Tag Archives: Lens Adapter

Chronos Camera m43 Lens Adapter with Speedbooster Support!

The two existing Chronos cameras, the 1.4c 720p at 1502fps & the Chronos 2.1 -HD 1t 1080p 1000fps are identical when seen from the outside but very different inside as they contain different sensor and memory boards. However one constant is that both use the C mount as the default for lens adapters. The camera usually comes with a Canon EF or Nikon F mount adapter depending on the buyer preference which screws on the C mount thread and allows for support of classic lenses from Macro to telephoto. 

One request from the community has been the support for other lens mounts like Micro 4/3ds which lets you adapt a variety of lens mounts and the much coveted speedbooster adapters which allow a 1 f-stop improvement in light gathering for micro 4/3ds systems. Today Krontech, the company behind the Chronos high-speed camera is introducing a passive Micro 4/3rds adapter for both the Chronos 1.4c and 2.1-HD and uses the body screw terminals near the lens thread mount to place a solid connection that allows such lenses. → Continue Reading Full Post ←

Panasonic Lumix S1 180fps Slow Motion Is Pretty Good!

Panasonic Lumix S1 180fps Slow Motion

As it was initially unveiled at Photokina last year, the Panasonic Lumix S1 and S1R cameras are their answer to the domination of larger sensors in stills and video mirrorless cameras. Is there any reason now to buy a Full Frame DSLR when mirrorless is so advanced? The only thing we can think of is to have marginally longer battery life. The mirror is on its last legs and fans better start offloading their lenses if they don’t want to mess with adapters. In the case of Panasonic however, it is not possible to use Lumix  Micro 4/3 lenses on the Leica/Sigma/Panasonic Full Frame L-Mount.

The S1 and S1R will both shoot up to 180fps 1080p video with a crop that may or may not be impactful. Seems the S1R has less crop on 1080p than the video geared S1 which is an odd spec. We will have to wait for more samples and info on the HFR mode to see which of these cameras offers the best slow motion performance. From the limited samples, we can say that the quality looks very good and at least on par with the Lumix GH5 at 120fps.

Panasonic Lumix S1 Main Specs:
  • 24.2MP Full-Frame MOS Sensor
  • Venus Engine Image Processor
  • 5.76m-Dot 0.78x-Magnification OLED LVF
  • 3.2″ 2.1m-Dot Triaxial Tilt Touchscreen
  • UHD 4K60 Video; HDR and 10-Bit Recording
  • 1080p Slow Motion 180fps HFR
  • ISO 100-51200, Up to 9 fps Shooting
  • Contrast-Detect 225-Area DFD AF System
  • Sensor-Shift Image Stabilization – 6 Stops Dual IS
  • Weather-Sealed Construction
  • 96MP High-Res Mode, Dual XQD/SD Slots

The video below by HDblog Italy shows at the 2:04 Time a small sample of 180fps slow motion video.

Panasonic LUMIX S1 e S1R in TEST video: le FULL FRAME da battery by : HDblog it

There is no question that Panasonic is a leader in video quality in mirrorless cameras ever since they shipped the initial GH1 camera. Today the Lumix GH5 and GH5s are some of the most revered video-centric cameras for professionals that opt-in a mirrorless system instead of traditional ENG/EFP style video cameras.

The samples are few because the cameras are still pre-production but it will be a short wait until the beginning of April when these cameras ship to see how they perform.

Panasonic Lumix S1 S1R review hands-on impressions by Gordon Laing: → Continue Reading Full Post ←

Metabones Updates Adapter Firmware!

Metabones speedbooster m43 Ultra

Metabones the company that brought you the speed booster and one of the first to offer electronic lens compatibility including AF for Canon lenses on mounts like Sony E Mount and Panasonic/Olympus micro 4/3rds has updated the firmware on these to have better overall compatibility with AF modes on newer cameras.

Slow motion shooters on Sony, Panasonic and other slow motion capable cameras are big fans of these adapters and speed boosters because it allows compatibility with their Canon EF glass collection. Furthermore the speed boosters enable wider field of view and an extra stop of light which is always needed when shooting high speed footage.

The firmware fixes some AF Native vs Green compatibility issues that propped up in the previous update for Sony users. The new update defaults to the standard green mode as the Native did nothing to improve features or performance.

Other Important info for the update: “Users of Sony’s contrast-detect AF and early phase-detect AF cameras are advised to configure your adapter to “Advanced” mode using the procedure in the User Manual section of our web site (http://metabones.com/article/of/green-power-save-mode) to get a significant AF performance improvement. In addition, we have made “native” AF-C slightly better and added C-AF support for Olympus OM-D E-M1, although an AF-C performance bottleneck remains in the lens’ inability to execute a series of fine maneuvers with minimal latency as commanded by the camera body.”

Download link for Firmware updates:
Select your product from this page according to your mount and follow their instructions. 

Be sure to follow the instructions precisely as you update the firmware. If you are unsure how to do it; contact their support team here for guidance. Also check the video below by The Camera Store TV regarding these adapters in action.

Metabones Speed Booster Hands-On Field Test by  TheCameraStoreTV:

Full Press release for the firmware by Metabones Below:

Vancouver, Canada, June 30, 2016: Metabones® thrives on constructive criticism by the community and the press, and customer feedback was the driving force behind the fastest phase-detect autofocus (PDAF) across the widest selection of EF-Mount lenses on the Sony phase-detect trio (A7 Mark II, A7R Mark II and A6300) through a series of incremental firmware improvements last year, a feat that still held just as true with the release of “native” AF firmware last week. This accomplishment was the cornerstone of Metabones’ “Ubiquitously Fast Autofocus” vision, providing the broadest range of mirrorless cameras with fast still-photo single-AF when using adapted EF-mount digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) lenses. It began with fast AF on Panasonic launched in tandem with the 0.71x EF-MFT Speed Booster ULTRA last July, followed by fast AF on the Sony phase-detect trio and Olympus cameras last year. An EF lens on A7 Mark II, A7R Mark II or A6300 focused so quickly that it was virtually indistinguishable from a genuine Canon DSLR under some use-case scenarios. Nevertheless, Sony’s contrast-detect AF cameras such as A7S Mark II and early phase-detect cameras such as A6000 still took seconds to lock using an EF lens, and that remained the final frontier to conquer before we could lay claim to be ubiquitously fast. With Metabones “native” AF firmware, these other cameras got an order-of-magnitude boost in AF performance. “Native” AF was also an order-of-magnitude faster than Sony A-mount lenses on Sony LA-EA3 adapter on these non-phase-detect and early phase-detect Sony cameras. With the “native” AF firmware release, “Ubiquitously Fast Autofocus” was fait accompli and our vision had become reality.

“Native” was an informal term referring to a different version of the lens communication protocol which unlocked extra features such as direct manual focus (DMF), Eye-AF (A7 series), fast contrast-detect AF (faster for all Sony cameras except the phase-detect trio), continuous video AF, zoom position and focus distance display. Metabones did not make any representation of further performance improvement for the Sony phase-detect trio of cameras from “native” AF. Quite on the contrary, our previous announcement stated that “native” AF might have lower performance than the original “Green” mode phase-detect AF, which had been the fastest since last year. There was no performance regression in the sense that the user could configure the adapter to have the old behaviour (“Green” mode) back with a simple procedure. Hindsight being 20/20, switching the default mode from “Green” to “Advanced” was a mistake, and we apologize to affected A7 Mark II, A7R Mark II and A6300 owners who were inconvenienced by this change. Based on your input, we are releasing a new Metabones App 2.4 (E-mount v52) with the default mode reverted to “Green” again. V52 cannot be safer to install because no new features are activated and there are no changes in operation without you first opting in. Users of Sony’s contrast-detect AF and early phase-detect AF cameras are advised to configure your adapter to “Advanced” mode using the procedure in the User Manual section of our web site (http://metabones.com/article/of/green-power-save-mode) to get a significant AF performance improvement. In addition, we have made “native” AF-C slightly better and added C-AF support for Olympus OM-D E-M1, although an AF-C performance bottleneck remains in the lens’ inability to execute a series of fine maneuvers with minimal latency as commanded by the camera body. Metabones App 2.4 is available immediately for download from Metabones’ web site. We will continue to listen to your feedback as we have always been, because your input sets the direction of our future development efforts on “native” AF technology using adapted DSLR lenses.

 

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