Officially announced - Metabones Canon EF Speed Booster for Micro Four Thirds and Panasonic GH4

[Inazuma]

Sooooo….. as someone who's just getting started… Should I be selling my nikon m43 speed booster, and sigma to 18-35 nikon mount lens, and buy one of these and some canon glass instead?

 

Canon glass really that much better looks wise then Nikon?

 

The idea of IS sounds really awesome though. Especially for documentary shooting and taking photos. But you have to use slower lens, which is a shame. I suppose I could always get another sigma 18 - 35 second hand but canon mount.

http://www.sigmaphoto.com/change-your-mount

[Oscar M.]

Hummm . . . I think this will work with a 50D and a Sigma 18-35 Art, right? But since the 18-35 is specifically made for MFT cameras will the metabones reducer cause vinegeting?

[Inazuma]

Haha what :D

 

No, this adapter is to adapt Canon lenses on to an MFT camera.

The Sigma 18-35mm is made for APS-C cameras (Nikon, Canon EF, Sony A).

The lens will therefore not vignette when put on this speed booster made for MFT.

[Oscar M.]

Well, I probably meant to say "Crop factor".

 

My understanding is that the Speedbooster works by reducing a full frame len's image to fit a m43 (or APS-C) sensor. Since the Sigma 18-35 itself already reduces the image for M43 sensors to begin with, wouldn't putting a metabones behind it reduce the image even further?

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

Simple. The sigma 18-35mm covers APS-C. The speedbooster shrinks that APS-C to micro four thirds.

Therefore the sigma + SB will only cover m43s. Using the combination on an APS-C sensor will cause vigentting. You can use the Sigma without the SB on the 50D though!

[Oscar M.]

Simple. The sigma 18-35mm covers APS-C. The speedbooster shrinks that APS-C to micro four thirds.

Therefore the sigma + SB will only cover m43s. Using the combination on an APS-C sensor will cause vigentting. You can use the Sigma without the SB on the 50D though!

 

Thanks for the explanation Ebrahim. That's sort of what I thought.

 

I guess it's time to start clamoring for a APS-C version! ;-)

[Andrew Reid]

Thanks for the explanation Ebrahim. That's sort of what I thought.

 

I guess it's time to start clamoring for a APS-C version! ;-)

 

There is already an APS-C Speed Booster for Sony E-mount. There will never be one for the 50D unfortunately Oscar as it requires a mirrorless mount. There needs to be space between the lens and the sensor for the Speed Booster glass to fit. The mirror on a DSLR takes up that space so it's a physical impossibility to make one for Canon's APS-C DSLRs.

[Oscar M.]

There is already an APS-C Speed Booster for Sony E-mount. There will never be one for the 50D unfortunately Oscar as it requires a mirrorless mount. There needs to be space between the lens and the sensor for the Speed Booster glass to fit. The mirror on a DSLR takes up that space so it's a physical impossibility to make one for Canon's APS-C DSLRs.

 

:-(  . . .  Yes. I've held out for too long Andrew. It's time for a new Camera!

[MattH]

Have you tried an ef-s lens with the booster yourself? The 18-55mm kit lens for example?

[Matthew Walsh]

Have you tried an ef-s lens with the booster yourself? The 18-55mm kit lens for example?

EF-S glass (APS-C lenses made bt Canon) will not fit because of their reduced flange distance. Canon does not license the EF-S mount however, so all third party APS-C lenses (which must use the standard EF mount and flange distance guidelines) will fit.

[Servo]

From your article:

 

Canon APS-C lenses are EF-S mount so won’t work.

 

And then later on:

 

the Canon EF mount is actually itself very adaptable to other formats notably Nikon, M42, Contax Zeiss, Leica R and Olympus OM. The lenses that won’t fit are Canon FD, Minolta, Sony and of course mirrorless glass on Speed Booster is a physical impossibility!

 

Do you see what's not clear? You don't include Canon EF-S lenses as not compatible here, but you mentioned them earlier. I don't really need you to be clearer for me as I get it, but for your own writing you should want to be consistent, because it does start to raise a question of why not mention EF-S lenses in a list of incompatible lenses. Like, maybe you misspoke about EF-S lenses earlier or something. It suggests an inconsistency that I need to be sure isn't intentional.

 

So, to sum up, what lenses are compatible with this speed booster?

[Perplex]

I put my order in yesterday evening.  Hopefully it gets to the states in a speedy fashion!

[Inazuma]

Do you see what's not clear? You don't include Canon EF-S lenses as not compatible here, but you mentioned them earlier. I don't really need you to be clearer for me as I get it, but for your own writing you should want to be consistent, because it does start to raise a question of why not mention EF-S lenses in a list of incompatible lenses. Like, maybe you misspoke about EF-S lenses earlier or something. It suggests an inconsistency that I need to be sure isn't intentional.

 

So, to sum up, what lenses are compatible with this speed booster?

The quote in the article was talking about what's compatible with Canon EF in general, not what's compatible with the speedbooster. 

 

The speed booster is compatible with Canon EF mount lenses, including any made by third parties. Third party lenses made for APS-C are still Canon EF, not EF-S.

 

It does raise another interesting question though about whether you can adapt Nikon, M42, Contax Zeiss, Leica R and Olympus OM lenses on to the speed booster.

[indianajones]

I thought the speed booster was supposed to work with full frame EF lenses, but Andrew implies that actually APS-C lenses are the ones to use.  Or I misunderstood what he was saying.  So is it that both types will work but APS-C is the "better" choice?

[Caleb Genheimer]

Didn't buy any speedboosters because I knew this had to be coming eventually. Glad to see it's finally here, and can't wait to put my C/Y Zeiss f1.4's on front of this puppy!

[aldolega]

EF-S glass (APS-C lenses made bt Canon) will not fit because of their reduced flange distance.

Flange distance is exactly the same as EF. The reason Canon EF-S's won't fit is that most of them have a protruding lip on the back of the lens that would hit the SpeedBooster's optics (or the mirror on a full frame camera).

I do remember seeing an article somewhere online though, about shaving the lip off to clear a 5D's mirror. Perhaps this could be done to clear the Speedbooster optics? The 17-55 f2.8 is the only EF-S lens I can think of that'd be worth this kind of effort.

There's also the question of whether the electronic protocol is different for EF-S.

[MattH]

Yes. EF-S lenses have an EF mount. As far as the mount, the connection and the protocol there is no difference whatsoever. The only difference is that ef-s zoom lenses rear element extends back past the mount when in its widest position and therfore the lens has a black thing that pokes out even further to protect it. This isn't an issue in apsc dslrs because of the smaller mirror.
Third party apsc lenses are not ef-s so can be mounted on full frame DSLRs without risk of damage. But they only have aps-c coverage obviously. whether this is because canon have 'Locked down' the rights to ef-s I don't know. But it makes no difference anyway.

As for whether an EF-s lens with sticky out thing at the back will work with this speed booster, I know that it has been STATED that it won't work. but I would like to know whether it has been TESTED.

[MattH]

No need to test, I can tell by the pictures that the front of the glass in the speed booster is flush with the contacts.  No EF-S lens will work.  Which is a shame because they would otherwise have been well suited for this.  The 10-18mm IS particularly.

[Perplex]

This whole thread looks like it is dedicated to where this works with EF-S or not.  Do you guys really have that many EF-S lenses?

[ajay]

Has anyone gotten confirmation on their order? I think I ordered the new Speedbooster since $$$ was taken out of my Paypal account, but have not received any further word from them (no emails). Is this common? There's no way to check the status of an order on their website.

 

I now see on their website that the Speedbooster is unavailable.