Speed Booster on Full Frame

[HockeyFan12]

I've read that some Canon FD L lenses (85mm f1.2, I think), for instance, cover nearly 645.

Metabones has recently released an FD to L mount speed booster, which got me thinking....

I was wondering if these (or any other f1.2 lenses: EF mount or adapted to EF or FD mount so Nikon, Rokinon, Olympus, etc. would be options) can be used full frame in 2.35:1 crop as f0.9 lenses. A little bit of vignetting is fine. Or does the speed booster limit you to crop via the contacts on the adapter somehow? Is there a way to overrule that? Would be using an S1.

I was thinking 50mm f1.2 FD L, 85mm f1.2 FD L, 50mm f1.2 Olympus OM, 50mm f1.2 Nikon AI would be options. Full moon on Wednesday....

[Anaconda_]

interesting! Do you have a link to the booster? All I can find is the adapter without glass.

I remember Mattias Burping adapted soms medium format lenses to a Sony a7 a few years ago. He seemed happy with the results.

 

[HockeyFan12]

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1682916-REG/metabones_mbspfd_l_bm1_canon_fd_fl_lens_to.html

Someone on Flickr was doing this with an A7 and I think an off-brand speed booster.

But I should probably just get (rent) a 50mm f0.95 of some sort.

[MrSMW]

2 hours ago, Anaconda_ said:

Mattias Burping

Snort 🙊

[stephen]

Speed booster from the link doesn't have electronic contacts, S1 won't crop the picture. Camera won't know what kind of lens is attached. S1/S5 do the crop with ASP lenses when they have electronic contacts and are recognized by the camera.

However I don't think it's a good idea to use FF with speed booster on a FF body. At least you need to try it first.

Recently bought a relatively good and cheap Chinese lens with positive reviews:
https://phillipreeve.net/blog/review-syoptic-50mm-1-1/

Never had such a fast lens and wanted to try one for photography. For video such a shallow DOF is totally unusable. For photography it was a disappointment too. It's a specialized tool only for portraits but at f1.1 it is soft and very difficult to manually focus. Almost any good 50mm f1.4 performs better than this one at f1.4.  Other f/1.1 or f/0.95 don't differ much.

If you are after ultra/super shallow DOF type of lenses try LAOWA 35mm f0.95 or 45mm f0.95 or Mitakon Speedmaster 50mm f0.95. I know people who similar to me bought some of those lenses used them for some time for portraits then sold them. It is really a special tool, you definitely has to like this type of look.

[hyalinejim]

I would add that from my experience of using a manual focus 58mm Rokkor 1.2 on a 5D3 for photography I found that if I used the optical viewfinder to judge focus, forget it, it was out of focus. I missed it nearly every time.

However, I got an almost 100% success rate by using an LCD viewfinder (remember those?). So you're magnifying the large, high resolution image on the rear LCD screen. It's actually possible to nail focus this way.

 

[PannySVHS]

I imagine it's supposed to be used in S35 mode, just like the Bmpcc booster is suited for its S16 sensor size with the Speedbooster sporting a 0.58 factor. It didn't work well on M43 sensors.

Now 0.71 is the rather common thing. So maybe it works for FF but i assume the FD Speedboosrer is constructed for S35 to be boosted to FF image circle of the lens. That would make sense, as that would be the most used application rather than using a very few of expensive L lenses to be pushed bexond FF.

Some Konicas cover the Fuji Gfx 44x33mm sensor with charming characteristics in the corners. Andrew wrote an article about that. FF boosted by 0.71 would be around 50.7mm wide (1 / 0.71 x 36mm). Interested to see. The 0.71 boosters for Emount were solely done for S35. Havent seen successful uses on FF sensor size other than in S35 crop mode.

The Mamiya 645 booster, also with a 0.71 factor is for FF sensor size to be boosted to a larger 1.4x factor of the image circle. The Pentax MF variante does that as well. Both are from Kippon and very pricy.

[HockeyFan12]

It just arrived today but the speedbooster won't mount on my camera. The mount is an L mount for sure. Any idea how to make this work? There's an "on off" ring around it but I'm not sure what rotating that does.

I doubt it'll work out anyway (doubt there will be enough coverage) but I'm really curious to give it a try and it was on sale (open box) so I had to give it a go!

[Mr. Freeze]

So it doesn´t even fit onto the mount of the camera?

The On/Off switch might be for the aperture of your lenses to work manually.

[webrunner5]

Rotating makes it useable Aperture wise or locks the Aperture. But there should be a dot or something where you have to rotate the ring to mount the lens on the adapter. You will have maybe more fun figuring out how to get the damn lens and adapter off. 😵

[HockeyFan12]

Thanks, it's no problem getting the lens off the adapter. The adapter just won't mount on the body. I noticed the set screws on the mount seem to be a bit stripped. Starting to think someone returned it because they had the same problem I have. 😕 

This was probably kind of a misguided plan in the first place probably when there are f0.95 lenses available for rent that actually do cover full frame.... but I saw this for 40% off and had to try it.

[MrSMW]

8 hours ago, HockeyFan12 said:

This was probably kind of a misguided plan in the first place probably when there are f0.95 lenses available for rent that actually do cover full frame.... but I saw this for 40% off and had to try it.

This.

But most of us have done similar at some point 🤪😜

[MrSMW]

Being serious, I am and have always been a fan of a fairly shallow DOF in both photography and video, but my limit these days is around f1.8/2 on full frame and in reality, shoot either 2.8 as my main ‘go to’ or 4 if focus is a little more critical/subjects are not on the same plane.

I actually bought a used 50mm f1.4 a couple of weeks back and whilst the files were super nice wide open, the DOF was in reality, far too shallow so I flipped back to f2.8 very quickly and then by the end of the days shoot, boxed it back up and sent it back.

For the times I’d use f1.4 compared with it’s size & weight (1kg/2+lbs) err, nah.

Went back to my go to f2’s and noticed the massive (less) difference in size & weight, plus much easier to focus and no real world difference in the quality of output.

In fact, next job this weekend, horror of horrors, I am bringing back the highly portable/compact Sigma 28-70mm f2.8 as my principal hybrid lens.

Why?

Because it’s around 500g/1lb or something, does not zoom like an excitable donkey (in fact barely extends), is sharp and renders nicely plus when in 4K 60p mode, is like a 40-105mm lens and when in 5k 30p (Pixel:Pixel 2.18 crop on the S1R) mode, like a 60-150mm lens which is perfect for my mainly outdoor wedding needs.

So speedboosters on M4/3 I get and maybe even on S35 (but I would not bother) but FF? 

[IronFilm]

On 7/12/2022 at 3:16 AM, HockeyFan12 said:

Metabones has recently released an FD to L mount speed booster, which got me thinking....

 

I'd totally expect that the speedbooster wouldn't be able to cover much bigger the APS-C. (at best, maybe FF with a heavy vignette on the edges. Perhaps APS-H would look good?)

Would be easy enough to test, just get an adapter for an actual 645 lens onto the speedbooster mount. 

[HockeyFan12]

I was trying to shoot something under moonlight. I think I should get almost enough coverage for 2.35:1 and an equivalent of f0.90 based on some photos I saw (and can no longer find) on Flickr of someone with a 85mm f1.2 and speedbooster on an A7.

But there are f0.95 lenses that cover full frame fully with modern coatings. Anyway, this was a failed experiment lol.

[kye]

On 7/13/2022 at 9:14 PM, HockeyFan12 said:

I was trying to shoot something under moonlight. I think I should get almost enough coverage for 2.35:1 and an equivalent of f0.90 based on some photos I saw (and can no longer find) on Flickr of someone with a 85mm f1.2 and speedbooster on an A7.

But there are f0.95 lenses that cover full frame fully with modern coatings. Anyway, this was a failed experiment lol.

If you're trying to get low-light performance then the speed booster was never the right approach anyway.

The speed booster is actually for something different - for seeing the full image circle of a lens when the sensor is smaller than that image circle.  IIRC @Andrew Reid found several (or more) lenses that covered FF even after being speed boosted, so the sensor coverage wouldn't be limited in many cases either.

You'd want to see the full image circle if you were interested in the lenses imperfections, which is mostly the source of lenses being 'cinematic' BTW, rather than the perfect modern lenses that are more sterile than a hospital and do not impart any emotion onto the images they create, leaving the film-maker to have to compensate for it elsewhere, representing a lost opportunity.