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There are four new auctions of Lens Turbo Adapters (the Chinese version of Speed Boosters):
1) Hong Kong store Roxens sells the Pentax K to NEX adapter on [shoplink 18380 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink], Canon FD to NEX adapter on [shoplink 18420 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink] and Nikon F to NEX adapter on [shoplink 18421 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink] and Minolta MD to NEX adapter on [shoplink 18422 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink]
2) Shanghai store Jinfinance has three adapters: Pentax K to NEX adapter on [shoplink 18381 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink], Canon FD to NEX adapter on [shoplink 18382 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink] and Nikon F to NEX adapter on [shoplink 18383 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].
Please notice that I don’t know these stores. But you can pay via PayPal with all the guarantees you get through it. And the stores have a high 99,5% positive feedback. The real doubt we have is if these adapters are as good as the Metabones Speed Booster. There is a first feedback on Dpreview forum written by “Forpetessake”:
“Adapter looks well made, lenses are coated, it feels heavy. The adapter fits very well on the Sony body, but the lens mount feels tight.
Optically it’s better than I expected. I took a few pictures with the Lens Turbo and with a dumb adapter from the same distance, only changing the FL to get the same FOV. The images looked sharper with Lens Turbo than with a dumb adapter, though I didn’t do any measurements, so I don’t know yet if the resolution or contrast improved or the lens is simply better on the long end. Since in real life shooting, all other things being equal, the lens will be closed more with Lens Turbo than with dumb adapter, the improvements in sharpness should be even better. But that’s my speculation. The light gathering improved, though I can’t verify if it’s one stop. Because of the variable aperture lens in this experiment, I got around 1.6 (1/160 sec exposure vs 1/100 sec) improvement.
Now, the negatives. There is a noticeable vignetting on the short end at a fully open aperture. It decreases as the aperture being closed. That was expected, and might not be a big problem in real shooting. There is also a glare in high contrast situations when shooting towards light source. It looks like a fuzzy bluish spot near the center. It might be the light reflected from the sensor and the rear surface of the Lens Turbo, which is flat. Other than that I didn’t notice any other problems.”
Would be nice to see a Speed Booster vs Lens Turbo real world comparison! Some reviewers out there ready to do this for us? 🙂
35 Responses
Andrea, The Speed Booster is a trade marked name and does not apply to any other stuff.
I know. This is not my problem, it’s the problem of the company selling this 🙂
Is it possible to make a Speed Booster for A-mount?
Sure it is possible, we just need to wait a little. If someone don’t want to wait – there is a solution. Buy for example Lens Turbo for Canon, dissemble it, take out the lens. Buy $10 NEX to A-mount adapter (without lens). Find a way how to place lens from Lens Turbo in this simple A-mount adapter. Done 🙂
Is there an E-to-A adapter even?
Sure
I’ve been looking for one and not found… mind linking?
You can check Ebay. Many will direct ship from HK to where with free international shipping. I have an old Minolta 58mm f1.4 MC/MD Rokkor mount lens for which I got an adapter to E-mount for example. Usually $25 – $50 USD or so. (about)
Tokyo: yeah but that’s again A-to-E mount, not E-to-A
You might also need to file down the dumb adapter–introducing optics changes the register distance.
It won’t work, dumb adapters are longer than speed boosters
Wow, those things are cheap… when they come out for A-mount FF to APS-C, I can see the old Minolta AFs rocketing in price, esp the f4 beercans and primes.
An A-mount would require some electronic feed throughs to set the aperture. This would certainly drive up the cost and may require a license from Sony. These are interesting products. So far the adaptors from this source are manual only.
It is easy to make aperture always open using little peace of cardboard and little peace of imagination 🙂
You could have a mechanism built-in that would move the aperture lever–I have a “dumb” adapter that does that for A mount to NEX. Not as accurate, of course, but it does work.
A little off the topic, found that sony nex body may be easily used for most other brand lenses but Emount & Amount lenses is a pretty selfish… Uphill task to find ways to use it on other bodies…
This thing drops another 50-100 bucks I pick one up. need one for AR lens too :).
Just ordered one for Minolta. About a year ago, I bought a NEX (current one is a C3) specifically for my Minolta glass, and I’m already quite happy with what I can do in spite of the 1.5x crop. Bought a 16/2.8 back then, too, because you can’t sensibly get that wide with legacy glass, as long as there’s the crop factor. I’m curious to find out how it compares to the old MC 24/2.8 mounted with the focal reducer…
Well, I ordered a Canon EF-Nex Speed Booster (it’s just being inspected by our customs services) and a Canon FD-Nex Lens Turbo. I’ll try to compare them but it will be difficult to make a direct comparison since there is no common mount model so far (correct me if I’m wrong).
Anyway I’m going to conduct some real world user tests as soon as I get the adapters and I will publish the results on my blog (http://per-analogia.blogspot.com/), so stay tuned 😉
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I have the EF-NEX Speed Booster and I have two of the AiS-NEX Lens Turbos coming in, the majority of my lenses are in Nikon so I can do quite a comprehensive review.
I have already noted that I used my AFS 35mm f1.8 DX with the Speed Booster on the NEX-7 and it vignetts less than it was used on my D700, which is interesting. Also of note is that the extreme extreme corners with two of my AiS 50mm f1.2 are very good with the Speed Booster, which is one of the things I will try out with the Lens Turbos when I get them.
I have these lenses here:
– Nikon AiS 50mm f1.2 x2
– Nikon AiS 50mm f1.4
– Nikon AiS 50mm f1.8
– Nikon AiS 35mm f1.4
– Nikon AiS 28mm f2
– Nikon AiS 105mm f1.8
– Nikon AiS 180mm f2.8
– Samyang 24mm t1.5
– Samyang 35mm t1.5
– Samyang 85mm t1.5
– Sigma 50mm f1.4
– Rokkor 58mm f1.2 (not converted)
– Pentax m42 55mm f1.8
– Helios 44-2 x3
– Helios 44-3
– Helios 44m-5
– Helios 44m-7
– Helios 77m-4
– Volna-9
And these two that I know cannot be mounted already
– Olympus OM 50 f1.8
– Olympus OM 50 f2 macro
You can email me if you have any questions.
I ordered the MD adapter sold by Roxsen. I’ve ordered from this vendor a number of times and they’ve always done a good job, decent shipping speed from China. It’s not a guarantee that the product itself is any good, of course. I am hopeful the adapter works well, the MD adapter is really the only one that I’ve been hoping for.
On a related note, I’ve also ordered from Jinfinance in the past several times and they did a good job as well.
I hope to post some sample images with common MD mount lenses on both of my NEX5’s (one is converted for infrared) once I receive my adapter.
Where will you be posting those shots Greg? The MD adaptor is the one I’ve been waiting for too and I’d like to see some samples before buying the adaptor. Cheers
Most likely on my Flickr account, I will see if I can share a link on here. It will probably be a week or two before I receive it.
i received my adapter from jinfinance few days ago :).. in my case, it`s the zhongyi lens turbo ;).
once asked, he said : “we did co-op with zhong yi on this adapter… they make great optics… and we make the matching housing…”
i`m happy with it, got it after three days. very nice seller. i can recommend this shop so far.
Can I use my Takumar with M42-to-MD adapter with the MD Lens Turbo? Will it focus to infinity properly if it does on other adapters?
Yes, if the lens does focus to infinity with a normal MD adapter, it will do so with a focal length reducer, too.
Thanks. Got a bunch of Rokkor-X. Too bad there isn’t a Nikon F to MD adapter 🙁 Would like to use my Nikkor 85mm without having to buy another Lens Turbo 🙁
After purchasing the adapter from jinfinance, I’m getting a bit concerned that this is the same adapter (lens turbo from Mitakon) as the other one. The Roxens images have engraved red and white text on the side, while the jinfinance images don’t show anything on it.
I’m returning my Lens Turbo. There is a large bluish dot in the center.
Shot with a FS700 – http://youtu.be/zYB0lesJaxo
I used the Samyang 14mm and Samyang 24mm.
I also tested at the same time with the MTF adapter and that was ok. No filters were used at all. The camera was in the shade and I get the blue dot facing the opposite direction away from the sun too.
Hi, which brand Lens turbo adapter are you returning (the JinFinance/Zhongyi, or the Roxsen version, or the Mitakon version?) I have a Sony FS100, and am interested in either the full frame Nikon F mount or Canon EF mount to NEX adapter.
I bought it from MXCamera through their web site, it is the Zhongyi version.
thanks for the video. that’s pretty disappointing. i was pretty close to buying it. guess i’ll have to wait a bit for a fix or for other manufacturers to release their focal reducers.
I’ll do some more videos over the weekend and test it some more. I hope they can fix this issue.
I have been using the Zhongyi M42 to NEX lens turbo on my NEX3N and VG10 with great satisfaction. Almost all of my M42 lenses perform beautifully with this adapter. In fact the reseller of this adapter also mentions that the lens turbo for Sony Alpha to NEX will be released soon. Waiting to get that for my a77 !
See my flicker sets :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rajarambs/sets/72157634959381870/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rajarambs/sets/72157634893468457/
Unfortunately since the camera does not record lens information in the exif, I get confused a bit in terms of which lens gave me what, since I carry all my four M42 lenses ! But, that does not matter, I suppose. Essentially, I get wider angle, more light. And I am happy.