Electronic Adapters for the EF-M series

Tom Caldwell wrote:

nnowak wrote:

I have hacked together two electronic focal reduction adapters for the M series. One was built from an original Metabones SpeedBooster and the other was the newer Metabones SpeedBooster Ultra.

All of the Metabones claims are true. Yes, it makes the base lens sharper. Yes, it gives you one stop more light. Yes, it gets you closer to the true full frame focal length. Yes, AF is fully functional.

Sounds wonderful, right? Wellllll.... First off, these things aren't cheap. it is a minimum of $500 for the Metabones version. I am sure Canon could build one for less, but it would probably be at least $300. Second, you don't completely turn your M into a full frame camera. The focal reducer does not improve the dynamic range of your sensor to full frame levels. Third, the adapters aren't perfect. Optical quality will be better than the bare lens on your M, but not quite as good as the bare lens on a full frame camera. Finally, these things really only make sense when paired with big lenses with bright apertures.

Add the cost of the focal reducer on top of the cost of an M5 and you are basically at the price of a full frame 6D. However, you don't get all of the image quality benefits of the 6D. Personally, I find the Speedboosters fun to play with, but it is a lot easier and more effective to just use the lenses on a full frame camera. Image quality is better and I don't need to shuffle adapters.

Better still just stick with my M4/3 bodies and off the shelf Metabones adapters that work very well. The Metabones Ultra gives me aps-c on M4/3 which I personally find very satisfactory and it is much the same as EF lenses are going to give on the M5 with the regular EF-EF-M adapter. (aps-c on the M5 it has a few more MP of course)

The adapters are expensive but if we have the EF lenses then one adapter costs less than one crazy good lens that does not even exist in EF-M land.

If optical quality is better than the bare lens on EF-M then there are some that might appreciate this.

In your case, it would be better than the bare EF lenses on m4/3, but not as good as the bare lenses on a Canon crop body.

What I would be interested in is if such a focal reduction adapter could match oem levels of focus rate - as the operating firmware should be no different to the base adapter I could not see why not.

AF with my hacked adapters on my M2 was the same using the same lenses with the standard EF to EF-M adapter.  Just like the standard EF to EF-M adapter, there is no "firmware".  It is just straight through wires.

No matter what FF EOS cameras can do I hvae not bought a dslr body since I bought a 5D new and will continue to avoid them.

That dslr camera bodies are becoming more affordable seems to indicate that they have to do this to remain in the race.

Not at all.  The 11 year old 5D can be found for about $300 used.  The 8 year old 5D II can be found for around $700 used.  The $1500 6D is now 4 years old.  If you want the latest and greatest 5D IV, it is $3500.  "Affordable" full frame cameras are merely a consequence of the typical price decline over the life cycle of a product.

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Tom Caldwell