The beauty of MFT (or any other mirrorless system) is the ability to adapt legacy lenses with an adapter. We’ve covered this topic in-depth, including pros and cons, in our guide to The Best Legacy Lenses. If you’d like to learn more about legacy lenses definitely checkout that guide. We cover two very important topics in that article:
- Are Legacy Lenses Worth It In 2021? Because as a system matures and has more options, there’s less of a need for older glass. Also…
- The Best 3rd Party Manual Lenses – Arguably, better alternatives have been popping up from companies like Rokinon/Samyang, and the beautiful collection of f0.95 lenses from the Mitakon Speedmaster Series.
For me personally, it comes down to what you want. You want nostalgia? The old school lenses built solid, with mostly metal? Or maybe you just want the flatter look (that filmmakers love) that come with vintage lenses. I’d start with our guide to the Best Canon FD lenses where you can adapt a Canon FD 50mm f1.4 for less than $100 (more on that below). And if you’re completely green to photography, there’s also some information in that guide on why you can, but shouldn’t adapter newer lenses, eg. Canon’s EF Lenses.
Optically, the Canon FD lenses can still hold their own, here’s one comparison I did before of the Olympus 45mm f1.8 vs Canon FD 50mm f1.4. The growth of mirrorless cameras has also led to the greater demand of legacy lenses. Today that same Canon 50mm f1.4 I picked up 10 years ago for $40 goes for about $100 in the same condition. The Olympus can be found for about $250, is much smaller, sharper, and retains auto focus. That isn’t to say that there aren’t good legacy lenses out there, the legendary Leica M mount lenses are known to be fantastic (though over $1000+). Heck, the legendary Leica Noctilux 50mm f0.95 is listed on eBay for $8000+.
I’ve dabbled with my fair share of FD lenses early on, but now that the MFT system has matured, I prefer to stick with the native Micro Four Thirds (MFT) lenses. They’re relatively affordable with some of the sharpest, and best MFT lenses under $500. But FD lenses are still certainly great alternatives if you’re on a tighter budget. Or if you’re a filmmaker, legacy lenses are great, especially when paired with a Speedbooster.
Adapting Lenses with the Speedbooster
The most popular is the Metabones Speedbooster, you could consider 3rd party alternatives as this Focal Reducer Shootout shows that the Lens Turbo is the closest competitor at less than half the price. Most Speedbooster(s) allow for the following:
- Increase maximum aperture by 1 stop.
- Increase MTF (lens sharpness).
- Makes lens 0.71x wider.
Be sure to double check compatibility with your body, as Speedboosters were designed with the most popular video cameras in mind, such as the Panasonic GH5.
Which Speedbooster for the Panasonic GH5? And Examples Of How It Works…
We’ll use the Panasonic GH5. One of the most popular cameras used by YouTubers, and a popular camera to use a Speedbooster. Again, the following Speedboosters will work for other Micro Four Thirds cameras, but double check for compatibility on the Metabones website, and do some research on forums as well (DPReview is a good source).
The Metabones Speedbooster XL or Speedbooster Ultra?
The Speedbooster XL came first for the Panasonic GH4 (which had a 4k crop factor). You can still use the XL on the GH5 (and most do), but it can cause vignetting at wider focal lengths. The improved Speedboster XL featured:
- Increased maximum aperture by 1.3 stops (vs 1-stop on Ultra)
- Makes lenses 0.64x wider (vs 0.71).
Based on YouTube reviews, one of the most popular lenses to adapt, the Sigma Art 18-35mm f1.8, has vignetting around 18-20mm. Which can easily be cropped in-post. If you don’t want to deal with that, the Speedbooster Ultra was created with both Full Frame and APS-C lenses in mind.
Because the Speedbooster XL offers a wider FOV and a little extra light (1/3 stop), the benefits outweigh the occasional cropping that you have to do in-post to remove vignetting at wider focal lengths. You can also punch-in with the crop mode to avoid vignetting.