Luminous Landscape Forum

Equipment & Techniques => Medium Format / Film / Digital Backs – and Large Sensor Photography => Topic started by: geesbert on January 23, 2013, 04:17:50 pm

Title: another one: the Speed Booster, the death of DMF?
Post by: geesbert on January 23, 2013, 04:17:50 pm
I just received my metabones Speedbooster, a smart adapter to put 35mm full frame lenses on a APS sensor sony e-mount camera to create the full size look with a reduced sensor. and it works. from my first few pictures it really looks like full frame. and you gain a stop of speed.

so now thinking a bit bigger: if metabones would create the same thing for MF lenses with 35mm full frame DSLRs, shouldn't that create the MF look? or is the whole 'MF look' thing bollocks anyway, which kind of seem to be proven with the speedbooster concept? just wondering....
Title: Re: another one: the Speed Booster, the death of DMF?
Post by: yaya on January 23, 2013, 04:24:27 pm
I just received my metabones Speedbooster, a smart adapter to put 35mm full frame lenses on a APS sensor sony e-mount camera to create the full size look with a reduced sensor. and it works. from my first few pictures it really looks like full frame. and you gain a stop of speed.

so now thinking a bit bigger: if metabones would create the same thing for MF lenses with 35mm full frame DSLRs, shouldn't that create the MF look? or is the whole 'MF look' thing bollocks anyway, which kind of seem to be proven with the speedbooster concept? just wondering....

If they create such thing you can mount it on the one you have and in one swoop you can kill both FF 35mm and MF and get the MF look on your APS camera, how 'bout that?

...You'll still need the MF lenses though...
Title: Re: another one: the Speed Booster, the death of DMF?
Post by: MrSmith on January 23, 2013, 04:28:07 pm
No idea of the maths but are there few gains to be made as 35mm lenses are generally faster than MFD lenses?
I.e no point in putting a 2.8 MF lens on 35mm when a 1.2 / 1.4 lens is readily available and has working AF etc?
Title: Re: another one: the Speed Booster, the death of DMF?
Post by: geesbert on January 23, 2013, 04:39:15 pm
If they create such thing you can mount it on the one you have and in one swoop you can kill both FF 35mm and MF and get the MF look on your APS camera, how 'bout that?

...You'll still need the MF lenses though...

That's a brilliant idea!
Title: Re: another one: the Speed Booster, the death of DMF?
Post by: MarkL on January 23, 2013, 04:42:46 pm
What is 'the MF look'? Short lenses with shallow dof? We already have 35 and 24mm 1.4 lenses in 135 format.
Title: Re: another one: the Speed Booster, the death of DMF?
Post by: RawheaD on January 23, 2013, 08:16:55 pm
Wow, when did you put in your order?  I put mine in a few days ago; haven't received it yet.




MF->35mm FF

is not THAT appealing to me.  One, like mentioned above, we have equivalent lenses  that have the same or even faster in 135 format.

E.g., the fastest 645 lens I know is Mamiya 80/1.9.  That is the equivalent of a 53/1.2 on FF.  Nice, but not unheard of.

And, to get a 645 image circle to fit a FF sensor, the reduction factor needs to be around 0.62, a lot more than the 0.71 of the current Speed Booster. Sounds like a bit more strain.

No, what I DO want, and do want now is basically the same exact optical formula (w/ reduciton factor of 0.71) that would mount to a Hasselblad (and other MF) mount AND the other end would mount to a yet-to-be-manufactured mirrorless DMF, OR, to something like the Hartblei H-cam and then a DMF back.

The 0.71 reduction factor will bring down a 56 * 56 format down to 39.5 * 39.5, which would ALMOST be perfect (but not quite) for the last square format DMF backs, e.g., CFV-16 (37 * 37).  To get it down to exactly 37*37, we'd need a true 1.5x reducer (0.66x).

So with a relatively cheap square DMF back from several generations ago could suddenly act like a "near-full frame 6x6 back.  Of course, if you have more dough to burn, you could get the bigger sensor DMFs and crop to square to get your true full fram digital 6x6 experience.

With the top of the line "full-frame" 645 backs, you'd be able to do 6x7 and almost 6x9, too!  That would be awesome.
Title: Re: another one: the Speed Booster, the death of DMF?
Post by: Paul Ozzello on January 23, 2013, 09:20:06 pm
Just stay away from the LS55 - looking at the MTF one wonders how you can even focus that thing.

 ;D

If they create such thing you can mount it on the one you have and in one swoop you can kill both FF 35mm and MF and get the MF look on your APS camera, how 'bout that?

...You'll still need the MF lenses though...
Title: Re: another one: the Speed Booster, the death of DMF?
Post by: Ken Doo on January 23, 2013, 09:29:26 pm
Just stay away from the LS55 - looking at the MTF one wonders how you can even focus that thing.

 ;D


Focus the 55LS?  Hell, I'm still trying to figure out how to shoot this lens without the fuzzy red circle showing up in my edges...

 ;D
Title: Re: another one: the Speed Booster, the death of DMF?
Post by: Brian Hirschfeld on January 23, 2013, 09:38:40 pm
Its the sensor and the lens put together....I wouldn't say the major advantage of MFDB's is in the lenses....They are generally reputed to be pretty damn good but I think it's just the same as 135 format there are some lenses that are better then others...I'm pretty confident it is sensor resolution and size among other attributes that make MFD attractive.. http://brianhirschfeldphotography.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/m7-vs-m645-1024x725.jpg left is Leica 35mm and right is Mamiya 120 in similar lighting conditions and even on film and with a poor scan you can still appreciate the differences in resolving power and dynamic range inherent in the larger sensor size (whether film or digital)
Title: Re: another one: the Speed Booster, the death of DMF?
Post by: Paul Ozzello on January 23, 2013, 09:41:12 pm
Focus the 55LS?  Hell, I'm still trying to figure out how to shoot this lens without the fuzzy red circle showing up in my edges...

 ;D

Can you even fry an ant with that POC ?
Title: Re: another one: the Speed Booster, the death of DMF?
Post by: Vladimirovich on January 24, 2013, 12:44:56 am
http://brianhirschfeldphotography.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/m7-vs-m645-1024x725.jpg left is Leica 35mm and right is Mamiya 120 in similar lighting conditions and even on film and with a poor scan you can still appreciate the differences in resolving power and dynamic range inherent in the larger sensor size (whether film or digital)
that example reminds me a certain PhD who posted like ipone JPG vs MFDB raw... to illustrate MFDB advantage.
Title: DMF will get Speed Booster for large format lens
Post by: billthecat on January 24, 2013, 02:16:06 am
And 8x10 film will finally be obsolete.

Title: Re: another one: the Speed Booster, the death of DMF?
Post by: Gel on January 24, 2013, 04:48:59 am
The 50mm 1.2L turns into a 0.9

Nice.
Title: Re: another one: the Speed Booster, the death of DMF?
Post by: Kolor-Pikker on January 24, 2013, 05:00:36 am
You're putting a lot of extra glass in there - 6 elements in all - I wonder what that might do...

One thing to put a stop on this show is that unlike a teleconverter, the focal reducer cuts the flange distance by half, which is why it's only going to be made for mirrorless cameras... It not only requires a lens with a bigger image circle, but a longer throw as well, so there's that.
Title: Re: another one: the Speed Booster, the death of DMF?
Post by: Sareesh Sudhakaran on January 24, 2013, 05:09:05 am
I just received my metabones Speedbooster, a smart adapter to put 35mm full frame lenses on a APS sensor sony e-mount camera to create the full size look with a reduced sensor. and it works. from my first few pictures it really looks like full frame. and you gain a stop of speed.


Have you noticed any negatives like a loss in sharpness, contrast, or the like?
Title: Re: another one: the Speed Booster, the death of DMF?
Post by: Gel on January 24, 2013, 06:46:39 am
This is basically a reversed Teleconvertor.

Thus any of the problems inherent with them is reversed too, less CA, no loss of sharpness. It will still get soft at the edges though.

You might get some flare issues.
Title: Re: another one: the Speed Booster, the death of DMF?
Post by: conurus on January 30, 2013, 06:17:23 am
I think, and at least the cinematographers would agree, that the fabled "full-frame look" is three dimensionality from shallow depth-of-field in conjunction with the perspective of normal-lens-or-wider.

Is the "medium format look" just super-sized "full-frame look"? We can rule that out since a 50/1.2 lens can fully do what a 80/1.9 medium format lens can do in terms of shallow depth-of-field and perspective. So, the "medium format look" must be something entirely different.

We can pick out a MFDB image without even needing to pixel peep, even without using a large aperture. What is causing medium format to have that medium format look?
Title: Re: another one: the Speed Booster, the death of DMF?
Post by: ced on January 30, 2013, 06:50:53 am
Oh Dear here we go again Bollocks, Bollocks & More Bollocks always running to kill MF is it that 4X5 and Larger has already seen their death knell I am not so sure, they await their reawakening... ::)
Title: Re: another one: the Speed Booster, the death of DMF?
Post by: Kolor-Pikker on January 30, 2013, 07:01:06 am
I think, and at least the cinematographers would agree, that the fabled "full-frame look" is three dimensionality from shallow depth-of-field in conjunction with the perspective of normal-lens-or-wider.

Is the "medium format look" just super-sized "full-frame look"? We can rule that out since a 50/1.2 lens can fully do what a 80/1.9 medium format lens can do in terms of shallow depth-of-field and perspective. So, the "medium format look" must be something entirely different.

We can pick out a MFDB image without even needing to pixel peep, even without using a large aperture. What is causing medium format to have that medium format look?

I'm definitely not an expert on this subject, but it's probably a difference in the optics used for any given focal length, an 80mm lens on 645 has a similar field of view to 50mm on 135 but it's still an 80mm lens and most likely uses different optics.

In medium format the way the background goes out of focus is also different, it's very smooth and gradual, whereas 35mm looks like the plane of focus is paper thin and anything outside is fully blown. There is a coefficient in lens design that actually controls this rate of falloff, and needs to be biased for a sharp DOF transition as a part of fast lens design. Another thing is comparing lens performance wide-open. Using a DOF calculator a 150mm f/2.8 MF lens wide open has about the same DOF as an 85mm lens at f/1.3, but the 150mm will be extremely sharp, whereas the 85mm needs to be stopped down to at least f/2.2 for sharpness.

In any case, how cameras perform on paper, or even should perform, has nothing to do with how they're actually used and how the image will actually look. Leave charts for the measurebators. I've handled an IQ180 and seen it's images and now I want one badly.
Title: Re: another one: the Speed Booster, the death of DMF?
Post by: Gel on January 30, 2013, 07:09:01 am
Oh Dear here we go again Bollocks, Bollocks & More Bollocks always running to kill MF is it that 4X5 and Larger has already seen their death knell I am not so sure, they await their reawakening... ::)

I always read beyond this. Nice to see people acknowledging MF as a superior format by announcing it's death.
Title: Re: another one: the Speed Booster, the death of DMF?
Post by: Kolor-Pikker on January 30, 2013, 07:42:47 am
I always read beyond this. Nice to see people acknowledging MF as a superior format by announcing it's death.
Didn't MF die back when the 5D mark II came out?

Also, my dad claimed he's been "dying" ever since he married my mother, and he's 78 years old now and still strong as a bull; thick headed as one too I might add.
Title: Speed Boosters, aka focal reducers in astronomy, are neither new or a panacea
Post by: BJL on January 30, 2013, 10:28:24 am
First, note that the basic idea is not new: it has been used in astronomy for a long time, under the names like Barlow lens or focal reducer. The key is that lenses like telescopes that are designed for far narrower than "normal" angular field of view [FOV] still naturally cover a roughly normal angle of about 40° to 50°, just producing an image far larger than necessary, so that the image then gets cropped by the sensor, or perhaps by in-lens anti-flare baffles or such. So telescopes can easily be adapted to produce a brighter image of a wider FOV when that is wanted.

Also, Nikon and Fujifilm used this idea in some early DSLRs, the Nikon E2/Fujix DS-560 etc., which combine a 2/3” sensor with a built-in 4x focal reducer and then use 36x24mm format lenses with their uncropped FOV (and roughly equal DOF, and low light abilities comparable to using the same sensor technology in 36x24mm format, thanks to the 4 stop increase in brightness given by the convertor.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikon_E_series

But as far as abberations and such, the result is no better than a lens that is well-designed from the start for the shorter focal length and lower minimum aperture ratio in the smaller format. The main reasons that focal reducers are being offered now for the new mirrorless digital systems, but were not offered previously for SLR's, are that:

1. There is a great variety of existing lenses for 36x24mm format in particular that provide an image circle big enough for this image compression to work without vignetting with the new smaller formats. Similarly for "APS-C" lenses adaptable to 4/3” format.

2. The shallower lens mounts of the mirrorless systems provides room for the convertor.

3. Some adapted lenses can provide lower aperture ratios than are _currently_ offered by any "native" lens for the new smaller formats, like converting an f/2.8 zoom lens to an f/2, or a f/1.4 normal prime for one format to an f/1 normal prime for a smaller format. (But this reflects only a current lack, not a fundamental limitation of the smaller format. For example, there are some f/2 zooms for 4/3” format, just not in MFT mount.)

4. Some people already own enough lenses for the older larger formats that the adaptor can be cheaper than buying equivalent lenses for the new smaller format. And maybe save weight if one carries two systems at once for some reason.