Olympus EM1 with metabones speed booster adapter and Tamron 150-600 for Canon

[erdipurdi]

Does anyone have any thoughts on this combination for bird or wildlife photography? I realize that there is no autofocus. Has anyone tried it. Thanks in advance.

I've been using sigma 150-600 C, see this thread:

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/56581567

My conclusion is that AF is not always accurate with distant objects. Manual focus is tricky with this lens.

Some images:

Is the bokeh in the first image typical for the lens? This new generation of big tele zooms seems quite good in price/sharpness ratio, but I am not convinced about the bokeh compared to similar long primes.

Yes, the bokeh is extremely ugly when the background is near the main subject.

 

[Kharan]

Thanks for the long and well-thought reply. While Fri13 was pointing out the obvious, I think that info helps some of the uninformed posters here. Also, I get the feeling that English is not their native language, and may get overly confused by your sarcasm, therefore my reply.
On topic: the fact that you can handhold an effective FOV of 1200mm and realize such a hit rate makes you an absolute exception, not the rule I'm quite sure there're some people out there that see your pictures, hear the tales of your exploits, and rush out to try to do exactly the same, only to fail miserably. The countless hours of practice needed to achieve your level aren't readily apparent to many others. Maybe it'd be good to put a little disclaimer before you recommend something like the Tamron 150-600 on MFT? To the line of "it's certainly possible, and I'm the living proof, but if you're a beginner I wouldn't advise it"? Of course, maybe you would advise it, and then that's a whole other discussion.
All the best to you too, carry on with your exploits.
--
Nothing interesting to say here...

 

[Tom Caldwell]

When I use the 500 F/4.5L by itself, there is no CA/fringing. When I add the excellent 1.4x TC, the CA comes in, even if it is only slight. The point there is adding something with excellent optics in it, still causes issues although its not a speed booster.

Adding rear teleconverter to the pathway can do that (and does that) as it spreads out the existing light cone to larger area (and cropping non-needed area)

But the speed booster does exactly reverse. It refocus the larger light cone to a smaller area. So the flaws that the optic has, is most often minimized or even eliminated.

Teleconverter is like stepping closer a image on the wall and cropping it with scissor.

Speed booster is like doing it reverse, stepping further and gluing the cropped surrounding back.

What doesn't change is your sight quality so you see the "speed booster" far contrasty (sharper) with deeper depth of field than the "teleconverter" one, and the flaws you saw previously are gone undetected or you don't spot them so easily anymore.

I support this contention. Brian C claims that the Ultra Speed booster improves the quality of any lens adapted by it - I have no reason to doubt him. He is an optical engineer. There is a white paper on the Metabones site which explains the focal reduction principle in a non-partisan manner.

Focal reduction is a well know principle of optics and has been used for quite a long time especially in astro-photography. Not commonly used as it needs more space between lens and camera body to function in. This is why lenses made for slr bodies with long flange focal lengths were a gift to making these adapters. They gave the extra vacant tube length to house their optics.

Another lesser known fact is that the elements used actually shorten the length of the adapter, whilst this fitting the optics in harder it also tends to make the adapter length more aesthetically pleasing as a side effect.

Of course you can always use the standard lensless smart adapter for no change in the lens characteristics and no glass in between.

I am not sure how well the AF carries over as I have not heard of the lens being used with a Metabones adapter. But by the way other lenses have reacted there is a good chance that the Tamron will AF quite well.

 

[Tom Caldwell]

When I use the 500 F/4.5L by itself, there is no CA/fringing. When I add the excellent 1.4x TC, the CA comes in, even if it is only slight. The point there is adding something with excellent optics in it, still causes issues although its not a speed booster.

Adding rear teleconverter to the pathway can do that (and does that) as it spreads out the existing light cone to larger area (and cropping non-needed area)

I had no idea what a TC did even though I use them. Amazing.

But the speed booster does exactly reverse. It refocus the larger light cone to a smaller area. So the flaws that the optic has, is most often minimized or even eliminated.

Again I had no idea what a speed booster did. Amazing.

Teleconverter is like stepping closer a image on the wall and cropping it with scissor.

I had no idea they did that. Amazing.

Speed booster is like doing it reverse, stepping further and gluing the cropped surrounding back.

Incredible, its like going backwards. Amazing.

What doesn't change is your sight quality so you see the "speed booster" far contrasty (sharper) with deeper depth of field than the "teleconverter" one, and the flaws you saw previously are gone undetected or you don't spot them so easily anymore.

Amazing. So no loss of image quality at all with them and all flaws you saw before are gone and yet, still keep all the high resolution of the lens so you can't notice the flaws. Amazing.

I'll buy 4 of them in that case. ;-)

Danny.

 

[nzmacro]

Thanks for the long and well-thought reply. While Fri13 was pointing out the obvious, I think that info helps some of the uninformed posters here. Also, I get the feeling that English is not their native language, and may get overly confused by your sarcasm, therefore my reply.
On topic: the fact that you can handhold an effective FOV of 1200mm and realize such a hit rate makes you an absolute exception, not the rule I'm quite sure there're some people out there that see your pictures, hear the tales of your exploits, and rush out to try to do exactly the same, only to fail miserably. The countless hours of practice needed to achieve your level aren't readily apparent to many others. Maybe it'd be good to put a little disclaimer before you recommend something like the Tamron 150-600 on MFT? To the line of "it's certainly possible, and I'm the living proof, but if you're a beginner I wouldn't advise it"? Of course, maybe you would advise it, and then that's a whole other discussion.
All the best to you too, carry on with your exploits.
--
Nothing interesting to say here...

;-)

I honestly do get fed up with people saying something can't be done, when its already being done and has been done for decades by a lot of photographers. That does wind me up now days. The older I get, the less impatient I become with misconceptions and people reading too much and believing it.

I realise I'm a bit of an odd ball with MF long tele lenses and been called a freak quite a few times. Rarely do I recommend MF lenses for what I take. It does take a certain kind of person to go for it, I know that. It takes dedication, patience and stubbornness. A few have taken it up and that's only been an exception to the rule. Raul (RVC) in here went for it with a Nikkor 400 F/3.5 after some very long PM's. He fits the bill down to a tee, so after a few PM's he's now darn good at it. So it can be done if you are right for it. Most aren't.

Static birds, well there is no excuse not to get 100% sharp shots using MF. The focusing aids we have now days in an EVF is nothing short of remarkable, if you can't get a sharp shot of a static bird using MF, then there is no hope.

I normally recommend a DSLR with fast PDAF and a 400 F/5.6 as std or a 100-400mm zoom. I personally wouldn't recommend m4/3 at the moment. So maybe that should be the disclaimer and yep, that would go down a treat in this forum ;-)

All the best and if they are serious, I will advise them to go MF.

Danny.

--
Birds, macro, motor sports.... http://www.birdsinaction.com
Flickr albums ..... https://www.flickr.com/photos/124733969@N06/sets/
The need for speed ..... https://www.flickr.com/photos/130646821@N03/

 

[brian]

When I use the 500 F/4.5L by itself, there is no CA/fringing. When I add the excellent 1.4x TC, the CA comes in, even if it is only slight. The point there is adding something with excellent optics in it, still causes issues although its not a speed booster.

Adding rear teleconverter to the pathway can do that (and does that) as it spreads out the existing light cone to larger area (and cropping non-needed area)

But the speed booster does exactly reverse. It refocus the larger light cone to a smaller area. So the flaws that the optic has, is most often minimized or even eliminated.

Teleconverter is like stepping closer a image on the wall and cropping it with scissor.

Speed booster is like doing it reverse, stepping further and gluing the cropped surrounding back.

What doesn't change is your sight quality so you see the "speed booster" far contrasty (sharper) with deeper depth of field than the "teleconverter" one, and the flaws you saw previously are gone undetected or you don't spot them so easily anymore.

I support this contention. Brian C claims that the Ultra Speed booster improves the quality of any lens adapted by it - I have no reason to doubt him. He is an optical engineer. There is a white paper on the Metabones site which explains the focal reduction principle in a non-partisan manner.

Focal reduction is a well know principle of optics and has been used for quite a long time especially in astro-photography. Not commonly used as it needs more space between lens and camera body to function in. This is why lenses made for slr bodies with long flange focal lengths were a gift to making these adapters. They gave the extra vacant tube length to house their optics.

Another lesser known fact is that the elements used actually shorten the length of the adapter, whilst this fitting the optics in harder it also tends to make the adapter length more aesthetically pleasing as a side effect.

Of course you can always use the standard lensless smart adapter for no change in the lens characteristics and no glass in between.

I am not sure how well the AF carries over as I have not heard of the lens being used with a Metabones adapter. But by the way other lenses have reacted there is a good chance that the Tamron will AF quite well.

 

[brian]

Does anyone have any thoughts on this combination for bird or wildlife photography? I realize that there is no autofocus. Has anyone tried it. Thanks in advance.

I can't guarantee it, since I haven't actually tried the combination in question, but any of the Metabones Speed Boosters or Smart Adapters should autofocus with the Tamron 150-600 on the EM1.