Will Lensbaby composer work with a FLR/Speedbooster adapter?

[Wing0949]

Will Lensbaby composer work with a FLR(Focal Length Reducer)/Speedbooster adapter?

I was thinking about this product for a while and curious if anyone might have experience or know if this is even possible.

I was thinking of getting the lensbaby composer for Canon EF mount. I was also thinking of getting a Canon EF to Fuji X Speedbooster Adapter from Fotasy.

I am thinking and hoping that with this combination, I can achieve a few things:
1) Getting the focal length closer to 35mm full frame (has focal length reducer of 0.72x, e.g. 50mm x 1.5 x 0.72 = 54mm.)
2) Getting the aperture performance also closer to 35mm full frame
3) With above benefits, I believe there will be less cropping of the final image and therefor you will have even more of the special blur and sweet spot effect and may actually have more area within the frame to adjust and compose a unique shot.

What do you think? Should or will it work? Or, because of the nature and physical design of how a speedbooster (essentially a focal length reducer) works, it will not translate so smoothly as I am hoping or anticipating?

I just want to make the purchase more worth it.. otherwise, if you get the exact Fuji X mount, you will not inherit the full benefits and effects of the lensbaby because of the crop.. and I feel a lot of the effectiveness of the lensbaby effect has to do with how much you can pinpoint the sweet spot focus in relationship to how much more the everything outside of the sweet spot is uniquely thrown out of focus. Get my meaning and where I'm coming from? 

 

 

I feel the combination should work, as well. I know you can use a plain hollow-tube adapter and it should work, but you still get the crop factor.. I might as well just get the Fuji X mount version... But, I'd like the option to keep as close to lens's original 35mm full frame focal length and aperture. So, I am hoping that a FLR/Speedbooster that has that extra lens element in it doesn't some how prevent the effects of using a lensbaby from transferring through.  I don't believe it will as more of the image from the lensbaby will go onto the X trans sensor.. should be relatively as simple as that.

 

Thanks if any insight or your thoughts.

 

 

[jonahedwards]

Metabones states in their whitepaper (p14) that tilt-shift lenses should work on theirs at least:

 

 

Fast/Wide Tilt-Shift Lenses: Canon and Nikon have recently made major upgrades to their fullframe tilt shift lens offerings. The Speed Booster allows these phenomenal lenses to be used on mirrorless cameras without losing their field of view. For example, a Canon 17mm f/4 TSE now becomes a 12mm f/2.8 ultra-wide tilt shift for either the Sony NEX or Micro Four Thirds platforms. What’s more, the full range of adjustment in the tilt shift objective can be used even after the Speed Booster is attached.

 

I've not actually tried it though.  I think a friend of mine has a Lensbaby 3G that will work on my speedbooster -- if so I'll give it a shot next week and report back.

[jonahedwards]

Okay, tested this out for you -- I placed two objects about four inches apart in depth, set the aperture to f/4 using an aperture disk and bent the Lensbaby so both objects showed focus peaking on my X-Pro1, and kept the Lensbaby in the same position with both the the speedbooster (Metabones Ultra Leica R to X-mount) and a regular adapter, using the fine focus ring to maximize the displayed focus peaking for each image.  Camera was set to ISO 800, 1/125 to make the comparison demonstrate the stop gain.  The images are the JPEGs produced by the camera (auto white balance, 100%DR, Provia/Standard film simulation, all settings at zero).

 

Adapter:

 

 

Speedbooster:

 

 

If there are any other specific comparisons you'd like I'm happy to try them out, bearing in mind that I've never used a Lensbaby before today and don't really know what I'm doing with it 

Edited June 8, 2016 by jonahedwards

[scarbrog]

Exactly what i wanted to know , got the camdiox/roxen focal reducer ( canon ef to fuji x ) so now to save for the lensbaby !!!

Thanks

Graham........