As soon as I heard that the good folks at Mitakon were making a Metabones Speedbooster equivalent, I was part sceptical, part thrilled. I mean, this isn’t just your usual “tube” adapter. This actually has a piece of glass inside.
So, no doubt would the chinese Lens Turbo be cheap, but would it also be of acceptable quality? For starters let me explain a little bit of theory behind how these adapters work.
The adapter mounts between the old SLR lenses and the X-Pro1. It makes the lens wider by a factor of 0.71x, sort of like an “inversed” tele converter. Like the effect of a magnifying glass, it also concentrates the light. This gives a full stop of extra light. So an f/2.0 lens gathers light of an f/ 1.4 lens.
So if you mount a Minolta full frame lens on the X-Pro1, it will have the same angle of view and the same depth of field as a full frame camera. A 50mm no longer acts like a 75mm, but like a 50. A 21 like a 21… you get the point.
Build Quality
The build of the adapter is great. It’s what you would want to put on your X-Pro1’s metal body. It’s solid metal, and the lens element gives it a nice hefty feel.
The fit on both the X-Mount side, and the Minolta MD mount side is VERY good. A tight fit with absolutely NO give what so ever. I really don’t like that they painted the “Zhongyi” name in screaming orange/red, but that was an easy fix with a small brush and some acrylic paint.
Image Quality
This is where it gets a little more interesting. This is where I had most of my scepticism placed! I had read online, that the Lens Turbo showed extremely soft corners, and that it was NOT sharp at all. I’ll state this right away: If there are soft corners, my type of photography doesn’t give a shit! The street style shots, processed in B&W with an in-focus center’ish target and a background blurred to mush makes it close to impossible to notice soft corners. If you shoot nature, landscape, studio, fine arts this turbo is probably not for you. But then again you might as well shoot proper full frame anyways, right? 😛
I found nice sharpness to my images. The softness that I DO get in them is the same as I get on regular adapters, and it is part of shooting old classic Minolta Rokkor prime glass at wide open apertures.
The below 3 images where shot on a tripod. I used the 58mm at f/1.4. One shot with the Lens Turbo, and one with the regular adapter. To compare I took a shot with the Fujinon XF 35mm at f/1.4. This illustrates nicely what the lens turbo does. Nice wide FOV with narrow DOF. Looks great.
Conclusion
Is it fun? – HELL YEAH!
Is it somewhat of a little miracle device? – HELL YEAH!
Is it sharp at the corners? – PROBABLY NOT, BUT WHO CARES!
Will it cost you a kidney? – HELL NO!
Would I recommend this? – HELL YEAH!
There you have it! This adapter is VERY fun. It gives a full frame experience on some great old minolta rokkor glass. Real shallow DOF, wider FOV… All of it, its there. Just like real full frame. Combined with the EXCELLENT IQ of the X-Pro1, and at a price of only a measly $130, this thing is a no-brainer. Try it out. You will not regret doing so.
Samples
The sample images below are taken with a mixture of my 3 Minolta Rokkor lenses, and some shots using an Avanar 135mm f/2.8. I divided the sample shots into groups after which lens I used.
The Minolta Rokkor 50mm f/1.2 – Bloody fast but very soft wide open!
The Minolta Rokkor 58mm f/1.4, is not as soft wide open as the 50mm f/1.2. It’s sort of in the middle which I personally love.
The Minolta Rokkor 55mm f/1.7. This last lens being the sharpest, and also the most compact of the bunch.
This is one of the lenses that actually stays on my camera for extended periods of time. I simply love this lens. The Lens Turbo definitely made it even cooler.
The Avanar 135mm f/2.8 is a great portrait lens, which I never used since without the Lens turbo the FOV was eq to the of a 210mm. The lens is SHARP! even at 2.8, which all 3 below shots were taken at.
There you have it! Go out and buy a Lens Turbo if you have some old Minolta MD glass. They even plan on making it for the M42 screw mount. That should give some GREAT swirly bokeh from the Helios 44m.
Take Care.
Very nice overview great images and like the one special with the polaroid tripod..!!
Nice review, Jonas! Gives me some food for thought for some legacy glass!
Thanks Rich!
Super fun, and cheap.
Nice Jonas!
I think you have convinced me on taking the plunge, I believe I read the same article you referred to and was a bit skeptical. Anyway I just ordered the adapter and can’t wait to use it on my wide array of Minolta Glasses I have in my possession. I am particularly interested in how the adapter will perform on my wide angle lenses 24mm, 28mm and 35mm, should be interesting. I will report my findings on my blog sometime next week.
Thanks!
Hi Kelvin!
Great news! Can’t wait to see your results!
DO keep me informed ok?
/J
Thank you sincerely for the review, which was really helpful to me. I’ve got three very good MD Rokkor lenses, in the forms for the 24mm f2.8, 35mm f2.8 and 50mm f1.4 respectively. I envy your choice of subjects, because as you say, landscapes would almost certainly tend to look horrible with the aide of this adapter. Unfortunately those are exactly the kind of pictures I usually take. I went out this morning on the beach with an Olympus 12mm f2 micro four thirds lens and it gave me exactly the results I was looking for. As much as I love my 24mm f2.8, sooner or later I’m probably going to come to terms with the fact that it ever won’t work properly as a full frame wide-angled surrogate lens. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t love it nearly as much if I tried it that way and it let me down in the field (with a cow, perhaps).
I’ve only just purchased an X-Pro1 and have also bought a conventional adapter that will soon enable the above-named lenses to be used on the camera. I’ll be getting a Fuji 35mm f2 quite soon and I suspect that all of them will be made redundant by then.
Your images are truly excellent and I feel you use your resources extremely well. It’s far better to concentrate on what our equipment can do than blame it for the things it can’t accomplish for us. The truth is, when things go wrong with our photography it’s almost always our own fault.
Did you get it on ebay or did you find a seller within EU (to avoid Danish VAT and crazy fees)?
NB: I am planning to get one and then stick an original Minolta P-adapter in between an M42 lens and the MD mount lens turbo and still hit infinity,
Thanks for the review. I work in Shanghai but surprisingly I couldn’t find the Mitakon Zhongyi Lens Turbo in the large photographic shopping centre here. All I could find were eBay sellers based in HK. In the end I found a Shanghai seller on China’s version of eBay – Taobao.com and promptly went to his shop this afternoon. I got my Mitakon Lens Turbo (Nikon AI to M4/3) and a Kipon BAV Eyes adapter (Nikon AI to FX). Will be testing both soon.
http://akibadigihome.taobao.com/
This sounds great! Thanks for the review. Do you have a suggestion where I can buy one? I’m having trouble finding one online.
Thanks!
Hi can I get one for a Sony nex5n using Nikon lens. Has anyone got a reliable seller link.
Hej hej Jonas,
awesome review – really like your website and work.
Can you give me a little hint where you got the lens turbo adapter for md-fx? Can’t find anything except md to nex 🙁
I appreciate every kind of answer 🙂
Mange hilsner fra Tyskland (hope i got this right :D)
Hi Daniel.
I bought mine on ebay. but they seem to have disappeared. I really dont know where to find one.
/Jonas
Can you use peak focusing on the Fuji, with this setup?
Hi Kevin.
Yes you can. The Lens turbo is just like any other adapter in this regard, and doesn’t influence the ability to use focus peaking.
/Jonas
Hi, just wanted to say that aside from reading your article, I really enjoyed your photographs, I usually never take any interest in what people shoot except for technical comparison but your style is quite unusual and completely interesting.
Cheers- Josh
Could you let us know how you process your photos, really like them!
Hi Chia. I’ve been wanting to do a blogpost on that for SOOOOOO long. But something always scoots ahead. I will get to it soon, I promise 😀
Thank you for reading.
/Jonas
First of all, thanks for your great blog and your amazing photos! They’re inspirational and definitely played a role in my decision to switch to Fuji recently. I’d love to see more of your photos added to Flickr, but I’ll keep coming here too 🙂
Clearly I’m late to the party, but I’d love to use the lenses from a Minolta x700 that got handed down to me on my x-pro1. I can’t seem to find any Mitakon MD-FX Lens Turbos, but there are a few focal reducers on Ebay in the 80 to 130 USD range (example http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lens-Adapter-Ring-For-Minolta-MD-Lens-to-Fujifilm-FX-Focal-Reducer-Speed-Booster-/291414079522?hash=item43d9a1f822:g:ExIAAOSw-W5Uwen-). Anybody know if these are comparable in quality to Mitakon?
Thanks!
Andrew
Hi Andrew. Thank you for reading the site! I try to keep up with all the different photosites, but its a full time job keeping up presensce. – I try to limit myself to this site and instagram, and then secondarily on flickr and 500px.
So just keep visiting here 😉
The no-name focal reducers are getting better by the generation, but if theyre as good as the Lens Turbo ver. 2 I dont know. /J
Hi Andrew, have you maybe had a chance to try it?
hi , nice review.
Do you have an idea where i can still buy this?
Thanks Alin
Hi all. Is the adapter still available? I cannot find it anywhere…..
Hi Jonas, I love your blog and ‘ve been following you for a while ( we actually might have a friend in commun in Danmark ^^ ) . I have been looking for an adapter for a couple of weeks now in order to get full assets of my Hellios 58mm. So far my best result is that one : https://www.aliexpress.com/item/NEW-focal-reducer-speed-booster-lens-adapter-suit-for-Minolta-MD-to-FuJiFilm-FX-camera-X/32276422643.html?spm=2114.01020208.3.2.CzT7cX&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_5_10065_10068_10084_10083_10080_10082_10081_10060_10061_10062_10056_10055_10054_10059_10099_10078_10079_426_10073_10102_10096_10052_10050_425_10051,searchweb201603_6&btsid=b660a762-ea54-467c-ada3-24b054e2bd42,
what do you think of it ? is it approriate for the X Pro 2 ?
Thank you
Hello, thanks for the great review. I’ve just bought an M39 Jupiter 3 and would like to ask you if you know a way to make these m39 lenses work with a focal reducer/speedbooster ? It will be magical to use these great legacy glass in native focal lenght 🙂
Hi Jonas, the review is amazing like all others, I purchased my first Fuji camera this year an XT2 and I’m blown away I live it. I also have a Minolta Rokkor 55mm 1.7 at home. And I love it. And I will purchase more of these vintage glasses I love them.
Your photography is big inspiration for me.
Just keep on what u doing is absolute great.
Just a question I’m not able to find this Mitakon Speed Booster is on sale anymore. Is any chance that you know from where I can buy that. I live in the UK but nothing here I don’t mint buy it from any other place online these days postal deliveries are quite good. Thanks
Sadly, they stopped making the device. You can only get Canon, Nikon, or M42 to Fuji adapters now.
Are there any alternatives to Zhongy Lens Turbo for FD MD PK mounts?
Very nice review, bro. By using lens turbo, the background become blurer.
Very nice review, bro. By using lens turbo, the background become blurer than fujinon xf 35 1.4 at almost similar FOV.