mcbroomf wrote:
Michael, I added 2 more pairs from the 35/1.4 Rokinon at the front of the gallery. The photos of the fishing boat doesn't isolate very well as it's so far away, but the tail of the airplane does. There is also a pair of the boat taken with the OM90 at F2. I don't care for the bokeh from the 90/N7 combo and was surprised to see it.

Mike

Thanks - that's more in line with what I'm interested in seeing with the SB.

I added several more photos/lenses from yesterday; Leica 28 and 60, Super Angulon PC 28, c/y 21, c/y 28/2, ZF 25/2.8

Mike, thanks much, these are very helpful. What are your thoughts at present on the SB in relation to the same lens ff?

To be honest I spent so much time just taking photos over the weekend then getting them up I've not yet had a chance to really critically look at them. It's clear that you lose something in the corners and as I mentioned, I don't like the 90/2 bokeh in that photo of the fishing boat. One other thing that may or may not be a concern to some people is that there is a small crop (I don't recall exactly what it is). I found that the Nex 7 ZF/25 has very similar FOV as the FF c/y 28 so I assume it's near 10%. Not a big deal perhaps.

I hope to dig further into the files tonight

Mike

Thanks for all the examples.

Anders, what are your thoughts on the SB? Are you keeping it?

Morten, I am definitely keeping it. From the perspective of a NEX user wanting more and better fast lenses, and already owning several small DSLR lenses, this is a godsend.

I will keep the really small and good CV M mount lenses like the Heliar 15 4.5 and the Nokton 40 1.4. The Ultron 28 2.0 will go, and I will stay away from large and expensive CV lenses like the 35 1.2 and the 21 1.8.

Still I haven't used it much yet, bad weather and darkness all around.

For someone wanting to step down from a FF DSLR, I am not so sure. Wide open shots for super crisp pop will suffer a bit from reduced contrast. Stopped down I am not so sure. The samples from Mike (made in a hurry) seem to indicate a bit less crispness even stopped down to f/8, something that surprises me. This may be down to camera profiles and RAW conversion, I wil try to look a bit more into it.

Allright, thanks. I think I'll pass on it for now.

Vivek's SB examples with 50mm lenses at Getdpi are worth a look for the bokeh and street use,
GetDpi Speed Booster for Nex, Page 4

The results we have seen so far are quite different in image quality. Some of the first shots here in the thread mentioned, and the last ones from Vivek at GetDpi look very good. Frankly other shots like Anders' critical samples from the corners show significant astigmatism and spheric aberrations. This makes very clear that the Speed Booster is not a good combo with every lens. The 50mm Nikkor and the EF 70-200/2.8L IS II show the best quality so far. Short lenses, shorter than 50, though haven't impressed me until now.

Eosfun, are you comparing apples to oranges now? Corner crops from 24 Megapixels versus web sized images?

My take so far (including the samples here with the 70-200, and the last ones from Vivek) is that the SB degrades image quality noticeably with all lenses, compared to using it on a FF camera. Some lenses are particularly bad, but none are flawless. I could do a series of tests with many lenses and get some objective data. But that would take a lot of time and I only want to spend a little time with critical testing. What I want to do more is to get some shooting opportunities and see how it turns out with the lenses I always wanted on the NEX, like 28 mm F/1.4 and wider.

Anders, thanks for taking your time to do the tests May be we say the same, may be not. I find results quite different and I like what I see from the telezoom and 50mm standard lens so far. That is not to say there is no degradation in image quality with those lenses, it's just not as bad as from some fast wide angles. I am drawing conclusions from what I have seen so far not only in this thread, but also from a customer in the camerastore who shared some results of tests he did. His results from the MB Speed Booster with a few lenses amongst them the Canon 24/1.4 and 14/2.8. Those lenses disappointed in comparison to the 70-200L. I hope to be proven wrong with your tests but so far my impression is that the speedbooster works best with standard lenses and short-medium teles and less with fast wide angles.

It appears to me you are on the quest of the ultimate wide angle for landscape and architecture, but I don't think that is the highest design priority of Speed Booster. It is called a Speed Booster for a reason - to emphasize the maximum aperture gain, after all nowhere else on earth will you get a 17/1.0 (from a 24/1.4).

From page 5 of the white paper: "The left-most plot indicates that the Speed Booster has a very small amount of undercorrected spherical aberration at f/0.90, but this was done intentionally to improve the bokeh when the Speed Booster is used with ultra high speed f/1.2 objectives."

This is lovely for that low-light shallow depth-of-field shot, but most likely detrimental for landscapes. Let's also remember that it does increase center sharpness every single time. And also for the 40/2.8 STM+SB vs Ultron 28/2 test, the former beats the latter corner to corner.

So to be fair, the Speed Booster is already more versatile than anyone would have hoped for. It is not going to dethrone a Distagon 21/2.8 on D800, but then that had never been the intended application.

cyberstudio wrote:
So to be fair, the Speed Booster is already more versatile than anyone would have hoped for. It is not going to dethrone a Distagon 21/2.8 on D800, but then that had never been the intended application.


+1

thank you CONURUS

We love to see you around support us to go to the future.

cyberstudio wrote:
...So to be fair, the Speed Booster is already more versatile than anyone would have hoped for. It is not going to dethrone a Distagon 21/2.8 on D800, but then that had never been the intended application.

Makes sense and that is not what I would want a SB for.

I would want it for FF perspective and DOF in a small package, minus the Leica M9 price tag.

This shot (from the above link) shows the type of image that I would take with the SB on a NEX and I'm pretty impressed.....

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vivek-iyer/8426775385/sizes/l/

Does anyone know if they plan on making a "dumb" version of the EF to NEX? I saw where someone mentioned a FD to Nex, but not the former.

BoMing/Conurus,
You should address this problem in a FW update. I've confirmed the NEX5 can only display 1.0, but the NEX-7 can definitely display less than 1.0.

Hint: it's in the initial lens identification packet. Just use a value < 0x0100.

alundeb wrote:
mcbroomf wrote:
alundeb wrote:
[....

With the SB, Canon lenses is the new alt
....

I was thinking that ... I put my 85/1.2 (Ver 1) on the Nex 7 and it reported F1.0

A shame the NEX cameras don't report anything below 1.0, you should actually get 0.9
Try Aperture priority, and you should find "1.0" at the two widest settings, one of them is actually 0.9
That is how it worked with my Canon 50 mm 1.0 L, but that lens with the SB is another story.

Mirakaski wrote:
Does anyone know if they plan on making a "dumb" version of the EF to NEX? I saw where someone mentioned a FD to Nex, but not the former.

Yeah, the EF-NEX is probably the one to get, so that you can use R, C/Y, Nikon etc lenses with simple adapters on them. But if all you want to use is manual lenses. . . that $200 premium for the smart adapter kinda stings.

cyberstudio wrote:

From page 5 of the white paper: "The left-most plot indicates that the Speed Booster has a very small amount of undercorrected spherical aberration at f/0.90, but this was done intentionally to improve the bokeh when the Speed Booster is used with ultra high speed f/1.2 objectives."

This is lovely for that low-light shallow depth-of-field shot, but most likely detrimental for landscapes. Let's also remember that it does increase center sharpness every single time. And also for the 40/2.8 STM+SB vs Ultron 28/2 test, the former beats the latter corner to corner.
.

The little bit of undercorrected spherical aberration intentionally designed into the SB at f/0.90 doesn't degrade the image in any meaningful way, even at f/0.90. This can be seen from the MTF plot (and sample images) of the 50/1.2 AIS Nikkor with and without the SB. When you attach the SB the central sharpness increases dramatically even though you are comparing f/0.90 to f/1.2. All that was intended by the aberration balance was to slightly improve the background bokeh at extreme apertures.

I have a question regarding the SB on the Canon 50 mm 1.0 L that I have briefly tried.

At wide apertures, there is vignetting as expected. Stopped down to small apertures, the vignetting does not disappear, but becomes a hard limit on the image circle, at about 11-12 mm image height on the APS-C sensor. It is not an issue for me as I do not intend to use that lens with the SB. I am just curious to know what is causing this to happen at small apertures like from f/2.8 all the way to f/11. Thank you for any interest.

phigment wrote:
BoMing/Conurus,
You should address this problem in a FW update. I've confirmed the NEX5 can only display 1.0, but the NEX-7 can definitely display less than 1.0.

Hint: it's in the initial lens identification packet. Just use a value < 0x0100.


Well, don't shoot the messenger! There is nothing in the adapter firmware limiting aperture display. An old NEX-3 would for example display F0, but no NEX camera would actually display F0.9.