0:10
hi I'm Dustin Abbott and I'm here today
0:12
to give you my review of the 7 Artisans
0:17
f1.4 Now it's been fairly common for us
0:19
to see autofocusing lenses available for
0:22
under $200 in recent history However
0:26
those are typically either f1.8 8 or in
0:28
some rare occasions f1.7 lenses But
0:32
Chinese lens maker 7 artisans has pushed
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this envelope even further bringing us
0:37
an autofocusing 35mm f1.4 lens for Fuji
0:41
Xmount Fuji's own 35mm f2 lens cost
0:46
$400 while their 35mm f1.4 cost $600 The
0:52
seven artisans it can be had for right
0:55
$170 And while it has its flaws as we
0:59
will detail it is a perfectly usable
1:01
lens and it can produce some very nice
1:03
images So if you are on a tight budget
1:06
should you consider the little seven
1:07
artisans Well let's jump in and let's
1:10
find out We'll start by taking a look at
1:12
the build and handling And the first
1:14
thing that really stood out to me about
1:15
that when I took the lens out of the box
1:17
is just how small and compact this lens
1:20
really is particularly for an F1.4 lens
1:23
It is 68 mm in diameter or 2.67 67 in
1:27
but it's only 49 mm long at 1.92 in And
1:31
if you view it from the right side you
1:33
can see that it really doesn't stick out
1:34
all that far past even the grip on my
1:37
Fujifilm XH2 body It weighs in at only
1:41
184 g or 6 1/2 oz And up front we have
1:45
somewhat uncommon 62mm filter threads
1:49
doesn't mean that there aren't 62mm
1:51
filters out there or other lenses with
1:53
it but it's less common than the more
1:55
common 58 millimeter and 67 millimeter
1:58
filter sizes that bookend it on in
2:01
either direction Now the lens I think
2:03
that is probably the chief competition
2:05
to this lens is and what I will kind of
2:07
benchmark it against is the similarly
2:09
priced Viltrox AF 35mm f1.7 air lens And
2:14
these two lenses as you can see in size
2:16
they're just made a little bit different
2:18
The Viltrox lens is about four
2:21
millimeters narrower in diameter but it
2:23
is also about 5.3 mm longer than what
2:27
the 7 Artisans lens is And so once you
2:30
do the math they work out to be roughly
2:32
similar in their overall internal volume
2:35
Just they get a get at that at a little
2:37
bit different way Now the Seven Artisans
2:40
lens is a mixture of very nice materials
2:43
here It's a mix of mostly metals with a
2:45
few plastics It has a metal lens mount
2:48
Most of the barrel material feels to be
2:51
uh feels to be metal And I think even
2:53
from what I can tell maybe even the the
2:55
fil the manual focus ring here is also
2:58
made in metal or it's a high-grade
3:00
plastics But either way the build
3:02
materials are really quite nice for this
3:04
price This is a really basic lens There
3:07
is no switches unfortunately here on
3:09
Fuji There is no aperture ring nothing
3:12
like that and all you have is the manual
3:14
focus ring And that manual focus ring
3:16
itself it moves with its damping a
3:19
little on the heavy side and is
3:22
unfortunately so often the case on Fuji
3:24
It also um focuses not in a like a
3:28
smooth linear sweep but instead in
3:30
little chunks or steps along the way And
3:33
so it doesn't really feel like a true
3:35
manual focus experience And I find it a
3:37
little bit hard to get precision because
3:39
I feel like I have to do like a you know
3:40
a little jerk and a little jerk and just
3:42
kind of step to where I get to the right
3:44
place And so I don't love it for any
3:45
kind of anything like a manual focus
3:47
pull for example Now here towards the
3:51
near the base we actually have a little
3:53
rubber gasket that is covering a USBC
3:55
port where you can do firmware updates I
3:58
have seen seven artisans do some
4:00
firmware updating in the back Though
4:02
they're not as aggressive with that as
4:03
some other brands that I have seen You
4:06
do want to be very careful when you take
4:08
off that little rubber gasket as it is
4:10
sealing from you know moisture and dust
4:12
getting into that that port there And
4:15
it's small and it's easy to lose So just
4:17
be careful and don't do it As you can
4:19
see a petal-shaped lens hood is imp is
4:22
included It's made out of decently thick
4:24
plastics and it bayonets on with pretty
4:27
good uh precision here with not
4:30
necessarily a loud click but a definite
4:32
little bit of a lock there where it's
4:34
not going to easily break free Inside we
4:37
have seven aperture blades but they are
4:39
not rounded And in fact as you start to
4:41
stop the aperture down as you can see
4:42
here you can definitely start to see the
4:44
aperture blade shape pretty quickly And
4:46
it is not a round shape Minimum focus
4:50
distance is 35 cm and it produces a
4:53
rather average 0.12 times level of
4:56
magnification as you can see here which
4:59
is not great but you know it's it's
5:00
enough to be useful in certain
5:02
situations And of course the price tag
5:05
of $169 makes this a tremendous value
5:08
possibly the cheapest f1.4 autofocus
5:11
lens that I've ever seen Moving on to
5:14
autofocus Autofocus is an area
5:16
unfortunately of some weakness here
5:19
While I've seen seven artisans most
5:20
often use STM or stepping motors there
5:23
is no listed motor size here but I'm
5:25
pretty familiar with this
5:32
sound That sounds like a micro motor to
5:35
me And so unfortunately it's a bit loud
5:37
and it's a bit buzzy As you can see here
5:39
that the overall speed it doesn't
5:41
necessarily look too bad in this test
5:43
And it's not bad But what I did notice
5:46
that you may not pick up from that is
5:48
that when I begin to have to press the
5:51
shutter button to start autofocus there
5:53
would be a bit of a lag before autofocus
5:55
then moved Once it started moving it
5:56
moves with some decent rapidity but what
5:59
you can see is that there's a little bit
6:01
of pause in between And that pause isn't
6:03
me waiting It's while it kind of spools
6:05
up And so unfortunately that does limit
6:07
the overall focus um speed in general I
6:12
found that at large apertures I had good
6:15
focus accuracy with still subjects Um it
6:18
would lock on and it would deliver well
6:20
focused results whether it's you know
6:22
photos of the the cats or photo of a of
6:25
people or photos of inanimate object as
6:28
long as they weren't moving too much It
6:30
focused okay Unfortunately focus won't
6:33
keep up with action if it requires any
6:35
kind of reactiveness So in this shot of
6:37
Ferrari as he started to walk as you can
6:38
see focus lagging is just way back It's
6:41
not where it should be Unfortunately I
6:44
ran into a secondary issue that seems to
6:46
be reserved to my XH2 I didn't see this
6:49
reported by other reviewers on other
6:51
cameras but I actually in testing two
6:53
copies of it I found that at focusing at
6:56
small apertures like f5.6 or f8 that it
7:00
did just a lot of hunting back and forth
7:02
without being able to really lock on to
7:04
a subject at all And so it was quite
7:06
frustrating and I'm hoping that a
7:08
firmware issue will fix that But as you
7:11
can see in these shots there's just
7:12
sometimes when it's you know settling on
7:14
focus and nothing is in focus because
7:16
it's just hunting looking for a contrast
7:18
point to attach to and just doesn't seem
7:20
to do it So I would say that used in the
7:23
ordinary or the easy scenarios focus is
7:26
fine but it's certainly a weakness for
7:28
this lens Even if you're doing like
7:30
street photography if you're doing
7:32
street photography definitely do it at
7:34
under f/2.8 Um if you're shooting f1.4
7:37
to f2.8 you're probably okay But if
7:39
you're shooting at smaller apertures I
7:41
just I would not want to be in the
7:42
scenario where it's hunting back and
7:44
forth and I miss the shot because of
7:45
that So unfortunately autofocus for
7:48
stills is it's it's limited in what it
7:51
produces So how about autofocus for
7:53
video I found that uh focus pools were
7:57
okay Now Fuji definitely has some issues
8:00
Uh one of those issues that frustrates
8:02
me is that touch to focus is pretty
8:04
unreliable and sometimes you touch and
8:07
the focus box moves to a new area but
8:09
it's like there's a lag before focus
8:11
pull be begins And that's certainly not
8:13
unique to this lens I've seen it with a
8:15
lot of lenses on Fuji but it is a
8:17
reality here that uh you can also see
8:20
there's some some steps and some
8:22
adjustments It's not really a a a great
8:25
focus pull back and forth but it's not
8:27
terrible either You can see some
8:29
moderate f focus breathing but nothing
8:31
particularly bad I was expecting a a
8:34
poor performance when it came to my hand
8:36
test where I alternate block and remove
8:38
my hand And um you know what I found is
8:41
that it actually did fairly well which
8:43
goes to show once again that with Fuji's
8:45
tracking it seems to do better when
8:47
there is an AI detectable subject on the
8:50
frame And so uh anyway it did a better
8:52
job with that Autofocus is it's
8:54
definitely a weak area for here and I'm
8:56
hoping that it will get refined some uh
8:59
through uh firmware updates in the
9:01
future but the lens is now released to
9:03
the public and I haven't seen that
9:05
firmware update yet And so this is the
9:06
state of play that I have to report on
9:08
here at this point So now let's jump
9:11
into an image quality breakdown and I
9:13
will follow this up with a deep dive but
9:16
uh right now we'll just kind of jump
9:17
into the the overview here This is a
9:20
very simple optical design Eight
9:22
elements in five groups And it seems to
9:24
follow what has often been uh seven
9:27
artisans philosophy in their optical
9:29
designs is that they're they're going
9:31
for the simpler in some ways almost like
9:33
an old school type design philosophy
9:36
where it's less about complete
9:38
corrections and extremely high contrast
9:40
And so there's a look there It's a
9:42
little bit lower contrast a little bit
9:43
more dreamy Some people are going to
9:45
love it some people are going to hate it
9:48
I looked hard and I could not find an
9:51
MTF chart and that's unusual for seven
9:53
artisans So it's probably not an
9:55
accident I I doubt that the MTF really
9:57
looks fantastic and we'll get to that in
10:00
just a moment I did find in testing for
10:02
things like fringing that there is some
10:05
situational fringing um and but more in
10:08
the form of lateral chromatic
10:09
aberrations rather than the longitudinal
10:11
style that come before and after the
10:13
plane of focus I saw a little bit of
10:15
that kind of fringing but more of the
10:16
lateral style that comes near the edges
10:18
of the frame I suspect that this has to
10:20
do a lot with the optical design where
10:23
it's not as corrected for contrast and
10:26
so in more difficult high contrast
10:27
situations you will get a little bit
10:30
more of the blooming on textures and a
10:32
little bit of fringing that's there but
10:34
it's not terrible either When it comes
10:36
to some other things I found that the
10:38
distortion was mild There's a bit of
10:40
barrel distortion I used a plus seven to
10:42
correct Nothing terrible there And also
10:44
moderate vignette particularly for an
10:46
F1.4 lens that is so small I used a plus
10:49
57 to correct So right around two stops
10:51
which you know not too bad When I went
10:54
to test for sharpness I found that the
10:56
center is reasonably sharp although with
10:59
lower contrast The mid-frame is a little
11:01
softer but the corners are extremely
11:03
soft And I tested a few times to see if
11:06
you know I was getting accurate results
11:08
and it seems like I am I will say that
11:11
the lens when you in the typical places
11:13
where you're shooting at which we'll
11:15
call that the rule of thirds area of the
11:17
frame In lower contrast situations it
11:19
looks sharper I would say accept
11:22
acceptably sharp and so I had no
11:24
concerns with that But if you put it in
11:26
more dynamic uh situations higher
11:28
contrast situations it looks a little
11:30
bit softer It just it doesn't hold up as
11:32
well What I found is if you stop down to
11:34
f2.8 the center becomes sharp and much
11:38
higher contrast The corners are still
11:40
lagging a fair bit and they don't
11:42
sharpen up until about f5.6 but they're
11:44
never exceptional Sharpness however
11:47
continues to improve getting a little
11:49
bit better at f8 And while defraction
11:51
starts to become an issue at f11 and
11:53
f-16 because the lens keeps sharpening
11:56
up again which is kind of an old school
11:57
quality defraction is actually less of
12:00
an issue because in many ways I think
12:01
like it's sharper particularly across
12:03
the frame at f-16 than what it is at
12:06
f1.4 for example Using my experience
12:08
with modern lenses is it's pretty much
12:10
the opposite of that When it comes to
12:12
the bokeh quality again it's very
12:14
situational In some situations I think
12:16
it looks great Like some of these shots
12:18
of Nala on the bed the background is
12:20
really soft and creamy She looks quite
12:22
sharp The images are gorgeous And if I
12:24
was just you know looking at that I
12:26
would say bokeh is fantastic There's
12:28
other situations though where the bokeh
12:30
is a lot busier And there's also an
12:32
issue where the specular highlight shape
12:35
is is not great Some people like odd um
12:39
shapes and specular highlights I'm not
12:41
one of those people So if you're one
12:43
then fantastic Another issue that is
12:46
pretty common with these seven artisans
12:47
lenses that I don't think they have a
12:48
lot of great coatings and so they do
12:50
tend to be more flarrone And so in
12:53
certain situations you're going to see a
12:55
variety of different flare artifacts
12:57
that will be an issue there I did test
13:00
for coma and what I found is that it
13:02
doesn't look like coma is too bad but
13:05
there is some fringing that shows up on
13:07
bright star points and then what happens
13:09
is in the corner it's hard to even see
13:12
how much coma is there because the
13:13
corners are so soft that the star points
13:16
are really not all that distinct anyway
13:18
And so if you look at the image globally
13:20
I think it's usable Um I you know I
13:23
wouldn't say don't shoot for you know
13:25
night sky or star shots but it's
13:28
certainly not a top tier lens for that
13:30
either So my conclusion is this I would
13:33
say that it's it's what I am amazed by
13:35
is that there is a reasonably competent
13:37
autofocusing 35mm f1.4 lens that I can
13:41
produce some very nice images with that
13:43
can be had for under under $170 US That
13:46
is just amazing However if you want more
13:50
modern optical sensibilities sharper
13:53
contrast sharper details I think you
13:55
probably are better spending your money
13:57
on the Viltrox AF 35mm f1.7 which from
14:01
modern standards is the better lens and
14:04
certainly the better autofocusing lens
14:06
However if you like a more vintage look
14:08
and your dream lens is a lens that has
14:11
the qualities of vintage glass but with
14:14
modern auto autofocus then the 7
14:16
Artisan's AF35mm f1.4 might just be the
14:21
lens you've been looking for And you're
14:22
not going to have to pay much to get it
14:24
Now if you want more information you can
14:26
check out my full text review that's
14:28
linked in the description down below
14:29
Also link us to an image gallery and
14:31
some buying links if you want to
14:32
purchase one And if you would like to
14:34
take a deeper dive into that unique
14:36
optical signature of this lens then jump
14:38
in with me right now Let's take a look
14:40
Okay we'll start by taking a look at
14:42
vignette and distortion You can see some
14:45
pretty classic barrel distortion there
14:47
Nothing extreme and fortunately very
14:49
nicely linear And so here I've dialed in
14:52
some correction a plus 7 And you can see
14:55
it corrected up just fine there Also
14:57
some vignette largely concentrated in
14:59
the corners A plus 57 was what it took
15:01
to resolve all that None of this is an
15:04
issue at all Zero problem there Now
15:06
longitudinal style chromatic aberrations
15:08
were largely situational And so here
15:10
there's a little bit of fringing but
15:12
nothing too bad You can see just a
15:14
really mild amount of kind of purple
15:18
fringing in some of those areas but I
15:20
did see a lot more of the lateral style
15:22
chromatic aberrations and those will pop
15:24
up in different kinds of ways You can
15:26
see that they're persistent enough that
15:27
they're not just concentrated here But a
15:30
lot of times any place you'll have a
15:32
high contrast area you'll see some of
15:33
that lateral style chromatic aberration
15:35
So that is unfortunate Now while I
15:37
didn't dive into this in the formal
15:39
review it is worth noting that I am
15:41
doing all of this on the 40 megapixel
15:44
sensor of my Fujifilm XH2 That's a
15:47
hugely demanding platform the most
15:49
demanding that I test on over 90
15:52
megapixels equivalent of a full like
15:54
that's what you need on a full-frame
15:56
camera which doesn't even exist and so
15:58
lenses like this I mean it's it's almost
16:00
unfair to test them as I do on this but
16:03
of course no one said life was going to
16:05
be fair so here we have at 200%
16:07
magnification on that 40 megapixel
16:09
sensor you know the center is not bad
16:11
contrast is not high as you can see
16:14
mid-frame again the amount of detail
16:17
there is not too bad but you can see
16:19
it's dropping as is contrast And as we
16:22
pop down towards the bottom you can see
16:25
that the image quality is getting really
16:27
soft towards the corner Uh you know it's
16:30
soft on this side as well up into this
16:32
left corner I would say it's better than
16:34
that lower right corner but still pretty
16:36
soft and low contrast Now the truth of
16:38
the matter is that it's rare at f1.4 on
16:41
an F1.4 lens to shoot where you need
16:44
sharpness all across the frame So on a
16:46
more practical level here this shot of
16:49
Nala you can see again contrast and
16:51
detail isn't off the charts but it's
16:53
perfectly adequate to produce a very
16:56
nice looking result with a you know a
16:58
good three-dimensional quality there
17:00
Likewise in this shot obviously I've
17:02
used depth of field for just to create
17:05
some depth to the image itself And again
17:07
as I look over here contrast isn't high
17:09
but for this kind of shot I don't mind
17:11
the look at all I think it looks just
17:13
fine Bottom line is if you really want
17:15
sharpness and contrast you're better
17:16
served by choosing the Viltrox 35mimeter
17:19
f1.7 I'll release a subsequent video
17:21
where I really detail between these two
17:24
But you can see it's just a radical
17:26
difference in terms of the contrast
17:27
available wide open And by the way the 7
17:30
Artisans doesn't look any better if I
17:31
stop it down to f1.8 And so in these
17:34
comparisons it really doesn't matter
17:36
where you look the um the Viltrox is
17:40
pretty noticeably sharper and with
17:42
higher contrast all over the place and
17:44
with a three-dimensional subject like
17:46
here I just wanted to give you a look at
17:49
a real world scene kind of real world
17:51
rendering here So it it is just a very
17:53
different kind of look I I kind of
17:54
equate the seven artisans approach to a
17:56
more cinematic approach with the Viltrox
17:59
approach to being a more modern
18:00
corrected type result So you can see if
18:03
you're talking about resolution and
18:04
contrast it is no no con competition Um
18:08
the the Viltrox just kind of blows it
18:11
away However I would say that the
18:13
three-dimensional quality looks pretty
18:14
good here on the Seven Artisans And of
18:17
course the background is just kind of
18:19
this generally softer Look at the chair
18:21
for example If you compare those two the
18:24
contrast makes the chair pop and stand
18:26
out more whereas it's a little more
18:27
blended into the background with the
18:29
seven artisans because of that lower
18:31
contrast It really is a taste thing Now
18:33
when stopping down to f2 you see a
18:35
little bit of improvement in the center
18:37
of the frame You know a little bit of
18:39
improvement here Not much but the jump
18:42
from f2 to f2.8 is pretty significant in
18:44
the center of the frame And so you can
18:46
see a lot more contrast a lot more
18:48
detail That's starting to be true in the
18:51
mid-frame but not quite there You'll see
18:53
a bigger jump by f5.6 six here in the
18:56
midframe where you can see contrast is
18:58
jumping way up And now if we look up
19:00
here in the corner the corner is not
19:02
sharp by any stretch of the imagination
19:03
but it is sharper and so it's making
19:06
progress It's also the rare lens that I
19:09
find where the resolution continues to
19:11
get better after f5.6 You can see that
19:14
it is sharpened up further from f5.6 to
19:17
f8 And again now the corners are not
19:19
sharp but sharper But if we look back
19:21
here in the center the contrast is even
19:23
deeper at f8 than what it was at f5.6
19:27
This also means that defraction doesn't
19:28
hit quite as hard because the lens is
19:30
was soft to begin with and it kind of
19:32
just continues to gain contrast as you
19:35
stop it down So yes you can see that
19:37
there's less contrast at f-16 than what
19:39
there was at f11 But this is still
19:41
better than what we saw even at f2 for
19:43
example And we can see looking off into
19:46
the corners that really the corners are
19:48
looking probably the best that they have
19:51
even at some of the sharper apertures
19:53
smaller or larger and sharper apertures
19:55
for the center or the mid-frame And we
19:57
really shouldn't expect the uplose
19:59
performance to be super high contrast
20:01
because the lens isn't particularly high
20:03
contrast You can see it's not bad It's
20:05
doesn't it doesn't really pop at all but
20:07
neither is it bad at close focus
20:10
distances And so again just take a look
20:12
at the rendering in some real world
20:14
shots The amount of fur and detail here
20:16
I don't see any problem with that at all
20:18
And then if I look at the background in
20:20
this setting I would say the background
20:22
is very nice and soft And I think the
20:24
foreground is pleasing This shot here as
20:26
well I think it looks great And again
20:28
you can see you know the contrast and
20:31
detail isn't the the page or anything
20:33
but it's sufficient that if you look at
20:35
the image globally the way that you know
20:36
99% of people are going to look at it it
20:39
just looks fabulous Everyone would say
20:40
"Oh that's really sharp." And it is you
20:43
know it's just not really high contrast
20:45
Now this image is stopped down to f1.8
20:47
And you can see because of depth of
20:49
field increasing a little bit you can
20:50
see that the focus is not just well the
20:52
focus is on the eyes but the area of
20:54
focus extends out just a little bit
20:56
further Background remains nice and soft
20:59
This image too I think you know it looks
21:01
the overall impression is is positive
21:03
what I would like The background's
21:04
defocused It's more the bright kind of
21:06
specular highlight that draws my eye a
21:09
little too much And that's one of my
21:11
general complaints is that specular
21:13
highlights they're just okay I mean if I
21:16
look at them they're not too busy here
21:18
Shape isn't too bad wide open but as we
21:21
begin to stop down it's just this kind
21:22
of very odd shape You can really clearly
21:25
see the aperture blades but then on the
21:26
side it just that rather than that
21:29
rounding it just kind of continues to
21:31
squeeze Here we're finally starting to
21:33
get round but it's not really round
21:36
Obviously it's a different kind of shape
21:38
This image here with a lot in the
21:39
transition zone It's it's it's a little
21:42
ugly to me It's just way too busy and so
21:45
it's not handling that more comp complex
21:47
background very well This image however
21:50
um I think the scene works And again
21:51
because it's snowing there's kind of a
21:53
natural softening effect in general that
21:56
I think plays really well with the look
21:58
of this lens the colors I think work
22:00
with the optical glass and so it's in
22:02
some ways it's kind of a nice winter
22:04
lens This shot too I mean if I look at
22:06
this portion of the image if I was
22:07
looking like from this section over I
22:10
would say I really like the look of that
22:12
It's when the scene gets more
22:14
complicated more hard edges that the
22:16
lens just doesn't handle that very well
22:18
As we've noted flare resistance is a bit
22:20
of an issue And we're going to see it's
22:22
concentrated when the bright light is
22:24
near the edge of the frame And so you
22:26
can see here again near the top we're
22:28
starting to see that pretty significant
22:29
ghosting pattern again here it's you
22:32
know just kind of reversing the polarity
22:33
of that but I mean that's destructive
22:36
but if you compose with it near not near
22:39
the edge of the frame but here in this
22:40
shot there is a a mild ghosting pattern
22:43
here but it's not nearly as destructive
22:45
Finally when it comes to coma if I look
22:48
here in the center of the frame where
22:49
things are not super bright it doesn't
22:50
look too bad You can see in this point
22:52
where there's a brighter light and then
22:54
if we look down here towards the Big
22:57
Dipper and more prominent stars you can
22:58
see that fringing popping up I tried to
23:01
evaluate how much of the actual comas
23:03
happening near the edge but I realized
23:05
that because the lens gets so soft near
23:07
the edge you can see they're becoming
23:09
more like wedge shaped but you don't
23:11
really have a lot of definition to star
23:13
points left anyway So that's not great
23:15
But again if you look at it globally
23:17
it's not fantastic but it's usable And
23:21
so I would say that if you're on a
23:22
budget and you purchase this lens it may
23:24
be the best lens in your kit for
23:26
shooting the night sky So go for it And
23:28
so as you can see from the deep dive
23:30
this is an old school kind of lens And
23:32
if that appeals to you then fantastic If
23:35
it's not your cup of tea thankfully for
23:37
you there's a lot of options out there
23:39
As always thanks for watching Have a
23:41
great day and let the light in