0:10
hi I'm Dustin Abbott and I'm here today
0:12
to give you my review of a very unique
0:14
lens the new TT Artis 75mm
0:17
f1.5 swirly bokeh lens now I've long had
0:21
a love for vintage glass and have
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pursued some of lenses like old Helios
0:27
and Jupiter lenses because they are able
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of producing that kind of unique swirly
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effect that can be very desirable or at
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least unique if you're into that the TTR
0:38
75mm f1.5 is essentially a new version
0:41
of the Carl ice Jenna Batar
0:44
75mm f1.5 which is a very old lens
0:48
design in its original form over 80
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years old and copies of which can cost
0:53
into the thousands of dollars if you can
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find them on the used Market of course
0:57
anytime you're going after these old and
0:59
vintage lenses I can see looking inside
1:02
for example my Helios 442 is that I look
1:06
inside there I can see that there is a
1:08
bit of fungus that's growing inside you
1:11
know there's some mechanical issues it
1:13
kind of separates and comes apart a
1:15
little bit here that's the nature of
1:16
these be the Beast with these so be to
1:18
be able to get a new lens that has that
1:21
same Optical charm but has a little bit
1:23
better manufacturing and a whole lot
1:25
less Gunk going on in the inside it's
1:28
certainly very interesting particularly
1:29
when you can get get this lens for only
1:31
about 270 bucks and it is a lot of fun
1:34
however note that this is going to be a
1:36
different kind of review of a different
1:38
kind of lens because pretty much nothing
1:40
about this lens is conventional still
1:42
sound interesting well let's dive in and
1:44
let's find out today's episode is
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information so in terms of the basic
2:27
overall design here this is essentially
2:29
shaped like what they called the fat
2:31
version of the biotar that was sold from
2:35
1967 it has looking at it a very
2:38
handsome kind of vintage design to it
2:40
that frankly really reminds me of a lens
2:43
like the recent Voit Lander 75mm f1.5
2:46
that I reviewed earlier this year
2:49
everything is all metal and glass here
2:50
so it does have some heft to it weighs
2:53
about 570 G or 20 o here and by my
2:58
measurements it is roughly 73 mm in
3:01
diameter by about 72 mm long with a 58
3:04
mm front filter thread now when you
3:07
focus towards the closest Focus you're
3:10
actually going to find that the lens
3:12
will extend a bit it will extend out
3:14
about an additional 10 millim so it is
3:16
not internally focusing it's at its
3:19
longest point when you are focused down
3:21
to minimum Focus now one big thing
3:23
you're going to have to deal with here
3:25
is that they have decided to go with the
3:28
classic um m42 Mount and that's not
3:32
Micro 4 seconds that is the old m42
3:35
screw Mount that goes back till I think
3:38
somewhere like the 20s it's a
3:40
long-standing mount but it is quite easy
3:42
to adapt but it means you're going to
3:45
have to have an adapter so you can adapt
3:47
it to a lot of different platforms uh
3:50
old dslrs you can have a thinner kind of
3:53
adapter but because here with mirrorless
3:55
the optical path needs to be further
3:57
forward you'll find that the adapter
3:59
you're going to need is going to have to
4:02
chunky I've done it on Sony here and the
4:05
good news is that the adapters are quite
4:07
an expensive the one I'm using here cost
4:09
about 20 bucks and so nothing expensive
4:12
there but it is going to add some bulk
4:13
and some length there and a little bit
4:15
of price now one thing that I like about
4:17
the design here is that it actually
4:19
includes an allen key with the
4:21
recognition that as you adapt these
4:23
sometimes everything doesn't line up
4:24
perfectly you can actually use an allen
4:26
key you can loosen up three little
4:28
screws on here you can then rotate the
4:31
lens in its housing to where it's lined
4:33
up perfectly then tighten things back
4:35
down it's a good thoughtful touch there
4:37
which I appreciate now what's
4:39
interesting here is that you can
4:41
actually adapt this to a variety of
4:43
platforms as mentioned but that includes
4:45
in fujifilm's medium format you're
4:47
actually going to get the most
4:48
pronounced swirl effect there because
4:50
more of the image circle is being
4:52
exposed it'll also maybe look the
4:55
softest in some ways there for the same
4:57
reason likewise if you go to apsc You're
4:59
actually crop off a lot of the swirl
5:01
effect and you're going to retain the
5:03
more conventional sharper portion of the
5:06
image Circle just so just be aware of
5:08
that now the manual focus ring here is
5:10
very nicely implemented it has that kind
5:13
of knurled or scalloped feel to it all
5:16
metal everything moves very very
5:17
smoothly pretty much perfect damping I
5:20
really really like that ring about 200°
5:22
of rotation it's pretty sweet and so
5:24
they've done a great job with that up
5:26
front we have a nicely implemented
5:28
aperture ring it has has soft clicks
5:30
throughout and those clicks will mostly
5:33
be at the half stops at the earlier part
5:35
of the range and then after f5.6 they're
5:37
only at the full stops and of course you
5:40
have markings just at the full stops
5:42
along the way but you can feel those
5:44
clicks as you go inside we have an
5:46
aperture uh aperture Iris it's really
5:48
beautiful 13 rounded aperture blades and
5:51
as you can see here it looks pretty
5:52
sweet when you have it stopped down
5:55
minimum Focus distance here is 75 mm and
5:59
it has a fairly low magnification of
6:01
about 0.10 times so not incredibly
6:04
useful I will point out however that
6:06
there are plenty of adapters like Vell
6:08
adapter that I have that actually allows
6:10
you to uh rotate the adapter itself and
6:14
so you can extend that Optical path a
6:15
little bit further forward which will
6:17
allow you to get closer focused results
6:19
so you know just something to bear in
6:20
mind that for Fairly inexpensive if you
6:22
want more up close work you are able to
6:25
get that the lens I will note is pretty
6:28
soft when it's uh at minimum Focus
6:30
distance just so you know that now
6:32
obviously here there are no electronics
6:35
there's no weather ceiling there's
6:37
nothing like that now of course not
6:39
everyone is comfortable or with manual
6:41
focus or familiar with it so let me just
6:43
take a moment to talk about how this
6:44
lens works on a Sony camera which would
6:47
be very similar to how it would work on
6:48
a modern mirrorless Canon camera or or
6:52
Nikon camera it is actually quite easy
6:55
to manually focus on these platforms so
6:57
no there are no electronics so that
6:59
means that you're not going to get as
7:00
you start to rotate the ring you're not
7:02
going to get an automatic magnification
7:03
of the focus area but you can of course
7:06
manually mag magnify that area and so
7:08
you can visually confirm Focus quite
7:10
easy you can use Focus overlays and so
7:13
things like focus peaking um with or a
7:16
color overlay you're going to be able to
7:18
see those things because those are
7:20
actually handled from within the camera
7:22
and they will still work here you also
7:24
will be able to use mbody image
7:26
stabilization if your camera is so
7:28
equipped however you're going to need to
7:29
manually set the focal length so in this
7:32
case 75 mm and so that you can the body
7:36
camera body knows how to set the
7:37
adjustment there and if you don't you're
7:39
going to get some erratic results so be
7:41
sure to manually set that uh that focal
7:44
link for inbody image stabilization but
7:46
of course once you've done those things
7:48
I found that focusing was I had pretty
7:50
much perfect accuracy you just you know
7:52
take your time nail focus and it's
7:54
really no issue there so how about the
7:57
Optics here as mentioned this is a
7:59
completely different kind of lens and I
8:01
will give you a deep dive Optical
8:02
breakdown at the end of the video if
8:04
you're so interested we have an optical
8:06
design here A Very Old Optical design of
8:08
six elements in four groups very simple
8:11
two of those are high index elements the
8:14
MTF chart if you're just looking at MDF
8:16
charts looks pretty scary and of course
8:18
part of that is by design it uh it
8:21
actually is designed around having some
8:24
Optical flaws and that's part of the
8:26
overall charm and look that swirly
8:28
effect that people are going to buy this
8:30
lens for is actually the result of
8:31
optical defects which is why the MTF
8:33
chart doesn't look all that
8:35
fantastic now in some Matrix the lens
8:38
does quite well I found that it has very
8:40
low Distortion a tiny bit of barrel
8:41
Distortion that is negligible to fix I
8:44
used a plus three it has a quite a
8:47
minimal amount of vignette I used only a
8:49
plus 45 which is well under two stops so
8:52
no major issue there I also found that
8:54
there was basically no lateral comatic
8:57
aberration however you will definitely
8:59
see some longitudinal style fringing
9:02
particularly in high contrast situations
9:03
so you will see some fringing but above
9:06
all what you're going to get is very low
9:08
contrast this at f1.5 it very much has
9:11
that dreamy rendering as we
9:13
euphemistically call it a low amount of
9:16
contrast so there is enough pop in the
9:19
center of the frame that you can get a a
9:21
credible result that we'll talk more
9:23
about in just a moment so wide open at
9:26
f1.5 low contrast in the center but a
9:28
decent amount of detail very quickly
9:30
however as you go towards the mid-frame
9:32
you can see resolution drops and by the
9:34
time you get to the corners forget about
9:36
it it is very very soft there the center
9:40
will start to really sharpen off up and
9:41
then contrast will improve by F2 the
9:44
corner is going to still be very soft
9:46
and they don't get reasonably sharp they
9:48
never get exceptionally sharp but they
9:50
don't get reasonably sharp until about
9:52
f5.6 so f5.6 f8 are decent apertures if
9:56
you want to shoot more conventional
9:58
landscape tile style uh images where
10:01
just about everything is in focus and of
10:03
course as per usual defraction is going
10:05
to hit I'm using a high resolution uh 61
10:08
megapixel a7r Mark 5 for this and so by
10:11
f11 most lenses are looking softer and
10:14
then at minimum apture in this case F16
10:17
you can really see the effects of
10:18
defraction and it's very much softer
10:21
still now actually the nature of that
10:23
swirl effect it's not always going to be
10:25
present one of the cool things about
10:27
this lens is you really can create a
10:28
variet of different looks and so if you
10:31
get close to your subject you can
10:32
actually just have quite a soft and
10:34
creamy background as you can see from
10:35
this shot um when you have strong
10:38
blurred background it's just really
10:39
really soft when you start to get that
10:41
swirl effect is actually a little bit
10:43
further out it's typically in the 2 to 3
10:46
meter range that it is the most
10:48
pronounced and you can see as I pull
10:50
back and forth here through manual focus
10:52
that it kind of comes and goes and there
10:54
is a a Zone there where it is very
10:57
strongly pronounced for that reason your
10:59
probably going to want to compose with
11:01
your subject in the center of the frame
11:03
for one thing that allows you to get a
11:04
little bit more 3D separation so your
11:07
subject will be sharper and then also it
11:09
works best when you can put things on
11:11
either side of them to create the swirl
11:14
effect and so obviously it's also going
11:15
to work best if you have something that
11:17
is close to that that area that plane of
11:20
focus that you can defocus to create the
11:22
most desirable look so for the most part
11:25
this is a fairly conventional lens after
11:27
F2 just not a super sharp one but from
11:30
f1.5 to F2 it's it's quite interesting
11:33
in the looks that you can create now
11:35
when the sun's in the frame it will do a
11:36
few different things if you're stopped
11:38
down you'll mostly get lower contrast
11:40
some veiling effect as you can see from
11:42
this landscape shot but then also if
11:44
you're shooting at larger aperture
11:46
you're going to get some other kind of
11:47
ghosting type artifacts uh none of them
11:50
are actually terribly destructive and
11:52
some of them can be used artistically
11:54
and actually I would say that this is an
11:56
area where this lens works better than
11:58
what some of the older lenses is do I I
12:00
wouldn't say it's got full-blown modern
12:02
Coatings but it does seem to be a little
12:03
bit better in that regard maybe it helps
12:06
that it's not full of fungus and other
12:08
things that I tend to have to deal with
12:10
with some of the vintage
12:11
glass the color from the lens is mostly
12:14
good I do find that sometimes it's less
12:16
desirable in high contrast situations at
12:19
large apertures it tends to wash out a
12:21
bit and you can see that there's quite a
12:23
difference in the color from a large
12:25
aperture shot to a smaller aperture shot
12:28
in this comparison here here so overall
12:30
I mean lots of optical flaws but a lot
12:32
of very interesting character to the
12:34
lens which is obviously going to be the
12:37
whole reason why it is desirable so my
12:39
conclusion is this this is obviously a
12:41
quirky lens that is not conventional in
12:44
any way using an old Mount and an old
12:46
Optical design but it can be a blast if
12:49
you're tired of sterile overcorrected
12:52
modern lenses and you want something
12:54
with some vintage charm it's got that in
12:56
abundance and of course when you compare
12:58
it to the biotar biotar lens that it
13:01
emulates it is an incredible value that
13:03
biotar lens is going to cost you
13:05
probably 10 times as much as this
13:07
there's a good chance it won't be nearly
13:09
as in good a shape either of course it
13:11
will be a much better collector's item
13:13
and might be worth even more in the
13:15
future that's the luck of the draw but
13:17
if you don't want to spend huge money on
13:19
an old-fashioned lens well then you can
13:21
spend a fairly minimal amount of money
13:23
for a brand new lens if you want more
13:26
information you can check out my full
13:28
text review that's Linked In the
13:29
description down below and of course
13:31
right after this we're going to dive
13:33
into a closer look at the optical
13:36
performance stay tuned so starting with
13:38
a look at vignette and Distortion you
13:40
can see a very mild bulge due to some
13:43
Barrel Distortion uh not very hard to
13:45
correct at all it's nice and linear a
13:47
plus three take took care of all of that
13:49
you'll also see a bit of vignette in the
13:51
corners you can see again that cleared
13:53
up very nicely that's a plus 45 dialed
13:55
in there so in general the challenge for
13:58
this lens is going to be overall just
14:01
the contrast and detail so you can see
14:03
here that part of that is some chromatic
14:06
aberration you can see that there's just
14:08
a general glow kind of that dreamy look
14:11
everything but then also there is some
14:12
green fringing you can see out of the
14:14
plan of focus and out here you can see a
14:16
little bit of magenta fringing that will
14:18
really kind of vary now obviously this
14:21
is a less high contrast scene and so I
14:22
mean the corners are still soft as we're
14:24
going to see but as we take a look at
14:26
the chromy surfaces here you can see
14:28
there is a little bit of fringing a
14:30
little bit around the windows but it's
14:31
also not like huge and very strongly
14:34
pronounced and I would say that in
14:35
general the contrast looks a little bit
14:37
better as well of course looking out the
14:39
window is what it's all about getting
14:41
that swirly look out there here's
14:43
another shot where this is stopped down
14:46
a little bit this is about
14:48
f1.8 and you can see that again as we
14:50
get towards the edge of the frame that
14:52
there's a loss of contrast but again in
14:54
this lower contrast scene the detail
14:56
there is actually quite good you can see
14:58
and neither am I seeing a lot of
15:00
fringing on any of these shiny surfaces
15:03
inside here mostly just as you get
15:05
towards the edge of the the frame you
15:07
can see that the image starts to soften
15:10
now what we don't see is a lot of
15:12
lateral chromatic aberration and here
15:14
near the edge of the frame it's actually
15:15
a really clean transitions from black to
15:17
white so no issues there now I wanted to
15:20
show this image just for a moment to let
15:21
you know that I ran into this while I
15:24
was metering for my chart test and that
15:27
is that at smaller apertures you may or
15:29
may not always get consistent metering
15:31
and so you might just want to make sure
15:33
if you need to kind of bias Exposure One
15:35
Direction or another it's most likely
15:36
going to be adding some exposure because
15:38
as you can see here as I got towards the
15:40
smaller apertures the the camera tended
15:43
to meter wrong with this lens and it was
15:45
underexposing by uh pretty much a full
15:48
stop maybe even a hair more as you can
15:50
see here now we'll take a look at
15:52
resolution and sharpness this is on a 61
15:54
megapix Sony a7r Mark 5 and so you can
15:57
see even looking at it as a hole you're
15:59
going to see a real loss of contrast
16:01
there's quite a difference between here
16:03
and here as far as even just the general
16:05
contrast if we punch into this 200%
16:08
magnification there's actually a pretty
16:10
good detail that's there if you were to
16:12
REM able to remove the low contrast kind
16:14
of that Vaseline smear over the top of
16:17
things there's actually quite a good
16:18
amount of detail here in the center of
16:20
the frame as we move towards the
16:21
mid-frame however already that's
16:23
starting to fade and as we go down we
16:26
can see that again here it's there's a
16:29
diff quite a difference between the
16:30
contrast here and then here by the time
16:33
you get to the corners again it's not
16:35
that there's no resolution it's that
16:37
there is very very little contrast if we
16:40
take that in out into a real world shot
16:42
you can see the effect here and and so
16:45
in the center of the frame at
16:47
f1.5 really not too bad you can see
16:50
right here in a little Zone there's good
16:52
detail and contrast but very quickly you
16:55
can see how that all of that contrast
16:57
Fades away and as we get to towards the
16:59
edge you very much have that dreamy
17:01
effect which is part of the general look
17:03
that this lens exhibits so if you can
17:05
use that well and that's with composing
17:08
with your subject in the center of the
17:09
frame really pretty good there in terms
17:11
of detail and contrast on my wife's face
17:14
you can see already by the time you get
17:15
to her hands that it's starting to fade
17:18
and then there's kind of a general glow
17:19
everywhere else but it allows the the
17:22
look here to where there is a
17:23
three-dimensional pop because everything
17:25
else looks quite soft by comparison so
17:28
interestingly by the time you stop down
17:30
even to F2 you can see by looking at the
17:32
image as a whole it's already starting
17:33
to change just everything is starting to
17:35
look brighter and so in the center of
17:36
the frame it's like that smear has been
17:39
taken off and now you're able to see the
17:41
detail on the contrast so at f2 really
17:43
sharp center of the frame but you can
17:45
see that even though it's better you
17:47
know you're extending that zone of
17:49
sharpness out it's still going to drop
17:51
off and so as we see down here it's
17:55
better but you can see it's still quite
17:56
kind of dreamy and glowy in that corner
17:59
and as you get down towards the edge
18:00
it's basically like everything is still
18:01
in a fog it's just like the sun is
18:03
starting to come out and the fog is
18:05
brighter looking at f2.8 and then at F4
18:09
we can see that the corners really
18:11
haven't gotten sharper the contrast is
18:13
starting to improve but it's not quite
18:15
there yet going back to the center of
18:16
the frame and it's super sharp in the
18:18
center of the frame take a look over
18:19
here at the mid-frame by F4 you can see
18:22
that the mid-frame is looking really
18:23
crisp if we throw f5.6 in the mix now
18:26
you can see that that looks even sharper
18:28
still and if we pop down into the
18:30
corners you can see that the corner is
18:32
now starting to look acceptably sharp
18:34
though certainly not exceptionally sharp
18:36
things are just a little bit better by
18:38
f8 but you can see it's still not really
18:42
completely crisp although this Zone here
18:43
is starting to look quite good popping
18:45
over here we can see that this this
18:48
section out to here it is really really
18:50
sharp and as we look towards the edge
18:52
yeah really looks quite good here it's
18:54
only when you get right towards the the
18:56
outer edge where things start to soften
18:59
so after f8 by f11 image will be just
19:02
very slightly softer due to defraction
19:03
and then you can see by F-16 which is
19:06
there on the right the image is
19:09
significantly now if we take a look at
19:11
the up close performance here is our
19:13
minimum Focus distance shot and you can
19:15
see as you we' kind of expect there's
19:17
not a lot of contrast there you're
19:19
really going to need to stop down a bit
19:21
if you want better contrast in detail
19:23
and of course as you get further out you
19:25
start to get that blooming effect
19:27
elsewhere so the nature of the bouqu
19:29
really is going to vary upon where you
19:32
compose your image so for example in
19:33
this shot which I quite like you can see
19:36
that detail is not you know out of this
19:38
world but you can see there's a
19:39
reasonable amount of detail that's there
19:42
but the background is really really
19:44
creamy it's just blurred Away really
19:46
beautifully in this shot here we've got
19:48
the swirl effect and so this is about in
19:50
the right zone so I focused out about 2
19:52
to 3 m and in that zone you can see you
19:55
get that really pronounced kind of
19:57
circular swirl shape that is kind of the
20:00
desirable quality here's another shot
20:02
here and again composing where you can
20:04
get your subject as much towards the
20:06
center as possible because remember
20:08
there's a pretty tiny sweet spot of
20:10
sharpness so if you can get your subject
20:12
there and then you have things around
20:14
for you to kind of swirl with you can
20:17
really create some really beautiful
20:18
images so here you can see from this
20:21
particular shot where I just stood here
20:22
and I I just focused along so with a
20:25
complete defocus you can see just how
20:27
soft and creamy you can get the po now
20:29
as we start to move towards that zone
20:32
you can see the swirling effect starting
20:34
to take place if I focus past that zone
20:37
however you can see that in the
20:38
foreground you really don't get the
20:40
swirl effect you mostly just get a low
20:42
contrast type look so I wouldn't say
20:45
that foreground bokeh is nearly as
20:46
desirable it's going to be more that
20:48
background swirl that is going to kind
20:51
of Be The Sweet Spot for this so here
20:53
you can see a little bit more of a
20:54
conventional shot at this distance a
20:57
little bit closer there is a a little
20:58
bit of swirl effect but mostly it's just
21:00
a blurred out background although the
21:02
quality of the blur is really nice if I
21:04
step back just a little bit further you
21:07
can see how much more of that swirl
21:09
effect begins to take place now again
21:11
taking a look at flare resistance here
21:14
you can see with the sun right out of
21:15
the frame and shooting at a large
21:16
aperture we get this overall kind of
21:19
ghosting pattern here I mean again I
21:21
think that most people would find that
21:23
generally tasteful and useful in certain
21:26
situations I didn't love it as much stop
21:28
down in this shot where basically you
21:30
just end up losing contrast on the image
21:32
and so it looks like there's a a dust
21:35
storm that's blowing through or
21:36
something not nearly as desirable in my
21:38
opinion this shot I really like and so
21:40
here we do have some of that Prismatic
21:42
Haze and a little of that effect we saw
21:44
on a former image but even though
21:46
contrast and detail isn't great there's
21:48
kind of just a general glow to the image
21:50
that's really quite nice now if you're
21:52
not shooting into the Sun and you stop
21:54
The Lens down you can get nice color and
21:57
detail and you can see in this shot that
21:59
I was able to get detail pretty much all
22:01
throughout the frame and so this is I
22:04
believe around f6.3 or f8 and you can
22:08
see that that looks just like a
22:10
conventionally beautiful shot great
22:12
detail great contrast great color this
22:14
is a lens that has a lot of different
22:16
types of personality and so I think that
22:19
if you learn to use it to its strengths
22:21
you can really achieve a lot of
22:23
different looks so thanks for sticking
22:25
around to the end and hopefully a deep
22:27
dive into the optical performance has
22:29
let you know whether or not this TT
22:31
Artisan 75mm f1.5 swirly bouqu lens is
22:35
the lens for you as always thanks for
22:37
watching have a great day and let the