25Apr Canon EOS to M4/3 speed booster from Mitakon
I found this one by accident while searching for more Panasonic Gh4 lens options. Apparently Mitakon, the company that makes that mysterious 35mm f0.95 lens I posted this morning also makes a very interesting Canon EOS to M4/3 speed booster style adapter. The focal multiplier for this guy is 0.726x so a Canon 50mm f1.4 would be a 72.6mm instead of a 100mm on a M4/3 body. You still get a gain of 1-stop as with other adapters, but this is completely passive, so you’ll still run into the aperture control issues with standard EOS glass.
Still at a price of $149 the Canon EOS to M4/3 speed booster style adapter looks like a pretty interesting option. I might have to give it a try once I have the Panasonic Gh4 in my hands. Apparently Mitakon makes M4/3 adapters in just about every flavor imaginable
and all of them are in the $130 to $185 pricing range. That’s around $200 or so less than the Metabones adapters, I wonder what the downside is.
April 25th, 2014 at 12:35 pm
From reading other blogs and people who have tried this adapter. The optics of the Mitakon seems to be much worse than that of the metabones which makes sense given the price point.
April 25th, 2014 at 12:41 pm
Thanks for the heads up!
April 25th, 2014 at 1:25 pm
DeeJay,
FYI, Personal-View.com has been talking about all the speed boosters for some time. The Mikaton supposedly suffers from a “blue dot” when in heavy backlight (flare I suppose).
April 25th, 2014 at 2:17 pm
Never heard of personal-view, I’ll check it out.
April 25th, 2014 at 7:54 pm
It’s part of the “welcome to the MTF wagon”.
April 25th, 2014 at 8:15 pm
Now I know where you guys get all your MTF info. 😉
April 30th, 2014 at 10:59 pm
Nobody who is into Micro Four Thirds should not have heard Personal View forums!!
Or even info filming in general, is a great way to keep informed about deals.
btw, I have the RJ Lens Turbo which I use with my Panasonic GH1 and I absolutely love it:
http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/9086/rj-lens-turbo-m43-adapters/p1
May 1st, 2014 at 12:32 am
I don’t spend a lot of time on the internet forums (almost none actually) and this is my first move into the m4/3 format. Up until the Gh4 m4/3 wasn’t even a usable option. However the GH4 checks a lot of things off my list, good in low light, small form factor, focus peaking, usable EVF, 4k, and a great price. I’m not going to be selling off my Canon gear anytime soon, but I can put together a full GH4 kit for about the price of a 5dmk3 + one L series lens which is pretty attractive for me.
May 1st, 2014 at 1:56 am
I have a lowly Panasonic GH1 and I beg to differ that m4/3 wasn’t a usable option before the GH4 🙂 Not too bothered by low light either, at a recent film shoot which used two cameras (mine, and a Canon 5DmkII) my Panasonic GH1 with a RJ Lens Turbo on it absolute crushed the Canon 5DmkII in low light (and we both had a 50mm f/1.8 lens on our cameras, him a Canon one, myself a Nikon).
My GH1 was very clearly better at low light than the 5DmkII.
Though I wonder just how much of that was due to operator skill… I don’t think the guy using the 5DmkII was too skilled. Though I’d be constantly checking over his shoulder to make sure he had his settings on the 5DmkII vaguely right.
And as you noted, you can put together a Panasonic GH4 entire kit for relatively little! Which for me has been the huge huge benefit of m4/3, above and beyond its image quality 😀
I picked up my GH1 ages ago second hand for only US$200, and picked up my G3 and GF3 (for when I need to do multicam work, such as weddings) for practically a song they were so cheap! 😀
May 1st, 2014 at 3:47 am
At the time I moved to Canon DSLR I was shooting on HD DVD tape, I don’t think the gh1 was even on the market. The speed boosters and firmware hacks weren’t even an option until much later. I started working when the Canon xl1 and gl1 were still pretty nice cameras to have and had a whole set of manual Nikon primes to use when I moved to the hv20 because lens adapters were the only way to get that film look without shooting on film. So its not as though I blindly move to DSLR cameras without looking at everything.
May 1st, 2014 at 3:53 am
The Panasonic GH1 came out at the same time as the Canon 5DmkII 🙂
Sadly the GH1 was been a rather overlooked camera… 🙁 And got overshadowed by Canon’s massive marketing muscle :-/
May 1st, 2014 at 4:13 am
I was on preorder for the 5d at the end of 08 if I remember correctly and the gh1 was sometime towards the middle or end of 09 ( around the time i got the 7d) and no one really liked the camera until the end of 2010 when the gh1 hacks started coming out. Before that I think all you had was 1080i.
April 25th, 2014 at 1:56 pm
Save yourself some trouble and read personal-view as others suggested..old news, bad news..
April 25th, 2014 at 5:02 pm
Metabones is the only one I would consider buying. The optics of these just isn’t in the same league.
April 25th, 2014 at 7:27 pm
The two leading Metabones Speed Booster knockoffs are the Mitakon and the RJ Lens Turbo. The RJ Lens Turbo seems to be generating more excitement right now. Not really sure which is better. Rumor has it that the Mitakon is sharper in the center whereas the RJ is sharper overall. If memory serves me right there are two versions of the RJ Lens Turbo. The earlier models are softer, the later ones are better. Here are two discussion threads over at Personal-view.com:
http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/6753/mitakon-lens-turbo-speed-booster-analog-available/p7
http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/9086/rj-lens-turbo-m43-adapters/p14
There are mainly two forums I visit for Panasonic G series cameras.
1. Personal-view.com – run by Vitaliy Kiselev who developed PTools. According to the Personal-view FAQ: “PTool is a Windows application written by Vitaliy Kiselev that can modify certain Panasonic Lumix camera firmware images. The modifications remove firmware restrictions and let you change video encoding parameters. Modifying to increase the video recording bit rate can significantly improve video quality.” Several people have published “hacks” using PTools which you can use to improve video quality on the GH1, GH2 and several other Panasonic cameras. Nick Driftwood’s hacks seem to be the most popular and he is a frequent contributor to the forums. One of Nick’s hacks was used by the GH2 team who won the Zacuto Revenge Of The Great Camera Shootout 2012. A panel of judges – including Francis Ford Coppola preferred the GH2 footage, over that of a C300, Epic, 7D, iPhone, F65, FS100 and Alexa.
2. DVXuser.com – A great resource for users of professional Panasonic video cameras. Has a good GH series sub forum. Panasonic representatives post here occasionally.
Of the two, I prefer Personal-view.com for GH series info. I like it because it is heavily moderated and well organized. For example, you won’t find dozens of GH4 threads there because everybody is encouraged (forced) to use one of the two existing GH4 threads. The level of expertise there is very high. I don’t bother with other forums because they are too Canon oriented. Lastly, I avoid dpreview.com – full of old guys who would rather argue about cameras than use them.
April 26th, 2014 at 9:22 am
sorry, the above sounds fanboyish. If somebody offered me a C300 in exchange for a GH2 do so in a heartbeat. That Zacuto test just proved that you can take a cheap camera like a GH2 and make it look good with good lighting.
Also, you are considering an RJ Lens Turbo be careful where you buy it. I’ve heard that you run the risk of getting the first generation RJ adapters if you purchase from Amazon or eBay. Only second generation RJ adapters are sold through Personal View.
April 30th, 2014 at 11:03 pm
What the Zacuto test showed is under controlled conditions a hacked Panasonic GH2 can outperform everything else, when in skilled hands of course…. but it is also being compared against others also in very skilled hands.
I think though an even more important take away point is that cameras are mattering less than we think! And a lot of the final image produced by each can come down to personal taste.
April 25th, 2014 at 7:37 pm
Here are a few links if you want more info:
1. http://www.bmcuser.com/showthread.php?7479-EF-to-M43-Speedbooster-generic-on-ebay
2. http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/9086/rj-lens-turbo-m43-adapters/p1
3. http://lenscraze.blogspot.co.il/2014/01/focal-reducer-072x-with-ef-mount-m43.html
From what i’ve read, it has gotten better. They have fixed the blue issue and there is definitely an increase in sharpness and light.
Btw, i own one (Nikon -> Nex) and it was totally worth it ($150). Increase center sharpness (corners a little soft) and brighter images.
May 21st, 2014 at 11:28 pm
DO NOT BUY THIS adapter yet since it doesn’t fit snug with GH4. I bought one and can’t even use it. When you focus on your lens, the entire adapter move with it. I contacted MXCamera and was told that they didn’t do a fit test with GH4 yet and since they can’t get their hand to a GH4, no fix will be done until then.
May 22nd, 2014 at 12:30 pm
Thanks for the heads up Alex!