The Speed Booster adapter created quite an excitement on the web but it seems that Metabones wasn’t the only one having that smart idea. AN Olympus patent just posted on Egami shows how Olympus is working on a very similar adapter! Now, I don’t know if Olympus will or can ever do this. Metabones also patented the idea and there may be a conflict if Olympus goes into mass production with this…
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this sort of adapters have only sensi in video recording, where is IQ not as important as in still. And price is too high
I was also very skeptical about the Metabones Adapter, and I am sure all the reviewers would have loved to talk it down. “Unfortunately”, this adapter really seems to deliver and all reviews are surprisingly positive.
+1, all the “evidence” so far indicate that the adapter do what Metabones claims.
After the test sample I’ve seen, image quality is not very good with adapter.
Do you have links to Speed Booster test shots?
Who knows, but my guess is that image quality might vary quite a bit, depending upon the quality of the lens being used.
Jeff, I cant recall the links from memory but the ones i read confirm the IQ is great in general, except for the corner areas especially wide open. Metabones said that the design for the MFT version would perform slightly better in most aspects.
The best feature of the adapter,imo,is the dof rendering staying closer to the lens original intended use.
I think you might be misinformed about this adapter. It actually improves IQ in some aspects (and it makes senses that it does too).
If you think this is a video exclusively gimmick, think again.
You are wrong
I can’t see how this product can be patented. Has a company patented the teleconverter, the filter-mounted wide-converter, extension tube or adapter ring?
If Oly could do an OM-m43 adapter a la “Speed Booster” it would be great. If not for any other reason than to provide competition and drive the price down a bit.
I agree, how can such a basic idea have been patended? Even I have thought that such a product would be nice and technically feasible, some lens-designers must have though of this half a century ago or more….
Come Come now. We all know the Americans can patent anything. Colours, toe nails, DNA, grass, reproduction. Bent and filed metal and glass, well, that’s just fundamental patent filing.
What we should be doing is revoking all patents where the patent holder makes it a shelf item and does not produce a product in 2-4 years. If its not a manufacturable product then no patent.
+1.000.000
Didn’t Kodak hold the patent on a 0.5x converter?
If that is so we get round it the American way. Make it 0.55
yes Kodak hold the patent for the wide converter
Huh… March 2010 post? When did metabones patent theirs?
the filling date of olympus patent is 17/7/2008 !!!
i don’t know the filling date of metabones patent but i think is after of olympus patent
Yes… That’s crazy that the patent was “filed” 5 years ago but still no final product… 🙁
NtT – the fact is that most patents do not lead to commercial patents
I shouldn’t be typing when I’m clearly not fully awake 🙂
What I MEANT to type was “Most patents do not lead to commercial products.”
Sorry about that.
Mike
I haven’t read the patent but if all they are claiming is the combination of a reverse teleconverter and lens contact pass-throughs, that wouldn’t seem to pass the “non-obvious” test. Reverse teleconverters have been used for decades by astronomers, who refer to them as “reducers”, so the idea of shortening the focal length while decreasing apparent f-ratio and widening the field is hardly novel.
The patent also mentions AF, though I don’t see how that’s possible.
Admin….
Did you not post news years ago Olympus was working on such a thing…. that also promised to have Af in it too … so non AF lenses would now focus… and it still did the 0.5x magnifacation too….
This is what we need… On an OME/EP5 old 1980s lenses would get IS+AF+original FOV+ 2 stops of speed… errrr is that not perfection??? what are they waiting for? – or dont they want to curb sales of m43 lenses.
how do you want to turn a MF into a AF lens? a robot arm outside the adapter turning the focus ring?
I understand it more as supporting different AF lenses, probably for lenses with a build in motor…
Nikon actually did an AF teleconverter, the TC-16A. Apart from magnifying by 1.6x, the lens elements inside the TC would be moved for focusing. The MF lens would be set to infinity, and the TC would do the focusing from there.
ok, haven’t thought about doing it that way. it would change the minimal focus distance i guess?
I posted this yesterday or was it the day before.
http://www.43rumors.com/ft3-olympus-patent-rumors-adapter-with-integrated-wide-lens-and-adapter-with-swd-auto-focus/
Well there is the rumor those f/2 4/3 lenses are FF designed lenses, but with focal reducers in them.
Those who have seen the designs keep posting, right here, that it is not so.
You mean those who are gullible fanboys keep correcting it while informed tech folk including lens designers say that it is indeed a FF lens with a reducer, hence the ridiculous size for a frame a quarter the area of FF.
The reality for those who know what to look for
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kqdg4gvcEq1qzfye6o1_500.jpg
If we have to believe the myth, its a full frame 70-200/2.8 with a 0.5x reducer.
That would actually turn it into a 35-100/1.4…
So they had to do a bit more.. physically limit the aperture to f/4… Myth has this is done electronically by closing the aperture a bit. The picture you posted suggests something different however.
Anyway, please ask your ‘professional lens designers’ to provide you with a 0.5x reducer that can sit behind a photographic lens, and that provides the kind of quality required to match the 35-100/2.
I think you are confusing a design that makes use of a ‘too long’ front and some reduction (which can be an effective way to get around certain aberrations and which has been used in many variations throughout the last 150 or so years) with a ‘full frame lens with a reducer stuck into its back’. No, those aren’t the same thing, not by far.
its complete bullshit and always was
it began with Joe W saying this about the 35-100, then it grew to include 14-35
so far 2 optical engineers have refuted it.
I have followed Joe’s and your comments with great interest on the DP forum. I have no knowledge about optics and not technical capable at all. What i do see with the pictures taken with the 35-100, is a remarkable shallow dof rendering, which i could easily mistake for being shot on a 24×36/70-200 setup.
Well there is the rumor those f/2 4/3 lenses are FF designed lenses, but with focal reducers in them.
Those who have seen the designs keep posting, right here, that it is not so.
It has not changed yet.
I am sure Meade and Optec have been producing focal reducers for decades… what patent?
Olympus should draw up:
– new teleconventers form micro43 – new version of TC20 and TC14
– new adapter for 4/3 lenses with fast AF (like Sony adapter for NEX)
– own ‘metabones’ version for OM lenses (and maybe others), but much cheaper then orginal Metabones
– extensions tubes for macro photography for micro43 (now there is only Kenko set for micro43)
Hold still while I look for my magic wand… 😉
A native M4/3 – 2x teleconverter would be very nice!
Isn’t that what Olympus are supposed to have done with their F2 zooms basically bolt a reducer on to the back of a FF lens. It certainly could explain the huge size of those lenses
Those who have seen the designs keep posting, right here, that it is not so.
As I posted yesterday.
“”There was a post here many moons ago of an olympus 0.5 adapter patent? This one. http://www.43rumors.com/ft3-olympus-patent-rumors-adapter-with-integrated-wide-lens-and-adapter-with-swd-auto-focus/”
“Is this why we get yet another apsc converted item. And not a 0.5 as we would want. Not for ‘technical’ reasons but because Oly holds a patent.””
Maybe OLY needs a push. Or allow someone to build a m43 with 0.5 and not the 0.71
Just think. They have been sitting on this potential good seller and revenue raiser for 2 years.
And a lot of people here are to busy whining and wanting this and wanting that, as a free upgrade, to actually read the comments and follow posts. Ahh! But that’s why we come here.
Wouldn’t it be better and less complicated a front-mounted 0.5x wide angle converter? Specifically designed for MFT pixel density. I Think it might work. Just imagine , the 25 f1.4 would equal to a 25 f1.4 FF equivalent. DoF of 25 f1.4 is always DoF of 25 f1.4, but we would disable the 2x crop and recover the entire field of view.
These converters ideas are a good consumer product, turns every lens into a dual prime, use an older tube adapter and you have 2X; speed boost the same lens and you have 1x, using the same lens. So the price being high for something that achieves this isn’t exactly bad if it cost around the same as a stand-alone lens … the key is that it’s optically good enough. Many teleconverters are crap and make a good lens worse by adding them to the stack. I’d rather see Olympus or Panasonic design this vs 3rd party, there is plenty of time for the generic clones to come out with a copy of their design later.
“Metabones also patented the idea”
You cannot patent an idea.
$99 Sigma 30/2.8… with (more reasonably priced than Metabones) 0.71x reducer… would turn into much more interesting 21/2.0.
Sigma should really think about it. Then their 19mm/2.8 would turn into 13/2.0, 60/2.8 into 43/2.0. I would buy all 3 lenses plus the adapter then, and have effective 6 lenses, and ask for more.