As a very happy owner of the Canon FD to Sony E-mount Zhengyi Lens Turbo (Version 2) by ZY Optics I’ve been very curious to find out how it stacks up against the very respected Metabones Speedbooster, therefore I decided to do a quick, real life test to see if Lens Turbo gets anywhere close to the Speed Booster.
If you’ve seen the video above, you already know how impressive the Lens Turbo is. At the very least it’s as good as Speedbooster in pretty much every optical aspect but I think it even edges ahead slightly when it comes to sharpness. (Just to be clear, I was using the original Speedbooster for my tests. I’m aware that Metabones has now released the new ULTRA version of their Speedbooster, but I was only able to get hold of the original EF to NEX version, which a lot of you already have)
Speedbooster obviously has its strong points too, like reducing the focal length of any given lens by 0.71x rather than 0.72x reduction by Lens Turbo. It’s not a big difference but gives you that little bit more.
The Lens Turbo is a manual adapter: there are no electronics, so while you can mount modern Canon lenses on one of these, you can’t control the aperture or take advantage of optical stabilization. This is another strong point of the Speedbooster, which became popular with loads of camera guys switching from Canon 5Ds to something like Sony FS100/700.
The built quality of Metabones is slightly better too. The back element is better protected than on Lens Turbo which will help Metabones adapter last longer. The Lens Turbo is a quality made adapter too and is certainly much more solid than most dummy adapters sold on ebay. Neither of these adapters have any mount play and both fit snugly my Sony FS100.
The biggest difference between these adapters though is the price. The luxury of having electronics, slightly wider field of view and slightly better built quality will set you back $650, while Lens Turbo ll will only cost you $150.
For those of you using electronic Canon lenses, Speed Booster is an obvious choice, but as a big fan of Canon FD (and other vintage lenses) I find the Lens Turbo to be a perfect choice for me.
If you look at the total savings of using LT2/FD vs SB/EF (adapter/lens combination), the savings are even bigger. For example the total cost of Canon EF 50mm F1.4 + Metabones Speed Booster is just over $1000, while the Canon FD 50mm F1.4 + Lens Turbo II combination will cost no more than $250, if you’re lucky $200. When it comes to 50mm F1.4, I would choose the FD version over EF every time anyway, be it with or without a focal reducer, so if you are still using Canon EF lenses on Sony E-mount cameras, maybe it’s worth seeing how much you could save by switching to something like Canon FD + Lens Turbo combination. It’s not hard to see that you can buy similar equivalents 5 times cheaper, or have 5 times more glass for the same money 🙂
I use my Canon FD 50mm F1.4 + LT2 combo on almost every shoot and I absolutely love it, therefore I highly recommend the same to anyone using Sony e-mount cameras.
What do you think about this comparison? Is speed booster still worth it? As always feel free to share your thoughts below!
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Nice review. I had some trouble seeing the video on my android phone though (Chrome browser), the page is set to just the width of the text, but the video is wider than the text, so it cuts the right side of the video (almost half). Even when on landscape, the right side of the video is cut off and it doesnt let me slide to the right, or zoom out.
Thanks a lot for your feedback Stephan. The video is enbeded, so should resize itself to whatever device is being used. To be honest at this point I have no idea how to fix this 🙁
Whoa weird..it works fine now. Good job whatever you did haha, or if you didnt do anything then its nice it fixed itself lol.
Glad to hear that it fixed itself, as I didn’t really know how to fix that 🙂
I have one of SpeedBooster Camdiox (German company) and I find it really well for my Canon FD lenses for my Panasonic MFT G6
I haven’t tried the Camdiox myself yet, although my FD to M4/3 focal reducer looks similar. I quite like it although I haven’t tested in any critical way.
Am I crazy? I can’t seem to find a Canon FD to M43 focal reducer via the link you posted?
You’re not crazy, there just aren’t any for sale right now. If you look at the completed listings you will see that there have been some for sale in the past, so I’m sure more will be for sale in the near future.
As far as I know the M4/3 Version 2 is not out yet. You can buy the Canon FD to M43 Lens Turbo, but I think all of them out there are Vesion 1. Hopefully we’ll see the version 2 too! 🙂
Any news? Still nothing as far as I can tell?
Hi I was just wondering if the zhongyi lens turbo ii us the same as the mitakon lens turbo ii?
Yes, that is the same one
Does the Lens Turbo II provide manual aperture control ?
No, there is n aperture ring on the adapter, so you need to use lenses that have the aperture control on the actual lens body.
How would I do this? I’ve just received my Canon FD 50mm 1.4 and Zhongyi Lens Turbo II FD-M43 adaptor and the lens seems to always stay wide open once mounted. The aperture ring doesn’t seem to change anything. Please advise if you can. Thanks!
Are you able to focus at infinity with the 50mm 1.4 with the Lens Turbo II?
Yes.
Hi, this is quite strange, today I received my Lens-Turbo 2 and my Canon FD 50mm 1.4 an it is not possible to focus at infinity. If I move the focus ring to ca. 10m, the lens collides with the lens of the Lens-Turbo 2. Now I don’t know, if this is a problem of the lens or of the lens turbo?
No, focus at ifinity is not possible. This is was the Zhongyi Homepage states:
This lens turbo adaptor may not fit all lenses due to different extensions at the lens rear mount. Lenses with extension more than 3mm are not recommended to use this lens turbo adaptor.
http://www.zyoptics.net/product/zhongyi-lens-turbo-for-sony-e-mount-cameras-sony-nex-a7/
I measured the extension of the 50mm FD 1.4 Lens with a caliper on different positions: it is between 2.8 and 3.2 mm. So it is more, than recommended by Zhongyi. This is the reason why my lens collides if I move the focus ring to 10m.
[…] (mount system) that can be used on both Canon FD and Canon EF cameras. One day I can use it with my FD Lens Turbo II focal reducer on my Sony camera and next day I can swap the mount and use it with a Canon EF camera. There is no […]
Awesome review Question, i have set of prime lenses Yashica ML 28 ot 135mm and BMPCC can i use this Lens Turbo II with my yahisca lenses i cant find CY mount or do i need additional adapters. How would i go about using my Yashica kenses
Thanks
You could use a EOS to M4/3 focal reducer and then just add the C/Y to EOS adapter on top 🙂
[…] as FRs). The LT2 is a very impressive FR for the price (see my comparison to Metabones Speedbooster here) and I’m pretty happy with my Roxsen M4/3 FR on BMPCC too. I’m sure it’s not perfect, […]
[…] the limits of this lens. A few shots at the end were shot with a Canon FD 50mm F1.4 together with a Lens Turbo II focal reducer on Sony FS100 and while this would be the widest combo with most anamorphic […]
Hi, i have a very simple question, if there is no adapter directely for canon EF to M/43 how did you shoot this video, did you use a sony E to m43 ring between the Lens Turbo and the camera? This would really help me, i’m going to buy a new camera and this will solve a lot of problems because a lot of my lenses are canon EF or vintage lenses adapteed for Canon EF. Thanks in advance.
Best Regards
[…] In terms of performance I think it’s easy to agree that it’s definitely worth the price I paid for it. Although not at its best, it can be used even wide open. It producers nice, but not overpowering flares, handles chromatic aberration very well (I couldn’t detect any at all) and has very little distortion. You can even get decent amount of shallow depth of filed on APC size sensor at F3.5, which is crazy for 17mm lens. Overall very cinematic image and in terms of optical performance definitely a great lens for video work. I use mine all the time, lately in combination with a Lens Turbo II. […]
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[…] lens can be used with just about any camera when coupled with a simple adapter. You can even “speedboost” it with certain mount cameras, so there aren’t many reasons not to like it. The […]