Metabones "Speed Booster" (way) off topic

Sorry to burden you guys with this but I thought it an interesting device.

Naturally I thought one or more of the Canon forums might have had something to say about it - but it had passed way under their radar. Seems that you chat on the Canon forums about the Canon stuff you are happy with or about to buy. Fair enough.

Then I had the brainwave to try the Sony NEX forum, these guys must have it in hand - two threads, one 52 posts long. But not much to say - those that had read the full white paper seemed impressed, the others just chatted about this and that and how they didn't understand things. Usually one-liners. I gave up after plodding for a while. They either had read and knew or had only the previous one-liner to respond to (mostly over and over again).

Long posts have their own hazards but 52 posts about nothing much in particular surely must be worse.

At least we have our resident MW who is interested in Canon gear and in particular the good old dslr. Works well for him and it is straight from the shoulder practical stuff. Can't quibble with his ideas even though I don't always 100% agree. I am sure to get an opinion here ...

So we get fewer posts here but I think that perhaps fewer does not mean less interest, you can get tired of reading short posts about much the same thing with sometimes accurate answers, sometimes misleading claims because the source material (and thorough white paper with technical reasons and results of tests simply has not been read).

Long posts have their own hazards of course.

Pity that something like this is not available for the GXR, but then the GXR is an open system whilst the EOS gate was firmly closed by Canon until Metabones and their like found some bolt cutters.

So I might grumble on here about the need to find a NEX (or even Fuji) body to find an outlet for my EOS lens fleet. Some might suggest reasonably that I just keep updating my EOS dslr bodies for as long as it takes. I would have liked to use the EOS lenses adapted to my GXR-M but although I have a dumb adapter Canon's electronic approach forced fixed wide aperture and with something like the extra nice EOS 85mm f1.2 where the focus is fly by wire no focus is available. The "speed booster" makes my said 85mm into a something like 53mm f0.95 or thereabouts and quite useful on any camera mount that will be supported - alas no LM version is expected.

Counting the coins in the sporran it is easy enough to see (for example) that a NEX6 + Metabones "speed booster" for EOS is not much more than finding and buying a well kept FD 85mm f1.2, not only this but all my other EOS lenses can be used with this compact EVIL-type body. In reality a cheap(ish) way to extend my existing system.

For the purpose of MW's analysis: yes I agree that the dslr will be around for a while yet and it is a satisfactory way of doing things. I do routinely use a 30D, 50D and 5D. They work well and are my favoured shutter squeezes or my more serious moments and when second chances are less likely. However the (say) 5DIII would set me back a fair bit of hay and I don't really need it's video. The 5DIII is replacing old like with new like, but a "speed booster" adapter opens up a new ball game without shooting my existing dslr bodies down in flames. The 60D simply does not interest me. Canon might well be accused of neglecting it's user base by not giving them a real choice for converting their loyal fans to an EVIL camera body that takes EOS lenses. Yes they have the EOS-M but that has no evf or even provision for a clip on - it is reasonably and unashamedly directed straight at the popular market, designed for a yet to be made new range of special lenses and of course EOS lenses can be mounted via their adapter as some sort of afterthought.

On of the real problems of mounting ex-slr lenses on an EVIL-type camera is the long flange focal distance. The "speed booster" not only uses this space usefully to enhance an image on to an aps-c sensor, makes a lens wider to counteract the crop factor, and also actually shortens the flange focal distance.

Previous clone adapters of the EOS electronic mount have been have just been making the lens work like a manual lens should. This new product provides a raft of very useful features and also improves the captured image.

Maybe Brian (same name but no relation, no connection) could design something thus for the LM mount? Better still a mount for the EOS that had it built in. Now that would indeed be a radical product for Ricoh to bring out. Add a new GXR back with built in evf and of course the much awaited (guess) PK mount module and Ricoh has something to shout a bit about.

But it will never happen. Pity because an outfit that would EVIL-type my EOS lenses to work much the same on aps-c as my FF 5D would be very useful. But the the 5D would never squeeze f0.95 out of my f1.2 lenses.

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Tom Caldwell