Metabones reveals new Speed Booster adapter with bold claims: reduce focal length, increase speed of lens (focal reducer) [M43, NEX] {with hands-on reports!}

Metabones waited until after the CES + PMA 2013 dust settled before making their announcement, a new Speed Booster for Micro Four Thirds and Sony NEX e-mount, "reducing" the focal length of a lens and at the same time "increasing" the speed of the lens. This is a focal reducer adapter of sorts.

This was one of the pet + pet-peeve projects of Thom Hogan and he has written a detailed post about this new development.

Philip Bloom had access to an actual working Speed Booster and has published a long and detailed hands-on report which includes stills comparison samples.

Philip Bloom was not the only one with access to a working model. So was Bnaro Cinematography which posted their hands-on impressions with this (via C5D).

For a technical look at this new development, MetaBones has published a PDF technical white paper. Link is directly to the PDF file. General information at the Metabones website.

Discussion at DSLR News Shooter and EOS-HD and dpreview Comments and mu-43 forums.

Speaking of focal reducers, here are some previous example pictures taken using other reducers (not the Metabones) published last year at Photography of the Insivible World by Dr. Klaus Schmitt of Macrolenses.de (via GetDPI).

Press Release Parade
+ dpreview
+ WDC?

Blog Planning Update
A new wave of Cameraholic Digests (probably broken in four parts by sensor size) will be posted later today. We will probably merge CES and non-CES action together since this has been a relatively quiet CES + PMA. Perhaps because Photokina happened less than four months ago?