The first of the new generation Speedbooster Ultra are in Stock at BHphoto or shipping within 2-4 weeks. Check out the list:
In Stock: Metabones Canon EF-Emount Speed Booster Ultra-Black Matt (Click here).
Metabones QBM-Emount Speed Booster Ultra-Black Matt (Click here).
Metabones Contarex-Emount Speed Booster Ultra-Black Matt (Click here).
Metabones OM-Emount Speed Booster Ultra-Black Matt (Click here).
Metabones MD-Emount Speed Booster Ultra -Black Matt (Click here).
Metabones FD-Emount Speed Booster Ultra-Black Matt (Click here).
Metabones Alpha-Emount Speed Booster Ultra-Black Matt (Click here).
Metabones Alpa-Emount Speed Booster Ultra -Black Matt (Click here).
Metabones Nikon G-Emount Speed Booster Ultra-Black Matt (Click here).
Metabones Nikon G-Emount Speed Booster Ultra-Black Matt (Click here).
IN STOCK: Metabones Yashica-Emount Speed Booster Ultra-Black Matt (Click here).
IN STOCK: Metabones Leica R-Emount Speed Booster Ultra-Black Matt (Click here).
This is the official press text from Metabones:
Sharper corners, less distortion, reduced vignetting
Like the revolutionary original Metabones Speed Booster announced in January 2013, the Speed Booster ULTRA has a magnification of 0.71x, and so it effectively reduces the crop factor of mirrorless cameras with DX-sized sensors, such as Sony E-mount and Fuji X-mount cameras, from 1.5x to 1.07x. However, the new ULTRA design makes very effective use of exotic materials at the furthest limit of glassmaking technology, and as a result is well corrected for use with virtually all fullframe SLR lenses regardless of exit pupil distance. Thus, the Speed Booster ULTRA performs extremely well with professional-grade f/2.8 zoom lenses such as the 24-70mm f/2.8 and 70-200mm f/2.8 zooms by Canon and Nikon to produce 17-50mm f/2.0 and 50-142mm f/2.0 high-speed zooms, respectively. Similarly, high-speed fixed focal length lenses such as a 50mm f/1.2 will be transformed into a 35.5mm f/0.9 lens with excellent contrast and resolution from the center all the way to the edges of the image. (More information can be found in the press release here)
- Increase maximum aperture by 1 stop.
- Increase MTF.
- Makes lens 0.71x wider.
- Advanced 5-element/4-group optical design incorporating ultra-high index tanatalum-based optical glass by Caldwell Photographic in the USA (patent pending).
- Electronic integration of aperture diaphragm, controlled by or from the camera body.
- Partial autofocus support for late-model (post-2006) Canon-brand lenses.
- Powered by camera body. No external power source required.
- High performance 32-bit processor and efficient switched-mode power supply.
- The tripod foot is detachable and compatible with Arca Swiss, Markins, Photo Clam ball heads.
82 Responses
Nice! Does anyone know whether (or when) there will be an “Ultra” Speed Booster for Micro Four Thirds, too?
Yes, Metabones knows, you should ask them.
There likely is no need. The reason there is one for e-mount was that the orginal was not good enough. This later one is the one to get when you want the best possible image quality. That is my understanding about the different versions. Speed boosters are mainly usefull for video work. Naturally all creative photographers who try out all kinds of interesting techniques can benefit as well. It’s a new tool to the tool bag. I personally shoot with Canon, Nikon, Olympus And panasonic gear (3 systems).
The reason why I think there might be one coming up for M43, too, is that some time ago there was a blog posting by Roger Cicala of LensRentals who had a visit from Brian Caldwell, the optical designer of the Speed Booster, who was bringing a new M43 Speed Booster prototype for testing which was supposed to be better than the original one. It is true, though, that the original M43 Speed Booster already has a slightly more advanced optical design than the original APS-C Speed Boosters…
There is a patent US 89039232 from late 2014 which does include an example for m43.
That’s all I know.
This version brings the price up to 650. If you put this on an a6000 isn’t that the price of a FF camera already?
and AF sucks.
Then like a real photographer you use manual and don’t complain about it.
Not a problem for video use which is primarily manual focus anyway.
Yes, but a Speed Booster is likely more reliable (at least the dumb adapters), makes future camera upgrades cheaper, is smaller, and allows users the ability to choose between large, legacy lenses or small, 16×24 lenses. It isn’t for everyone, but it has advantages. That said, I haven’t seen convincing evidence that the Ultra is worth an upgrade from the original.
Unlike real FF body, with SB you cannot use rangefinder lenses at all and not even all SLR lenses
Very few advantages if any.
i can see the advantages for cinema cameras like the fs700
I use a speed booster for portrait and street, so I don’t need corner sharpness. Actually, I want to avoid it. So, I am one of those lucky guys for which a Quenox adapter for 1/3 of the price is totally sufficient. 🙂
All of those things sound good and fine but the slow AF issue would have to be addressed before I drop $600+ on one.
The “AF” issue can be addressed by learning how to focus.
Trololololol
Can you please teach us?
AF speed mainly depends on Sony firmware. Metabones had to reverse engineer the protocol, but they can’t change Sony camera AF behaviour.
Not really, AF speed is limited by USMs in Canon lenses not being good at small back and forth movements required by contrast detect AF. Metabones adapter AF is very similar in speed to liveview AF in Canon DSLRs.
Similar to which Canon DSLR? 70D provides at least acceptable AF speed, whereas Metabones doesn’t use OSPDAF and is very slow
Similar to the 5D mkIII, which doesn’t have any phase detect pixels on the sensor (like the A7R). If you can do OSPDAF then you’ll be able to focus faster with USM lenses.
so A7 has OSPDAF and A6000/A5100 has a good one
With the current prices of A7, why would anyone want a Speed Booster (at any price)?
For the sony fs700, as it does 4k
You really don’t know?
How about having f1.0 with a f1.4 lens, by just putting speed booster on.
How about having even sharper center than before, by just using speed booster.
How about using SMALL lenses with SMALL camera to get full frame noise levels (lower ISO used because of more light that is focused by speed booster).
Total BS.
FWIW, I have had one of the first Speed Boosters (NEX era). After the A7/A7r, this is absolutely useless.
It may still be attractive for the tiny (m43) format users.
Nice trolling.
Correct me her.
This one could give me a 50-142mm f/2.0 when im using 70-200 zoom. But then again. If i am using manuel 200 mm. Then i will get 142 mm tele lens. And with the f.2,8 lenses i will get a 1,96 aperture. So whats the point exactly. I could just buy myself a 135 mm lens with aperture 2.0.
Then im better of anyway
The point is that you can use your existing FF lenses on APSC and get the FF focal length, use FF image circle and get FF depth of field and FF noise levels(1 stop optical gain).
Its not for use on FF, its only for APSC. When you use a 70-200 on APSC, its effectively a 105-300 lens due to crop. Speedbooster would make it a 50-135/2.0 APSC lens, which is the same angle of view as 70-200/2.8 on FF.
Sure, you can buy a 135 prime, but a speedbooster is much cheaper and works for all existing lenses, while that prime is just 1 lens And is 2-3 times the cost of a speedbooster.
Stan, thanks for that clear explanation !
At the risk of saying What Is This i stopped watching as soon as i looked at it,..but heres what might be a reasonably lit example.. with a ‘colour palette’ that looks like clumps of seaweed without the wonderful close tones and attractive saturated pure colour of real things. I got nothing short of kinky tones out of mine on my few and final experiments such that i was even comparing the red rendition favourably with other still cams :D. yes sorry, but i’m JUST very dedicated to image quality that actually looks good XD Basically i was JUST matching up the colour on a large print pattern with a vibrant orange part 🙂 and found it to be fine.That s-log idea is very interesting and i get the sort of idea but its something from nothing and that’s why it shows as well nothing and JUST terrible colour rendition. Who cares if its overbaked contrast? with pure authentic colours?
Are you talking to yourself? What are you babbling about?
You politotrolls don’t say anything useful at all, only failed arguments. you aren’t worth responding to much anymore. Ive declared actual objective findings, you have shown nothing for your declarations OR your existence.
It would be easier if you wrote in English.
I don’t entirely understand your question but the effect of this speed booster is that it would give the same field of view on an APS-C camera as an identical full frame lens would give on a full frame sensor.
except if you have both SB and 135/2, you can combine them to make 100/1.4 lens
Which would be equivalent to a 135 mmm F 2 lens on full frame, minus the inevitable optical losses induced by the Metabones. No free lunches.
Hopefully this will quiet all the “Sony isn’t supporting crop sensor owners” by allowing the use of real full frame lenses on aps-c cameras.
What’s the point? No crop factor, expensive bodies (body + speedbooster), have to use FF glass…
You’re better off with an A7 or A7II
That’s precisely the point: “You’re better off with an A7 or A7II” but Aps-c users don’t want to hear that. It would be cheaper and wiser in the long term to upgrade to full frame and full frame lenses.
This adaptor is not from Sony, it’s expensive and only supports slow AF with Canon lenses.
No, because this is another toy for computer folks, surely not for photographers.
I don’t see the appeal of any speedboost accessory. You may get a faster equivalent aperture, but you’re also adding more glass between the subject and the sensor. That degrades IQ. It may not be a big degradation, but you will always get better IQ by not having that extra glass in back of your lens.
So you’re saying that a lens with fewer elements will always have better IQ than a lens with more elements?
That’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m saying that when you take any lens and then add more glass onto it, e.g., as with a speedboost adapter, you will always degrade the image quality. Some of the light passing through the added glass will get absorbed or scattered on its way to the sensor. It’s basic optics.
And what if more light is passing through, as in the case of a speed booster? Wouldn’t basic optics say that makes it better?
The issue isn’t the quantity of the of the light, it’s the fact that every time you add an element to a lens you degrade the image. Speedboosters don’t create light anyway. It’s impossible to have more light coming out the back end of a lens than went in through the front.
So now you’re saying the speed boosted lens has less light hitting the sensor as one without it…
Okay, I’m gonna try this.
The f-stop is a ratio of the focal length and the diameter of the entrance pupil. If the speedbooster reduces the focal length, the f-number will shrink. Yet, the booster can’t let in more light, that would be a perpetuum mobile. The term for how much light will go through a lens is called t-stop, and the transmission value will probably be worse with this thing on because the light has to pass through more glass.
Correct me if I’m wrong.
You’re wrong, people already tested it.
Focal reducer compresses image, so all aberrations get compressed too. For some lenses, benefit for compressing aberrations will be larger than new aberrations introduced by SB. Also you get the benefit of using slower aperture in main lens
ultra has been on sale & b&h for months? i bought one in september?
Excellent, more computer geeks are soon going to waste good lenses.
I demand s-log for shooting stills on my Sony A7R like the cinetech people, it produces better dynamic range than the best cameras, or at least when you JUST use the jpegs..and then only if you know exactly how to use curves anyway, in which case you had better want tone mapped values and not authentic ones..anyway..s-log is missing on my Sony A7R What Is This? update firmware for when i can be bothered to work out how to not brick my camera ty!
Or a shim of wax from metabones to lower contrast evenly and accurately across the sensor field and an antiwax LUT to go with it for my particular choice of raw processing i mean jpeg processing application. I don’t want to have to go under the optimal aperture for sharpness to achieve this contrast reduction or to suffer from deep focus issues. 🙂
I shouldn’t joke! Does anyone in fact use s-log to overcome the terrible dynamic range limitations of that cameras sensor..for stills shooting?
576 words, three videos and not a single coherent thought.
What else is new. LOL
http://www.redsharknews.com/business/item/2212-dolby-unleashes-hdr-cinema-experience?utm_source=www.lwks.com+subscribers&utm_campaign=8a0fb7fbad-RSN_Dec12_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_079aaa3026-8a0fb7fbad-79219237
New?
Contradictions after contradictions…s-log and Dolby HDR displays…my ideas and your mistakes. Proof of great colour range VS no proof whatsoever of this supposed ‘DR’.
XD^99
What is a dx-sized sensor ?? Why not use normal size definitions ?
Nikon fanboys think DX is a format lel
DX is Nikon’s term for APS-C or crop sensor. 1.5x smaller than full-frame.
Is there an app for a7 to upload photos to instagram or flickr? I want to know
For filckr yes there is an app , but not for instagram
Can they make one to convert medium format Contax 645 AF lenses into FF format for A7 ?
Yes; if they wanted to lose an incredible amount of money on all three that they sell.
Why would they lose an incredible amount of money? This he’s talking about a MF to FF. The ones that they sell are FF to APSC. And you are just trolling.
I think his point is that the market isn’t big enough to recoup the development costs.
I asked Brian Caldwell and he answered that he didn’t think the market was large enough. Maybe if you come with better estimate or even gather the money needed e.g. via Kickstarter it might help.
o in fact, these cameras already use super35mm sensor and are presumably paired with that Sony cine zoom lens which would make the equivalent of around 42mm to 200mm. But regardless of the dynamic range stated, is the video media it produces really at 10bit latitude for processing? I am completely cynical regards video image quality in general… LUT? as in record a gradient of all shades such that you can reproduce it? pointless if you are reducing the colour depth to UNUSEABLE hahahahaha Actually i make things in Filter Forge that include such operations..ones you couldn’t even imagine JUST by playing around and thinking about it XD In fact forget non linear editors, a fantastic way to process real video would definately be to set up a macro with your favourite raw processor: end of argument.
For anything a lot worse in result? sure use whatever the main brands push… hose are protocols you can do without where you already have to deal with so many in video..endless opaque image deteriorating protocols!!! Anyone who has even tried playing or editing video on computer will know this never mind video pros! It is true that pro res is a protocol too, its JUST that it already contains the image quality which is so important whereas i don’t see it in anything less.XD Its actually quite funny that this sort of footage is considered acceptable 😀 There was colour video in the edwardian period already…
in actual fact, i’m pretty sure the coefficient of this glass barely equal to that of my PS3 3D glasses, hahaha….you’d be hard pressed to improve upon a MF image aesthetic, only hipster losers would go for this idea XD.
BTW did you know that a focal reducer, unlike teleconverter, can create image itself? It has focal length about ~85 mm (teleconverters have negative FL). Of course it wasn’t designed to work like that, so IQ would be poor, but imagine how cool it would be if focal reducer was designed to act as prime lens?
$650! Why not buy a refurb 70D for your Canon lenses then? AF will be much faster and work with all lenses, lens corrections would be applied automatically…
Never knew the 70D was a viable alternative for an FS700 or FS7.
You mean the adapter is for FS etc? Then there are C100, C300 etc.
I have a cheap MD-EMount Speed Booster from Camdiox, but the Blue Spot issue is very annoying and noticeable in almost any situation. Any feedback regarding the Blue Spot at this new Metabones version please?
Metabones has nothing to do with Camdiox products 🙂
And, Metabones SB did not have blue spot issue from the start.
I know they re only clones, but I ve read somewhere that even some Metabones might have the blue spot, that s why I ve asked. Thanks, good to know, might consider, I love my MDs 🙂
they are not clones, their optics is different.
Question from someone that is unfamiliar with E-mount. Why can’t the A-mount lenses autofocus with an adapter (LA-EA3) without a mirror, but some Canon lenses can (at least partially, whatever “partial autofocus support” means)?
Well, some A-mount lenses *CAN* focus with LA-EA3.
AFAIK it’s only lenses that have no motor and require screwdriver cannot.