My own little Lens Turbo review

.. or how to shoot yourself in the foot. See, I have conflicting interests here. Because I bought a Lens Turbo adapter for my NEX cameras, and now I listed it back for sale. So it’d be more favorable for me to say how great it is. However, here’s the naked truth : that thing SUCKS.

But I guess for the sake of honesty and shared knowledge with my peers, I’ll give you the dirt anyway. I can always hope to sell it to someone who hasn’t read this. Or who’s read it but thinks the Lens Turbo can still suit their type of shooting. And I’m sure it can be good to *some* type of photography (though please don’t ask me to think of one, because the answer seriously eludes me right now…).

So as discussed here earlier the Lens Turbo is an optical adapter that more or less negates the crop factor of APS-C chip equipped camera, basically giving them the attributes of a “full frame” 24x36mm traditionnal film camera. Your 50mm lens IS a 50mm lens (well, 53 to be hair splittingly specific) and the depth of field is that you would expect from a full frame body with any lens you mount.

Here’s an example : with Lens Turbo adapter, Nikon Ai 50/1.8 @1.8

Without the Lens Turbo adapter, Rokkor MD 50/1.7 @1.7.

Here you can notice two things : 1) the FOV (field of view) is much tighter, because of the x1.5 “crop” factor of the NEX’s APS-C sensor, the 50mm lens behaves like a 75mm one. 2) the shutter speed at same ISO and aperture, is much slower to achieve equivalent exposure. In another words, the Lens Turbo gives an enormous speed gain (which is where it can be extremely useful for concert and indoor sports shooters, for instance).

Again, to make my point : here with the LT, 1/60th exposure

and without it, using a 35mm lens for equivalent FOV, 1/30th exposure.

Lens Turbo is the obvious winner when light is scarce and you need to keep your shutter speed high. Ok, so why all the bitching and hating ?!?

Simple : because it turns otherwise fine and perfectly sharp lenses into Coke bottle bottoms with mushy bokeh, uncontrolable flare and obscene ghosting…

Sure, post processing can cure things a bit, but it still not great

and it best benefits from using smaller apertures to control a bit all the above mentioned phenomenons, which is counter intuitive in the first place. If I buy an adapter to give me shallower DOF, it’s certainly NOT to stop my lenses down and ruin the thin DOF look !

Bokeh smoothness is really all important to me (as here with the wonderful OM 50/1.4 and its icecreamy goodness) and the out of focus areas of the Lens Turbo are a mushy mess that looks like it’s been induced in Photoshop.Horrid

Who the fuck instagrammed my picture !?!

See what I mean ? I don’t want none of that D. Hamilton softness and glow. Not if I haven’t specifically processed for it anyway…

OK, I have to admit it works for SOME shots.. (I’m really fond of this one)

Some softness in portraits bring a dreamy quality that can be pleasant

and a bit of glow can be poetic

But see how only a tiny part of the frame is decently sharp and focus falls off immediately, within millimeters of the (so so) sharp zone ??

There’s also a terrible lack of contrast, and global haze over most pictures

Which, again, can be put to use in dreamy portraits…

So overall I’ll live with my crop factore, slower shutter speeds and lack of wide angle. Thank you.

BUT… if you are a concert shooter using a fast tele lens for instance, or an indoor sports photog with the same requirements of fast shutter speed, a Lens Turbo might be just what makes the difference between screwing your job and getting the shots. Of course, if you can spring for the more expensive original Metabones Speed Booster, that’s probably a great idea 😉