Metabones

Metabones is a maker of lens mount adapters for interchangeable-lens cameras, operated by Global Boom International Limited. The company gives its headquarters as Hong Kong, with engineering in Vancouver, Canada, and its own production facilities in China. It works with two allied partners: Caldwell Photographic, the optical design firm Brian Caldwell founded in 2001, and WB Design, the opto-mechanical design firm Wilfried Bittner established in 2006.

Its products fall into two families. Smart Adapters connect SLR lenses electronically to mirrorless camera bodies; the autofocus engineer Bo-Ming Tong designed the electronics for the first one with Caldwell and Bittner. Speed Boosters are adapters with a built-in focal reducer that makes lenses brighter and wider on smaller sensors.

The Speed Booster, designed by Caldwell and Bittner, arrived in 2013 as the first compact, general-purpose focal reducer for a wide variety of photographic lenses and won the 2013 TIPA award for Best Photo Accessory. Speed Booster ULTRA, using tantalum-based high-index glass, followed in September 2014. "Speed booster" has since become a generic term for this type of adapter. Later releases include CINE versions of both families for cinema cameras.