Using a crop sensor gives Fujifilm’s popular X-series of mirrorless cameras a more compact design – but the crop sensor also makes getting an ultra-wide lens more challenging. But a new speed booster adapter from Metabones boosts lenses to return to nearly the full-frame equivalent.
This month, Metabones announced a series of four new Canon-EF to Fujifilm X adapters. That list of four converters includes a converter built for maintaining autofocus and IBIS performance and a speed booster for widening the lens and adding an extra stop of light, as well as cinema variants of those two adapters.
The Metabones T Speed Booster Ultra 0.71x II+ turns the usual APS-C crop factor from 1.5 to 1.07, widening the lens almost (but not quite) to the full-frame view. Metabones says the adapter also adds a full stop of light to the lens, up to f/0.9.
That turns lenses like Canon’s workhorse 24-70mm f/2.8 to a 17-50mm f/2.0 on Fujifilm bodies. Metabones says that the adapter uses five lens elements in four groups to optically convert that view while boosting sharpness and reducing vignetting.
Both the Speed Booster and the Smart Adapter use electronic connections and a custom lens profile in order to support both autofocus and image stabilization, despite using a Canon lens on a Fujifilm body.
Metabones says that the autofocus and stabilization support comes from the adapter’s built-in processor and storage that creates a lens profile for each mounted optic. The company says the adapter “gathers information about the lens as you normally use it” and saves that data for better performance.
While the adapters support PDAF (phase-detection AF), Metabones says that the lens doesn’t quite meet the performance of native glass but claims the adapter’s autofocus and stabilization outperform other adapted lens systems.
For full support, the new Metabones adapters need a newer PDAF Fujifilm body such as the X-H series, the X-T2 and newer, or the XPro2 and newer. The lens also needs to come from the list of supported optics, but that list has more than 100 EF-mount lenses.
Both the Speed Booster and Smart Adapter also come in Cinema variants, which have a locking mechanism to prevent unwanted play while focusing or zooming.
With the adapters being a second generation, Metabones says it's also releasing firmware to boost autofocus performance for owners of the previous generation.
All three boosters are set to arrive in September. The Smart Adapter starts at $399 (about £295 / AU$555 / CA$554) and the Speed Booster at $699 (£516 / AU$974 / CA$970).
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