My thoughts on the Kipon Medium Format "Speedbooster"

[Mattias Burling]

Since I can't edit my original post the images etc get split up here and there and mixed with the disussions (which are great, thats why I post here).
But if one wants to view it in one single go there is pretty much identical content in an article on my site www.gunpowdervideo.com.

An Update - Is it sharp enough?

Im still early in the process of reviewing and I haven’t had as much time as I would have wanted to.
But I have made some sharpness tests

In my opinion, sharpness comes pretty far down the list on what makes a particular lens great.
All Im interested in is if its “sharp enough” when using the old lenses and adapter in front of my 20mp Sony sensor.

The short answer is “yes”.

The Test

The test isn’t the most scientific in the world. I just shot pictures of a book, hand held, using three different lenses.
I decided to fill the frame more or less equal even though that made the two competitors able to get much closer to the subject.
Even still, its sharp enough to my eye.

The lenses where:

• The Mamiya 80mm f4 Macro + Kipon Baveyes Adapter
• The Minolta Rokkor 50mm f1.7 (also vintage)
• The Zeiss FE 35mm f2.8 (as modern as it gets)

All where shot using the same settings at f8. The focus may drift a little but Im sure you can work it out by clicking and peeping the pictures.

Here are the results!

First we have the Mamiya 80mm f4 + Baveyes Adapter @ f8. Camera profile is "standard".

Next we have the good old Minolta Rokkor 50mm f1.7 with a dumb adapter.

Lastly we have my brand new FE 35mm f2.8 Zeiss lens. Its a very nice lens to have if you have a Sony A7. Great for street with its small size and workable focus scale on the display. It can have loads of aberration but other than that its great. And razor sharp.

 

I don’t know what you think but I think it looks ok. There is a tiny bit of aberration around the square on right page from the modern Zeiss. Other than that I can’t really pick out any major fault in any of them.

I think its safe to say that the Kipon Baveyes doesn’t have any major impact on sharpness.
Which is nice and lets us instead focus on the good things, like for example the bokeh.

These are from this mornings walk with Gunpowder.

This one is straight from camera.

This one is a bit graded.

Here we see a tendency of another divider between people, swirly bokeh. Which I always like.

I havent noticed any weird flaring so far. This was without a hood.

Even at f4 the dof is pretty thin. Cant wait to test my 80mm f1.9! Luckily the Red peaking shows up nicely.

Then Gunpowder got bored so we will leave it at that for now. Plenty more to come, more lenses and of course video.
My lenses btw are 80mm f4 Macro, 80mm f1.9, 150mm f3.5, 45mm f2.8 and waiting on a Zeiss 80mm f2.8 + Penatcon 6 to M645 adapter.

[zerocool22]

thx for the update, could you also do a video one. As I am mainly interested in using this in video.

[Mattias Burling]

5 minutes ago, zerocool22 said:

thx for the update, could you also do a video one. As I am mainly interested in using this in video.

I will for sure. Just note that I only have the original A7 with HD in a low avchd and issues with moire if one uses to sharp of a lens.

Also quick update:

I shot outside in the sun today and stopped down to f5.6-f11.
The amount of detail, not sharpness, detail is of the fu..ing wall!
Crazy amount!

I will set up a side by side.
 

[jonpais]

Without even pixel peeping, the The Mamiya 80mm f4 Macro + Kipon Baveyes Adapter barely approaches the decency level of resolution.

[Nikkor]

Swirley bokeh  Field curvature on a macrolens  

[jonpais]

12 hours ago, Zachguti said:

Registered to keep up on this thread, and because I found this:

I feel like the MF look shines at 10+ feet from the camera. I just can't image as nice an image on FF with an ultra fast 50mm.

The image is even softer than my Panasonic 12-35mm f/2.8, and I see no advantage over the thousands of full frame or APS-C videos I've seen on YouTube or Vimeo. 

[Michael Gibbs]

Ok correct me if I'm wrong but aren't these things focal length reducers?

So really they are making your lens wider/faster not your sensor bigger.

If so given the fact that many medium format lenses are slower than 35mm lenses wouldn't it be easier/cheaper to buy a 55mm f2 35mm lens than an 80mm f2.8 medium format?

 I kind of think the whole concept is somewhat of a misnomer, it's like saying putting a doubler on makes an Arri 435 an Arri SR3.

Again please correct me if I've misunderstood what focal length reducers actually are doing.

[Mattias Burling]

8 minutes ago, jonpais said:

Without even pixel peeping, the The Mamiya 80mm f4 Macro + Kipon Baveyes Adapter barely approaches the decency level of resolution.

If I click this image and then click it again to zoom 1:1, wait until its loaded, I feel there is enough resolution to go around.
When I can see individual hairs on a horse nose on an already crops image I say its enough for a photo.
Let alone a simple HD or 4K image.

Here is a screen dump of the zoom on flickr. 
And this was at the lens softest setting. At f11 or even f16 the detail is insane.

[jonpais]

1 minute ago, Mattias Burling said:

If I click this image and then click it again to zoom 1:1, wait until its loaded, I feel there is enough resolution to go around.
When I can see individual hairs on a horse nose on an already crops image I say its enough for a photo.
Let alone a simple HD or 4K image.

Here is a screen dump of the zoom on flickr. 
And this was at the lens softest setting. At f11 or even f16 the detail is insane.

 

That's sharper than the macro shots. So is f/11 the sweet spot?

10 minutes ago, Michael Gibbs said:

Ok correct me if I'm wrong but aren't these things focal length reducers?

So really they are making your lens wider/faster not your sensor bigger.

If so given the fact that many medium format lenses are slower than 35mm lenses wouldn't it be easier/cheaper to buy a 55mm f2 35mm lens than an 80mm f2.8 medium format?

 I kind of think the whole concept is somewhat of a misnomer, it's like saying putting a doubler on makes an Arri 435 an Arri SR3.

Again please correct me if I've misunderstood what focal length reducers actually are doing.

Focal reducers are all the craze. Fast native lenses are ideal. 

[Mattias Burling]

22 minutes ago, jonpais said:

That's sharper than the macro shots. So is f/11 the sweet spot?

I dont know, I shot some macro shots at f5.6-f8 today and they where definitely detailed enough but at those distances the dof is still not wider than a cookie (I was buying cookies at the time).

Here are quick side-by-side.
The Mamiya Macro and Adapter and then the Modern FE 35mm f2.8 which I think we all agree is as sharp and detailed as they come.

Both shot at f8 and focus on the hair infront of the trolls eye.
The Modern lens got the handicap of being much closer to the subject.

These are heavy crops.

Mamiya

Zeiss

 

Mamiya untouched


Zeiss untouched

 

I don't see any more detail or resolution in the mega modern and native super glass. 
The shallower depth of field af course blurs more of the image. But if you peep where the focus is, around the eyes it looks the same to me.
Vintage swinging above its league imo

[Mattias Burling]

Speaking of medium format. 
When I want a break from the teny tiny sensor size that is the medium format 6x4.5 with x0.7 crop and want a more regular crop I shoot 6x9 film.
Turns out the Mamiya Macro is pretty good for photographing negatives.

Here I just held it up against a window. 
Using my proper holder and light the results should be good.
Today I use a m4/3 camera when Im to lazy to scan but haven't been super exited about the reasults.

Mamiya + Sony A7

(Like earlier you need to click and load full res to see the result.)

[TwoScoops]

Interesting. Will this speedbooster work with the fantastic Mamiya RZ67 lenses?

[Nikkor]

1 minute ago, TwoScoops said:

Interesting. Will this speedbooster work with the fantastic Mamiya RZ67 lenses?

If you find a way to mount them, it will work with any lens that has a long flangefocal distance.

[TwoScoops]

Just now, Nikkor said:

If you find a way to mount them, it will work with any lens that has a long flangefocal distance.

Great. I think they'd still only work at infinity focus unless the speedbooster had a bellows built in. Which is an awesome thought haha.

[Mattias Burling]

There certainly are a lot of options since there are adapters from other medium format systems to the once Kipon has available as speedboosters.
Will look into it and try to make a complete list.

Meanwhile, these are the native mounts they offer today.

BAVEYES HASSELBLAD-SONY E 0.7x
BAVEYES HASSELBLAD-LEICA M 0.7x
BAVEYES HASSELBLAD-LEICA SL 0.7x

BAVEYES PENTAX645-SONY E 0.7x
BAVEYES PENTAX645-LEICA M 0.7x
BAVEYES PENTAX645-LEICA SL 0.7x

BAVEYES PENTAX67-SONY E 0.7x
BAVEYES PENTAX67-LEICA M 0.7x
BAVEYES PENTAX67-LEICA SL 0.7x

BAVEYES MAMIYA645-LEICA SL 0.7x
BAVEYES MAMIYA645-SONY E 0.7x

[Nikkor]

I hope metabones comes up with a good speedbooster which doesn't introduce that kind of fieldcurvature or whatever that is, or even better, make one for the fuji gx to use 6x7 glass, much more exciting than 645.

[Mattias Burling]

1 minute ago, Nikkor said:

I hope metabones comes up with a good speedbooster which doesn't introduce that kind of fieldcurvature or whatever that is, or even better, make one for the fuji gx to use 6x7 glass, much more exciting than 645.

The Kipon doesn't introduce any field curvature. Its a characteristic of many medium format lenses. 

Imo, 6x7 is nice but a bit small. Its the odd ball or the APS-C among medium format so to speak. But I sure hope they make one. The more options the better.

[Nikkor]

Just now, Mattias Burling said:

The Kipon doesn't introduce any field curvature. Its a characteristic of many medium format lenses. 

Imo, 6x7 is nice but a bit small. Its the odd ball or the APS-C among medium format so to speak. But I sure hope they make one. The more options the better.

645 is the aps-c among medium format, 6x7 is the ideal format for printing (and larger than 645) ,etc... 6x6 and 6x9 are the odd sizes which waste film unless you really need the crop options, or use that weird ratio in some digital medium.

Fieldcurvature in a macro lens? I doubt it.

[TwoScoops]

Yeah, 6X7 isn't small at all. 645 is the APS-C equiv.

6X7 is what Steven Meisel, Herb Ritts, et al used in the 90s. You can get incredibly detailed prints from it.

Confusingly, in the stills world they call 645 "Super 35", somewhat confusingly. Meaning a super  version of 35mm film, nothing to do with the cinema meaning.

[Nikkor]

11 minutes ago, TwoScoops said:

Yeah, 6X7 isn't small at all. 645 is the APS-C equiv.

6X7 is what Steven Meisel, Herb Ritts, et al used in the 90s. You can get incredibly detailed prints from it.

Confusingly, in the stills world they call 645 "Super 3", somewhat confusingly. Meaning a super  version of 35mm film, nothing to do with the cinema meaning.

6x7 is also the IMAX format (except for the sprocket holes in the imax film 70x48.5mm vs 68-72x56mm). The Batman and Interestellar IMAX scenes are pretty impressive, and no, the mamiya lens doesn't show any strange fieldcurvature, and it's being used way over it's pretended image circle.