All zoom & iris controls lost after using metabones speed booster/adapter on Sony FS7

[Jim Watt]

I spoke with a friend who also has an FS7 and he had the same problem. It appears that seating the Metabones speed booster disagrees with the FS7 causing the 4th pin from the left when facing the camera to retract and not come back out to it’s operating position.

We used a pin point to get it unstuck, plus there appeared to be some minuscule brass shavings near the pin that I would presume came from the operation of seating the Metabones. My friend, Bill McMillian was on a shoot when his issue occurred and fixed the problem several times since he was switching back & forth, but eventually even the Metabones adapter quit working. He sent it into Sony and they turned it around pretty quick…about a week and fixed it for no charge.

Anyway, just thought you-all should know.

Thanks to Bill our angst filled morning was at least somewhat relieved since we have 4 days shooting next week with the FS7, but I’m hoping not to use the Metabones adapter during that time until I can send it into Sony for service.

thx…jw

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[Patrick Harris]

Hi Jim,

I had the same issue with my FS7 and metabones speedbooster ultra. I took it back to my place of purchase and they blamed the fault on the metabones. So Sony repaired the camera at metabones cost, and metabones have replaced / repaired the speedbooster. I’m hesitant to use it again, but obviously I love the results it gives. Have you had any more problems with you FS7 / metabones?

Pat

[Jim Watt]

Hi Pat,

I certainly understand how you feel. When this happened to me, I had just had the camera and lenses for a couple of days and had a shoot for it in another couple days, so I was a bit panicked. Fortunately I had a friend who had the same issue and he pointed out that it was the second or third pin in the lens mount that got stuck in the down position. I used a small pin to pick at it and it sprang back out.

Since then I’ve used the Metabones adapter 50 or so times and have never had a repeat of the incident. My friend on the other hand had to send his camera to Sony since the sticking pin issue seemed to occur pretty frequently.

On the high side, it sounds like you have had your camera repaired and I think you really have nothing to worry about. I haven’t had the issue again and neither has my friend. Have fun and enjoy!

Jw

[Patrick Harris]

Hi Jim

Thanks so much for getting back to me.

I was doing the same thing with the middle pin, popping it out every time it got stuck – but eventually it was happening way too often for it to be useable.

Hopefully things will work like they should since getting the camera and adapter repaired.

One last question, do you use lens support on any of your lenses? I do – but only for the Canon 70-200 f2.8. I was wondering if the weight of the lens might have had anything to do with the pin sticking?

Pat

[Jim Watt]

Pat,

I and most of my friends who are using FS7’s don’t use support for the 70 X 200, though I do use one if I use the doubler and also for my sigma 50 X 500, but it’s a beast and the weight concerns me that it would be an issue. I doubt if the 70 X 200 weights more than the Sony kit lens the 28 X 135.

From what I have been told by the Sony techs, the lense mount on the FS7 is very robust and can definitely handle the Canon 70 X 200. I use mine frequently and other than the one problem I had with a stuck pin, have not run into the issue again, though I’m constantly on the lookout for a stuck pin, at least when I have the luxury of time to examine the pins, which quite frankly isn’t all that often.

Thx…jw

[Patrick Harris]

Thanks Jim, your advice has been great – good chatting with you

[Joan Dominguez]

Is anybody having the following issue?

I have the speed booster ultra EF to E mount, on a Sony FS7, with canon 24-70 f4 IS and 70-200 f4 IS.
When i swap lenses with camera on, i just remove the lens while the metabones stays on the camera….
i have no iris control until i restart the camera.

Does one have to switch camera off to swap lenses? seems like a terrible waste of time, specially under run and gun shoots.

Does it have anything to do with green or advanced mode? i’m currently on green mode and i’m running the latest firmware on both my FS7 and the speed booster.

Thank you.