Metabones announces TruePDAF Technology for Micro Four Thirds:
Metabones announced TruePDAF Technology for Micro Four Thirds, with autofocus speed so fast that it is often practically indistinguishable from a native lens.
When Metabones refreshed its Speed Booster and Smart Adapter product lines for Micro Four Thirds to “Mark II”, the initial announcement was that Mark I and Mark II ran the same firmware with the same performance. This is no longer the case with the introduction of TruePDAF Technology, which utilizes the better Mark II hardware by storing lens profile data of more than 100 lenses in firmware. When a match is found, the Speed Booster’s or Smart Adapter’s LED glows pink (instead of white) to indicate that additional lens metadata is conveyed to the camera. This is exactly the same kind of metadata that a native lens reports to the camera. With that extra information, PDAF performs well even under less-than-ideal scenarios, such as low contrast, insufficient light, AF points in the corners of the frame and subjects near the lens’ minimum focus distance. In addition, IBIS effectiveness is increased, particularly near macro distances where 5-axis gives the most additional benefit over 3-axis.
Press release:
Metabones® TruePDAF Technology™ improves PDAF and IBIS
Metabones® TruePDAF Technology™ improves phase-detection autofocus (PDAF) and in-body image stabilization (IBIS) performance to an unprecedented level that is often practically indistinguishable from native lenses.
When Metabones refreshed its Speed Booster® and Smart Adapter™ product lines for Micro Four Thirds to “Mark II”, the initial announcement was that Mark I and Mark II ran the same firmware with the same performance. This is no longer the case with the introduction of TruePDAF Technology™, which utilizes the better Mark II hardware by storing lens profile data of more than 100 lenses in firmware. When a match is found, the Speed Booster’s or Smart Adapter’s LED glows pink (instead of white) to indicate that additional lens metadata is conveyed to the camera. This is exactly the same kind of metadata that a native lens reports to the camera. With that extra information, PDAF performs well even under less-than-ideal scenarios, such as low contrast, insufficient light, AF points in the corners of the frame and subjects near the lens’ minimum focus distance. In addition, IBIS effectiveness is increased, particularly near macro distances where 5-axis gives the most additional benefit over 3-axis. The list of support lenses can be found on the web page of each Mark II product.
If a lens is not supported, Mark II will do the same thing as Mark I. It will try its best effort to send approximate PDAF metadata to the camera, which still results in very good performance. In addition, Mark I is very good at gleaning the last bit of available information from a Canon-brand or a Sigma Global Vision (Art, Contemporary and Sport) lens to enable 5-axis IBIS. Mark II will improve IBIS effectiveness further with a supported lens.
As for the camera, optimal autofocus speed requires either the Panasonic GH7 or Panasonic G9 II, as other cameras will not be able to attain a near-native level of performance.
In 2024, Metabones made a quantum leap in autofocus performance on Panasonic GH7, which was available as a free firmware upgrade for all Mark I customers at the same time when Mark II was launched. The old hardware still has class-leading performance, even today, but it has reached its limit and the baton of further feature enhancements and performance improvements has passed onto Mark II. However, Metabones will continue to release firmware for Mark I with bug fixes in the foreseeable future. Metabones is changing its Micro Four Thirds firmware release model to an odd/even-versioning system, where odd-numbered versions are Performance Releases for Mark II only, and even-numbered versions are Stable Releases for both Mark I and Mark II.
Members of the Metabones EF-MFT Mark II family include:
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