Canon EF lenses on MFT cameras?

[Architeuthis 156]

Nauticam has now a N85-N120 adapter in the program that allows to use the Metabones x0,71 speedbooster (http://www.metabones.com/products/details/MB_SPEF-M43-BT4).

 

 

https://www.nauticam.com/collections/port-adapters/products/n85-to-n120-34-7mm-port-adaptor-for-metabones-ef-mft-mount-t-speed-booster-ultra-0-71x

 

The speedbooster allows to use Canon-EF mount lenses, as the Canon 8-15mm fisheye or the Tokina 10-17mm fisheye, on MFT cameras and with the adapter these lenses can now be used on any Nauticam N85 housing.

 

 

Wolfgang

 

[Atobit 20]

Good news Wolfgang, thought not sure what would I need, I think there are already very good M43 lenses.

Oh yes I know...for the fun I would take the Canon EF-S 60mm macro to adapt the UFL-MR130, the Inon micro Semifisheye Relay lens I have.

 

 

Claude

[thetrickster 328]

Wow,

 

Thats pretty interesting, one option I've never considered, great to see Nauticam supporting this.

 

There must be some lovely EF mount glass for underwater use... and it opens up the possibility of using the new WACP!!!!!!!!

 

But I do feel we are spoiled a little with the vast selection of Olympus and Lumix glass already available, so would have to be something special to warrant the costs involved.

[bubffm 178]

thats interesting indeed. But the Metabones has its downsides and does not work with all lenses equally well. I used to use it overland but have actally now sold all my Canon/EF Glas as there are so many great native lens options around for MFT.

 

And they save a lot of weight....

[Architeuthis 156]

I also think there are plenty of native high quality lenses for MFT available for UW use...

The exceptions I can think of are fisheye zoom lenses, true circular fisheye (and the fancy macro FE adapter that Atobit shows above).

 

I personally am very interested in using a FE zoom lens UW and was already doing recherces and comparisons. In the Nauticam chard on Sony E-mount (A6xxx), the Metabones adapter is already listed as beeing compatible with the 50mm N85-N120 extension on A6xxx housing. I wrote to Nautican, whether the Metabones adapter would fit into my 60mm N85-N120 extension an NA-EM5II housing and they wrote me that they have now the special adapter. Alex Tattersal from Nauticam U.K. wrote also, regarding my 60mm N85-N120 extension: “No, this won't work, you won't be able to zoom. The cog for the Tokina zoom needs to mesh with the gear on the adapter. No manual focus either.“

=> bubffm, did you try FE or WA lenses with the adapter and how is performance (focus speed etc...)?

=> I am also wondering whether someone did try the combination Metabones/FE zoom UW (maybe the performance is so bad that nobody uses this combination)?

 

According to the data I could find in internet, the Tokina migth perform better than the Canon Zoom fisheye, as the resolution of the FF lens suffers on the small sensor and in addition there is a lot of light eaten up, the Tokina gains even some light with the x0,71 at comparable resolutions (calculations for x1 adapter and x0,71 speed booster; resolution data may be not very accurate as measured at different Mpix sensors and from Zuiko 8mm FE data were estimated indirectly from a photozine diagram). As always, it seems the performance of the prime lens (Zuiko) is superior, but the two zoom lenses are not far behind:

Wolfgang

Edited February 27, 2018 by Architeuthis

[bubffm 178]

Wolfgang, never tried FE but I owned the Canon 16-35 Version III. And that was actually one of those that did not work particulary well with Metabones. AF issues and also the occasional bug changing aperture. I had to unplug and replug the Adapter to get it working. Something that would be a bit hard to do underwater....

 

Maybe fixed by now but I still dont see that lens on Metabones compatability list.... which gets me back to my point above...

[Architeuthis 156]

Thanks bubffm!

[dreifish 362]

I've used the Canon 8-15 + metabones adapter (not speedbooster) with the A7RII and that worked fine. Not sure if it will work equally well with their EF-m43 speedbooster, but I suspect it will.

I'm quite interested in adapting the lens to my new GH5 setup, but no need for a speedbooster really.. a plain adapter would work just fine given the focal range -- taking you from 170* fisheye to something like 100 degrees almost rectilinear at the 15mm end. But need to find a electronic (non-speedbooster) adapter from EF-m43, and need to check if it's sufficiently long to still allows the zoom gear to work with this new nauticam port adapter.

 

Also interesting might be the new Viltrox EF-M2 .71x adapter as an alternative to the metabones. It's around $200 instead of $600...

[Architeuthis 156]

Hi dreifish,

 

I have decided already, since I was able to get the Tokina 10-17mm second hand from ebay. I have the Metabones MB_SPEF-M43-BT4 already here and am waiting for the lens, which is on the way (it is the version with integrated hood, so there may be some vignetting at 10mm, but it was a real bargain...). I would not have decided for a cheaper booster, since I read in the internet that some cheaper versions have bad optical quality and/or incompatibility issues (some even damage the sensor, people say).

When the lens is here I will check whether I can solve the problem of zooming with the 60mm or 30mm N85-N120 adapters that I have here. If not, I will go for the 34,7mm adaptor mentioned above with 20mm extension and Nauticam zoom gear...

The rigth adapter for the Canon 8-15mm FE should be the Metabones MB_EF-m43-BT2 (this is the one without the optics). This adapter is also perfect for the Sigma 4,5mm circular FE (also possible with the booster, but then the circle projects on a smaller part of the sensor only, wasting more pixels...).

 

=> It seems that the MB_EF-m43-BT2 will fit into the 34,7mm N85-N120, but better to ask Nauticam before (Maybe using the 34,7mm extension is only possible with Metabones adpaters, since other adapetrs may have different dimensions)...

 

Will be very interesting to compare the images obtained with the different solutions - I will report, but it may take several weeks until I am so far...

 

Wolfgang

Edited March 16, 2018 by Architeuthis

[Architeuthis 156]

Just an update on the Canon EF lens on MTF tread, in case someone is interested:

 

I have now the Tokina 10-17mm fisheye zoom and the Metabones adapter here. It turned out it is not possible (or very difficult al least) to make a Zoomgear for the existing N85-N120 60mm adapter. So I had to order the special 34,7mm adapter, 20mm extension and Nauticam zoom gear.

 

In the meantime I made a over-water comparison of the Tokina with the Zuiko 8mm Pro fisheye that I have here:

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4267346

 

The results show that the optics of Tokina plus Metabones is inferior to the native MTF lens. I hope that the performance difference between Tokina and Zuiko UW, behind a domeport, will become much smaller...

 

 

Wolfgang

[dreifish 362]

What are you basing your resolution figures on, Wolfgang?

 

Interestingly, in terms of field of view, the 10-17 with a 1x adapter ends up having a very similar FOV coerage to the 14-42 + WWL-1 combination.

[Architeuthis 156]

The resolution data in the table are not much more than a first guess (sorry, dreifish, for not stating this so far): the resolution of the opticallimits-tests (linewith/picture heigth) scaled to the size of the MFT sensor. So when a FF lens is used on MFT the resolution drops to approx 50%, since the picture heigth is approx. only half. With the speed booster the resolution should be better, as a larger area of the original sensor is projected on the MFT sensor (this was also taken into account for the calculated resolution). This calculations are problematic, since even with the same sensor size the data are different with different sensors (e.g. Mpixels) and it is even more problematic to compare different sensors sizes so directly.

But since this was the only data I found on that issue, I thought it may be good to have at least this estimate...

The resolution data for the Zuiko 8mm are even more problematic, as I could find only a test, where the numbers where not given, but read the approx. values out from the graph (that was obviously produced by the same method and even software as in the optical limits tests).

 

=> At least for the comparison Zuiko 8mm vs. Tokina/0,71x speedbooster, however, it turns out that this estimation was not so wrong (if you have a look at the dpreview link above). The real live comparison is clearly in favour of the Zuiko, the difference probably substantially bigger as in the table, Tokina really looks old...

=> This is discouraging, but this all is valid for photography above the surface only. Let us see how the Tokina/Booster combo works behind a dome (I will be able in few weeks to test it behind the Zen DP-170 and compare to the Zuiko 8mm that I use behind the same dome - In case the Tokina/booster combo performs equally bad as on the surface in comparison, I fear I will not use it so often...).

 

Wolfgang

Edited March 24, 2018 by Architeuthis

[Architeuthis 156]

Time passed, but I was not able to test the Metabones/Tokina combination much, since it took 2 monthes (!) until the Nauticam adapter arrived - so I could not take it with me to Egypt. I was very eager to test the Tokina 10-17mm FE with the Metabones 0.71x speedbooster and so I took it once underwater with the N85-N120 extension plus Zen-DP170-N120 (similar extension as with the missing adapter, but no focus knob to adjust focal with). I took images at 8mm to compare them to the Zuiko 8mm Pro FE. The results where o.k., but not really exciting - to my opinion the image quality is noticeable better with the Zuiko (less sharpness and excessive purple fringing with the Tokina). Maybe not a big surprise, since over water the Tokina is a less than a mediocre lens with repect to image quality...

More testing is required to come to final decision, but here some sample fotos (EM5MII, Nauticam housing, Zen DP170 with 60mm extension (Tokina10-17mm FE plus 0.71x booster) or 30mm (Zuiko 8mm FE Pro); all fotos @8mm, ISO200 plus two YS-D2 strobes):

 

Tokina10-17mm, f/9, 1/100:

 

Tokina10-17mm, f/10, 1/200:

 

The Zuiko 8mm Pro files come with the next post...

Edited June 22, 2018 by Architeuthis

[Architeuthis 156]

part#2....

 

Zuiko 8mm, f/9, 1/160:

 

Zuiko 8mm, f/9, 1/250:

[Architeuthis 156]

part#3 (and last one):

 

Since I came back from Egypt the Nauticam N85-N120 adapter for Metabones arrived. In addition, I aquired the Canon8-15mm FE (I was dissapointed by the image quality of the Tokina, hopefully the Canon will perform better), a Metabones pure adapter (1x, without optics;MB_EF-M43-BT2) and a Kenko 1.4x teleconverter (KENKO Teleplus MC PRO 300). I did not have a chance to bring them underwater yet, but next Saturday I will go for 10 days to the Adriatic . Will not be possible to test out everything carefully, but shurely will dry every combination out a little...

 

Here some observations so far:

 

#1.: Both Tokina10-17mm and Canon 8-15mm are too big to insert them into the Nauticam housing, when attached to the camera body (similar problem as with the Zuiko 7-14mm). The sequence of operation is: (i) attach the Nauticam adapter to Nauticam housing, (ii) insert camera body w/o lens into Nauticam housing, (iii) attach combination of lens, Metabones (Telecoverter) & Zoomgear to the camera body and finally (iv) attach domeport plus extension.

 

#2.: The Metabones 1x adapter has different physical length compared to the 0.71x speedbooster (!!; 5,63mm longer). Could not find physical sizes of these adapters on the Metabones homepage to check this before.

=> the Nauticam zoom gears for both Tokina10-17mm and Canon8-15mm do not fit.

=> In the meantime I have designed "Zoom gear adapters" for the original Nauticam zoomgears for these lenses and it works now for both 1x Metabones adapter and also 1x Metabones plus 1.4x Kenko teleconverter (0.71x Metabones plus 1.4x converter does, of course, not make sense) ...

 

#3.: On surface, both lenses work very well with both metabones adapters and the 1x also with the teleconverter. SIngle autofocus included (I did not test C-AF, since I never use it).

 

#4.: The angles of view are phantastic, especially with the 1x Metabones and also with the teleconverter (I do, however, not know yet how much the teleconverter will detoriate image quality). For using the FE zoom lenses, Nauticam has obviously made the wrong adapter/housing: a housing for the 1x adapter would have been much better (I ask myself for what purpose this extension was created?).

Here a table that shows calculated diagonal angles of view for different combinations, compared to popular lenses that I have and also others use:

 

 

Legend:

RL 7-14: Rectilinear WA,Panasonic 7-14mm

RL 12-40: Rectilinear Zuiko 12-40mm Pro (Arrow indicates that smaller diagonal FOVs as shown in the table are possible).

8-15/1.4x(1.0x/0.71x): Canon 8-15mm with (i) teleconverter&1xMetabones, (ii) 1x Metabones and (iii) 0,71x Metabones (arrow indicates larger FOV's are possible, leading, however, to vignetting).

10-17/1.4x(1.0x/0.71x): similar as above, but for Tokina 10-17mm.

8mm MFT FE: Zuiko 8mm fisheye Pro as reference.

 

When I have decent UW photos I will post some in a different tread. Can someone please tell me what the optimum format for Wetpixel is?

(=> The photos above are jpg's in original pixel resolution (16 Mpixel), but compressed to max. 1MB. The original ones on my computer show more differences...)

 

Wolfgang

Edited June 23, 2018 by Architeuthis

[Interceptor121 773]

Wolfgang did you make any more progress with the Canon 8-15mm?

I have been following your old threads and I could see the tokina performance being poor with lots of CA so wanted to know how the canon worked out

I would think to use it with the 0.71x speedbooster as that makes more sense for other purposes...

[Architeuthis 156]

Seems there is now interest in the fisheye zoom lenses with metabones adapter. In the meantime I have used them a lot (mostly Canon 8-15mm with 1x Smart adapter on EM5II and EM1II) and have also posted some experience with Canon 8-15mm and Sigma 4.5mm circular fisheye after this tread, just in case someone is interested:

 

 

I will post more (and better) example photos later, just returned from an exciting trip to the Red Sea yesterday night...

 

Wolfgang

[Architeuthis 156]

On 10/2/2019 at 10:52 PM, Interceptor121 said:

 

I have been following your old threads and I could see the tokina performance being poor with lots of CA so wanted to know how the canon worked out

 

Regarding CA this is indeed very poor over the water with the Tokina. Under the water the Tokina performs surprisingly well (maybe because UW UV is greatly absorbed?). The Canon 8-15mm is still better UW (my personal feeling, I have no objective measurements; beware it is very easy to fall in love with the Canon 8-15mm  !), but it can not be much more than a tick...

 

Wolfgang

Edited October 4, 2019 by Architeuthis

[Interceptor121 773]

1 minute ago, Architeuthis said:

Regarding CA this is indeed very poor over the water with the Tokina. Under the water the Tokina performs surprisingly well (maybe because UW UV is greatly absorbed?). The Canon 8-15mm is still better UW (my personal feeling, I have no objective measurements), but surprisingly only a tick...

 

Wolfgang

Probably needs a stress test however the smart adapter has no optics and obviously it is better than the metabones 0.71x even without taking the lens into account

I would thinkthe 8-15 speedboster+kenko is worse than the tokina for the same reason above you are adding a teleconverter

The configuration you have identified canon 8-15 plus smart adapter is focal length identical to speedbooster plus kenko but 100% better as it has no optics so this is the one to go for the others are much less interesting to be frank and there is too much hardware for my liking

[Architeuthis 156]

13 minutes ago, Interceptor121 said:

Probably needs a stress test however the smart adapter has no optics and obviously it is better than the metabones 0.71x even without taking the lens into account

I would thinkthe 8-15 speedboster+kenko is worse than the tokina for the same reason above you are adding a teleconverter

The configuration you have identified canon 8-15 plus smart adapter is focal length identical to speedbooster plus kenko but 100% better as it has no optics so this is the one to go for the others are much less interesting to be frank and there is too much hardware for my liking

Hi again Interceptor,

The 0.71x speedbooster is not degrading image quality in most cases as the optics is very good (contraray to some cheap speedboosters from other compnies). In fact it improves IQ with the Tokina as the image circle is reduced in it's diameter by the 0.71x reduction and the optical imperfections of the lens are reduced accordingly. In my UW pictures I can see a difference between 0.71x and 1x with the Tokina 10-17mm, the 0.71x images beeing of better IQ (sharper, less CA). Not so with the Canon 8-15mm UW, which is a superb lens by itself: here it does not make a noticeable difference, whether one uses 0.71x or 1x...

 

Wolfgang

Edited October 4, 2019 by Architeuthis

[Interceptor121 773]

Am not commenting on the specific case but adding glass elements through converters always deteriorate quality and I have tested this on land. Of course the speedboster is prime quality so the effect will be next to nothing but it is proven there is an effect at identical equivalent focal length.

What you say about the tokina does not make much sense the speedbooster is actually wider than the normal DG crop factor (1.42x vs 1.6x) so the image if at all will be wider  compared to a normal canon EF-S mount. Likewise the smartbooster keeps the 2x crop so the lens is even longer and narrower. The Smart Converter and tokina should be compared with speedbooser teleconverter and tokina at identical focal length. Am pretty sure the smart converter will do better there to but am unsure if the tokina is actually acceptable or becomes total trash

[Architeuthis 156]

Interceptor, it is going to become very technical, so the terrain is difficult. In addition, I believe that the issue is not really important in practice...

There is, however, a technical white paper (by Brian Caldwell from Metabones, so there IS a conflict of interest) that states that sharpness and IQ are improved by the 0.71x speedbooster compared to glassless 1x adaption, and not detoriated. It is hard to believe, intuitively I would say (like you) that additional third party glass can only detoriate and not improve. But see here: https://www.dpreview.com/articles/8961802602/metabones-and-caldwell-photographic-annouce-speed-booster-lens-adapter-for-mirrirless-cameras

I did not read this technical paper (and probably never will), but think the improvement works via the reduction of the image circle in its diameter. That means the sensor is using a greater proportion of the circle and lens errors are reduced proportionally, while sharpness is inversely proportionally increased (in the case the additional glass has no or only minor effect on the overall optical quality, what is probably the case with the high quality Metabones booster). As with the Tokina, that is a low quality lens, I can subjectively confirm this improvement in IQ when I compare 0.71x to 1x (both sharpness and CA improve at compareable angles of view), although of course, I did never systematical testing. With the Canon 8-15mm I cannot notice any improvement, probably because the basal IQ of this lens is very good and so there is not much there that could be  improved...

Wolfgang

Edited October 5, 2019 by Architeuthis

[Interceptor121 773]

1 hour ago, Architeuthis said:

Interceptor, it is going to become very technical, so the terrain is difficult. In addition, I believe that the issue is not really important in practice...

There is, however, a technical white paper (by Brian Caldwell from Metabones, so there IS a conflict of interest) that states that sharpness and IQ are improved by the 0.71x speedbooster compared to glassless 1x adaption, and not detoriated. It is hard to believe, intuitively I would say (like you) that additional third party glass can only detoriate and not improve. But see here: https://www.dpreview.com/articles/8961802602/metabones-and-caldwell-photographic-annouce-speed-booster-lens-adapter-for-mirrirless-cameras

I did not read this technical paper (and probably never will), but think the improvement works via the reduction of the image circle in its diameter. That means the sensor is using a greater proportion of the circle and lens errors are reduced proportionally, while sharpness is inversely proportionally increased (in the case the additional glass has no or only minor effect on the overall optical quality, what is probably the case with the high quality Metabones booster). As with the Tokina, that is a low quality lens, I can subjectively confirm this improvement in IQ when I compare 0.71x to 1x (both sharpness and CA improve at compareable angles of view), although of course, I did never systematical testing. With the Canon 8-15mm I cannot notice any improvement, probably because the basal IQ of this lens is very good and so there is not much there that could be  improved...

Wolfgang

I have read the technical white paper it compares a bare lens vs the speed boster but this is not what the smart adapter does.

This guys has done a proper test equalising the apertures and distances and as expected the adapter without lens is the best in terms of aberration and distortion

http://www.verybiglobo.com/metabones-speed-booster-ultra-review-part-ii-canon-ef-501-2-l/

The only area that speedbooster seems to do better (but I can't see it from the image he posts) is centre sharpness while the edges are always better with the smart adapter

I think I am good to continue with smart adapter and Canon 8-15mm besides the fact that the smart adapter is effectively an extension tube means the lens quality is the same of the bare lens and no optical effects are introduced. The resolution of the lens should be totally unchanged and of course if the megapixel count of the MFT is the same of the SLR effectively get the same resolution at two stops wider aperture

Edited October 5, 2019 by Interceptor121

[Architeuthis 156]

Here are the files for 3D printing - I attach the files here: they were made with Tinkercad and are for the original Nauticam Zoom gear for Canon 8-15mm (and Tokina 10-17mm). One for 1x Smart adapter and one for 1x Smart adapter plus Kenko 1.4x teleconverter (as far as I remember this one need to be made a little bit shorter by abraser (or correct the 3D file)). For optimum fixing I treaded three tread for worm-screws into each adapter. These screws are used to fix the extension collar to the zoomgear.

I also insert the files for the Tokina, just in case someone is interested. As far as I remember also these parts need a little bit of abrasing until they fit (and, of course also the worm-screws)...

Canon8-15_1x_v4.stlCanon8-15_1x_K1.4x_v1.stlTokina10-17_1x_K1.4x_v1.stlTokina10-17_1x_v1.stl

All of them work nicely in my hands, I let them print via the site below using the cheap standard material, but no guarantee...

https://i.materialise.com/de/

 

Wolfgang

 

Edited October 5, 2019 by Architeuthis

[Interceptor121 773]

great stuff wolfgang I will do a write up when I have all the parts at hand!