at best with f2.8

Huh?  I seem to recall a lot of wide angle lenses ranging from 35mm to 45mm lenses for Mamiya and Bronica, back when I was shooting medium format.  Heck, there were Schneider 38mm lenses for 4"x5" cameras.

 

 

2 hours ago, cantsin said:

You also gain no DoF advantages in comparison to a native 35mm/2.0 FF lens - in fact, you can have shallower DoF with one of the many available 35mm/1.4 FF lenses (Canon, Nikon, Samyang, Sigma, Zeiss, Tamron).

I am not so sure about this.  The optical look of medium format lenses has always appeared different to me.  Nobody has yet done a conclusive "equivalence" test.

 

 

51 minutes ago, Don Kotlos said:

Strap on a modern 35mm f/1.4 on a FF camera and it will be miles better than most ~50mm MF lenses with the speed booster.

I don't know about that.  This focal reducer essentially converts full frame into a medium format, so by using MF lenses with this Kipon reducer, one gets all the benefits/properties  of MF optics.  Judging from @Mattias Burling's test shots, this focal reducer is going to produce amazing images/footage.

[tupp]

6 hours ago, Mattias Burling said:

7 hours ago, BasiliskFilm said:

The medium format look was all about proportionally finer grain, allowing faster films, better in low light, and relatively shallow DOF. Faster full frame primes take the speed advantage away from a lot of medium format lenses.
I know this is a relatively slow macro lens, but your reducer is giving you 56mm f2.8 equivalence, with a fairly bulky set up. Do you perceive any advantages?

Though question since I don't agree with your assessment of the advantages of Medium Format.
I still shoot film, both medium format and full frame (small picture). And I definitely don't use medium format to get faster films.
If anything I use the opposite.

When I was shooting medium format, its primary advantages were:

• less-grain/higher-resolution;
• nicer DOF/focus roll-off;
• and increased color depth.

 

The MF benefits of higher resolution and increased color depth don't necessarily apply to digital medium format cameras, but it would be great to inexpensively have a little of the nice DOF/focus roll-off found in medium format cameras.

 

I used large format for the same reasons (less-grain/higher-resolution, nicer DOF/focus roll-off and increased color depth), which are even further increased with 4"x5", 5"x7" and 8"x10."   However, large format view cameras offered the added benefit of Scheimpflug capability when shooting table-top work.  LF with view cameras also allowed shifting for architectural work.

[Don Kotlos]

18 minutes ago, tupp said:

Huh?  I seem to recall a lot of wide angle lenses ranging from 35mm to 45mm lenses for Mamiya and Bronica, back when I was shooting medium format.  Heck, there were Schneider 38mm lenses for 4"x5" cameras.

I am not so sure about this.  The optical look of medium format lenses has always appeared different to me.  Nobody has yet done a conclusive "equivalence" test.

I don't know about that.  This focal reducer essentially converts full frame into a medium format, so by using MF lenses with this Kipon reducer, one gets all the benefits/properties  of MF optics.  Judging from @Mattias Burling's test shots, this focal reducer is going to produce amazing images/footage.

Many people have done the equivalence tests including many people on this forum (here, here, here, here & here). 

See at my following comment why most (relatively cheap) MF lenses will not give you a better result than modern FF lenses. 

 

[tweak]

I hope everyone knows that in part modern lenses are far superior to equivalent vintage lenses. Thus you must throw all your old lenses away as they are worthless and there is no point to shoot with them  .

[Don Kotlos]

32 minutes ago, tweak said:

Thus you must throw all your old lenses away as they are worthless and there is no point to shoot with them.

I don't think anybody said this. If you have MF lenses then this adapter makes sense. But buying MF lenses + the adapter to achieve the "MF look" makes no sense. 

[tweak]

1 hour ago, Don Kotlos said:

But buying MF lenses + the adapter to achieve the "MF look" makes no sense. 

You're right, lenses don't have any unique characteristics. Buying old lenses and adapting them makes no sense.

[zerocool22]

What is the widest lens you can use with this adapter? (I like the 35mm-50mm on full frame)