now this is what Canon should have started ten years ago

[Tinky]

when you say converts, I take it you mean in terms of depth of field rather than actually letting more light in?

 

[martti]

Exactly. The diameter of the optical opening does not change but the effective focal length does.
With this adapter you take only a part of the circle of focus while its luminosity is what is.
Then you have these boosters that take in dome of the wasted light and focus it on a smaller area.
They actually 'boost' the luminosity or the 'speed' of the lens by the factor of .071 while increasing the angle of view.
http://www.metabones.com/products/?c=speed-booster
I have no experience of its optical quality of the way it co-operates with the rest of the system.

Today I found that the a6000 actually does autofocus via the Metabones like woom-woom-zap-bling.
Manual focus seems more...hmm...matter-of-fact?

 

[Tinky]

I can see how this would work with say fullframe lenses on an aps-c body (lots of redundant image circle that was designed to be used) does it also work with full frame lenses on full frame? Sure there will be some extra image circle, but it may be right at the limit, vignetting, image quality issues etc?

Not convinced.

 

[tcmatthews]

Exactly. The diameter of the optical opening does not change but the effective focal length does.
With this adapter you take only a part of the circle of focus while its luminosity is what is.
Then you have these boosters that take in dome of the wasted light and focus it on a smaller area.
They actually 'boost' the luminosity or the 'speed' of the lens by the factor of .071 while increasing the angle of view.
http://www.metabones.com/products/?c=speed-booster
I have no experience of its optical quality of the way it co-operates with the rest of the system.

Today I found that the a6000 actually does autofocus via the Metabones like woom-woom-zap-bling.
Manual focus seems more...hmm...matter-of-fact?

The Metabones adapters do not work with all lenses. There are a number of bugs with third party lens. My Tamron 28-75f2.8 will work on an EOS-m via adapter but will not auto focus on a Nex-6 with a Metabones.

My advice is if you want to adapt lens to a Sony camera with a Metabones adapter forget about auto focus. With the manual focus aids you can focus faster manual.

Also when using the Metabones adapter auto focus is handled by contrast auto-focus. It does not use any of the phase detection abilities of the sensor. I see the Speed adapters as an interesting concept but I am not really interested.

I was more interested in getting the standard adapter. A speed adapter for the EOS-m system might be interesting. I do not see Canon releasing a EOS-m full frame mount.

 

[mrsfotografie]

when you say converts, I take it you mean in terms of depth of field rather than actually letting more light in?

No, it actually INCREASES the amount of light that hits the sensor by gathering it from the projection circle of a full frame lens and then squeezing it into the area of the APS-C sensor, much like a magnifying glass does (if you've tried to start a fire with a magnifying glass, then you'll know what I mean). Speed goes up by ~1 stop, and it alters the equivalent focal length too. A 135mm on the a6000 becomes 1.5x132=203mm. Reduce that by multiplying by 0.71x (which is the effective magnification of the speed booster) and it becomes 144 mm. The speed booster works like an inverse tele-converter so instead of loosing stops and gaining focal length, it works the other way around.

 

[mrsfotografie]

I can see how this would work with say fullframe lenses on an aps-c body (lots of redundant image circle that was designed to be used) does it also work with full frame lenses on full frame? Sure there will be some extra image circle, but it may be right at the limit, vignetting, image quality issues etc?

Not convinced.

No. Unless you want massive vignetting.

 

[Tinky]

> Hi Tinky Seriously luv your work too. That B&W of the Switching Points in the Coal Yard, Shot with Minolta on Film, I consider that a Career Defining Work. If you don't have that printed on a 6foot or 12foot canvas, you are nutts.

Very many thanks. It's not typical of my work at all to be honest.

For the assessment (I kind of miss those, photography is my hobby, video is my job, so my stills don't really take me out of my comfort zone, video takes me where the client tells me) i printed it on silver inkjet sheets.

Which really worked well. I got an A pass between this and the other 5 images I submitted (my kit at that time was the film minolta gear and a Konica Minolta Dimage A2)

I'm pleasantly surprised it's been such a hit!

 

[martti]

On the a6000 you can shoot a 'prrrt' sequence and maybe you get a keeper.
This one of Kittanmin and Lillekittan was taken with the light of the sun just gone down with the Zeiss 16-70 f/4.0 somewhere around at f/5.6, 50mm or 75mm eq...the girls were moving around a lot so...
Yeah, I do love these girls and I hope it shows.

(now it is evident that I should have removed that bicycle from the background...)

 

[mrsfotografie]

Please, mrsfotografie, tell me why are you not happy with the Rokinon 12 mm f/2.0?
It is supposed to be of very high optical quality and reasonably priced. In fact, I though I might actually get one.
As you said, there is so much more tempting stuff from Canon for the EF that you'd really have to be a Sony fanatic to buy a Zeiss Touit or whatever for 1000 dollars when you can get a 16-35 f/4 at that price and it is quand meme something else, totally. Value is something where Sony is seriously lagging behind.

martti, the 12mm is a very good optic and lives up to its reputation, there's some CA but that's easily corrected. Reason for selling it would be that it is a pain to correctly focus manually, even with focus peaking enabled and especially when stopped down. The focus peaking does not clearly enough identify what is in focus and what is not, when dealing with such a short focal length. This is not really a problem in itself because you can check the result on the screen or in the viewfinder, but it means that shooting with this lens is cumbersome if you want to shoot fast and move on. I don't see myself using this lens if I would have the zoom because the times when I need a fast aperture in such a wide angle lens are fairly limited (and for low light use I'd be shooting with my 5DMkIII anyway).

And yes I totally agree the Sony lenses are overpriced. I have the 16-70mm but comparing it to my 24-105L (size, weathersealing), the price just isn't right. The 10-18 is also a pricey piece of glass. And as for those Touit's, something like that deserves a full frame sensor.

Update: I've been playing around with the focus magnification feature on my a6000 and it's an excellent help to check that the lens is in focus, much better than focus peaking which doesn't really work very well at such short focal lengths. So for shooting that allows time for 'focus checking' I will hang on to this lens - I'd rather spend the money for a Sony 10-18mm on a Canon 16-35f/4 IS

 

[martti]

What you are saying about the 12mm Rokinon is basically the same thing I am experiencing with the 14mm on the 5DIII. If I really want the focus to be exact, I have to open up to 2.8, check with th LiveView, then stop down again and then bracket because there seems to be no correlation between the actual brightness of the shot and the readings that the meter is giving. Cleatly it is not a lens for sharp shots of moving subjects.

What you said about the relative values of the Sony 10-18mm and the Canon 16-35mm is correct.
It seems that at least some Asian dealers are putting the Sony lenses on sale. For instance purnimadigital offers some items 300 dollars less than B&H.
http://www.purnimadigital.com/objectifs/objectifs/pour-sony.html
Sorry, the site is in French.

 

[mrsfotografie]

What you are saying about the 12mm Rokinon is basically the same thing I am experiencing with the 14mm on the 5DIII. If I really want the focus to be exact, I have to open up to 2.8, check with th LiveView, then stop down again and then bracket because there seems to be no correlation between the actual brightness of the shot and the readings that the meter is giving. Cleatly it is not a lens for sharp shots of moving subjects.

I also have the 14mm. I've solved the focus problem by adding an AF confirmation chip and calibrating it at f/4. Opening up to 2.8 and then stopping back down is not a good way to focus the 14mm because it suffers from aperture dependent focus-shift. If wider apertures than f/4 are required (almost never) I tend to use this lens on my 5DMkII which has an EF-S precision matte focusing screen fitted and that DOES allow to see the DOF at f/2.8.

FWIW the 14mm gives me no metering problems. I put the camera in aperture mode and leave it at f/2.8 which is the aperture value I programmed into the AF confirmation chip. I then focus with the lens stopped down.

As for the 10-18, well it's a 'too' nice to have to be honest. I should really just concentrate on lens purchases for my EF system as that is my main system and it is the best from a value and performance point of view. I really only have the Sony for those occasions when I want the convenience of something compact but still good image quality and interchangeable lenses. It also let's me use my old FL and FD lenses which is fun.

 

[martti]

There are opinions about focusing this lens. Focusing shift does not throw the original point out of focus into blur, stopping down just moves the sharpest zone away from the camera. For exposure, I get at least a constant response going full manual, bracketing with the histogram and ignoring the meter suggestions and the suggested luminosity on the LiveView.
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?action=printpage;topic=57491.0

My experience with various EF lenses on the Metabones adapter is telling me that if you really need the picture, try something else. The L lenses seem to be working predictably whereas the EF 20mm f/2.8 and the 28 mm f/1.8 either show the selected f-stop or don't and after a while the camera turns itself off, probably to protect itself against incongruous data. Every now and then the a6000 also suggests that there is no lens attached.
Probably a simpler adapter would be less imaginative.

 

[martti]

I got the precision matte also on the 5DII but my son took it away from me.
You can change the focusing screen on the 5DIII as well. I tried it but the screen they sent me was scratched.
Of course, there were no responses to my emails. The procedure is simple if you have a small magnetic screwdriver. Calibrating it would have been be another story but I never got that far.

 

[martti]

Doing the firmware upgrade on the a6000 reminded me of the First Principle: If there is something written in French, please control its veracity by any other means available. And again, just replace the 'ne fait pas' by 'commencer par'. Translation: Replace 'do not' by 'start with'. And then you get the firmware update. The point is, you have to patch the firmware installer to be able to install the firmware. It would be easy if they did not tell their clients the exact opposite.

The Metabones upgrade was easier. One needs a bit of agility to be able to push a button while inserting the USB contact.

Now I will probably find out that the old EF lenses are doing OK with the a 6000.
Only tested the 35mm L thus far. It sort of does autofocus but not in a useful way.
Manual focus good, picture quality excellent.