LowriderS10
Monkey with a camera.
A few weeks ago, Fotodiox announced that they're going to release a focal length reducer that also adds a stop of light to any lens mounted to it. Sounds just like Metabones, right? Better yet, it was $160 ($140 for the first week), making it a smashing bargain. I, along with a lot of other people, jumped on the opportunity. I missed the initial rush, and by the time I contacted them they were back ordered...which turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
The initial video on the product boasted its abilities to reduce the focal length (leaving us with a 1.4x crop factor instead of the 2x we currently have) and that we'd pick up an extra stop of light along the way. That was it. What they failed to mentioned is that anything close to wide open is absolutely unusable. In fact...even though an f1.4 lens will essentially become an f1.0 with this converter, the resulting pictures are unusable until around f4 (or, f2.8 equivalent...essentially making the lens about two stops SLOWER than it started out with).
I guess it's good for converting a cheap 28mm 2.8 lens into a ~40mm f4...but I see very limited use in that. Sadly, it's useless for what I (and many other people) wanted to use it for: To make a 200 f2.8 into a 280 f2 (equivalent), or a 50 1.4 into a 70 1.0, etc.
I'm not bashing the company at all - in fact, the representative I have been emailing with has been awesome -, but this is why companies can't rush products to the market. In the video, he explains/admits that they really should have done a better job of representing the product - test charts, sample pictures, etc, all of which were completely absent pre-release.
EDIT: Now that I've re-watched the videos back-to-back, quite frankly, I'm a little peeved at Bahus and crew. He's using words like "confusion" and "misunderstanding" and essentially putting the blame on the customers for not understanding what this product was. When you watch the first video, you'll see he makes plenty of references about the lens being faster, even giving examples of this adapter/converter/whatever giving you the ability to shoot in "caves" and by "candle light." There was no confusion. They simply misrepresented the product. There is NO mention that actually, the OPPOSITE is true...and that that you should be using your lens at slower-than-normal aperture settings if you don't want your end result to look like garbage.
Anyways...here is the damage control video they put out and some samples comparing it to the Metabones:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIv-2BQ3jRI&list=UU62EofNJm8s-qCcLNOQKZZg
Samples:
http://www.fotodioxpro.com/excell1-metabones-comparison
Original video...they mention that it makes your lens faster/image brighter a handful of times, but not the fact that the image is useless at those settings:
http://www.43rumors.com/fotodiox-announces-the-excell-1-speedbooster-alike-adapter/
The initial video on the product boasted its abilities to reduce the focal length (leaving us with a 1.4x crop factor instead of the 2x we currently have) and that we'd pick up an extra stop of light along the way. That was it. What they failed to mentioned is that anything close to wide open is absolutely unusable. In fact...even though an f1.4 lens will essentially become an f1.0 with this converter, the resulting pictures are unusable until around f4 (or, f2.8 equivalent...essentially making the lens about two stops SLOWER than it started out with).
I guess it's good for converting a cheap 28mm 2.8 lens into a ~40mm f4...but I see very limited use in that. Sadly, it's useless for what I (and many other people) wanted to use it for: To make a 200 f2.8 into a 280 f2 (equivalent), or a 50 1.4 into a 70 1.0, etc.
I'm not bashing the company at all - in fact, the representative I have been emailing with has been awesome -, but this is why companies can't rush products to the market. In the video, he explains/admits that they really should have done a better job of representing the product - test charts, sample pictures, etc, all of which were completely absent pre-release.
EDIT: Now that I've re-watched the videos back-to-back, quite frankly, I'm a little peeved at Bahus and crew. He's using words like "confusion" and "misunderstanding" and essentially putting the blame on the customers for not understanding what this product was. When you watch the first video, you'll see he makes plenty of references about the lens being faster, even giving examples of this adapter/converter/whatever giving you the ability to shoot in "caves" and by "candle light." There was no confusion. They simply misrepresented the product. There is NO mention that actually, the OPPOSITE is true...and that that you should be using your lens at slower-than-normal aperture settings if you don't want your end result to look like garbage.
Anyways...here is the damage control video they put out and some samples comparing it to the Metabones:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIv-2BQ3jRI&list=UU62EofNJm8s-qCcLNOQKZZg
Samples:
http://www.fotodioxpro.com/excell1-metabones-comparison
Original video...they mention that it makes your lens faster/image brighter a handful of times, but not the fact that the image is useless at those settings:
http://www.43rumors.com/fotodiox-announces-the-excell-1-speedbooster-alike-adapter/
