TTArtisan is definitely starting to get some serious attention over their series of low priced yet relatively high performing prime lenses. Last year’s AF 56mm F1.8 has proven to be a popular budget portrait lens (only $129 USD!), and I gave it a positive review. They had released an AF 35mm F1.8 just a few months before that, but they decided that they could do better, and less than a year later, they released the AF 35mm F1.8 II last month, a lens that was reduced in size and but improved in performance. I was pretty impressed by their drive to improve, and it was reflected in my review. Between those two lenses, we have the standard prime (50mm) covered, the short portrait telephoto (85mm) covered, but what about the wide angle 35mm prime that typically completes the trilogy of primes? Consider that now covered in the form of the new TTArtisan AF 23mm F1.8. Priced at around $125 USD, this is yet another budget lens that is surprisingly good. Dive into my video review or read my text review to find out more…or just enjoy the photos below.
Thanks to TTArtisan for sending me a review copy of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. All opinions and conclusions are my own. I’m doing this review on a 40MP Fujifilm X-H2 camera.You can find the visit the TTArtisan listing page for the lens to get more information.
You may have been a bit confused about my reference to 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm lenses, but because this series is made for for APS-C cameras, the focal length of each lens must be magnified by the crop factor of the cameras that they are made for. I’m reviewing the TTA 23mm on Fuji X-mount, but it will also eventually be available on Sony E-mount and Nikon Z-mount. The crop factor of all those systems is 1.5x, which means that a 23mm lens becomes 34.5mm, a 35mm becomes 52.5mm, and a 56mm becomes an 84mm full frame equivalent. The math isn’t perfect, but essentially you have a 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm full frame equivalent series of lenses…just high compacted!
As you can see, the 23mm isn’t quite as compact as the MK II version of the 35mm F1.8, but it is still a nicely compact lens that was a nice fit even on the X-M5, which I just reviewed and is one of Fuji’s most compact cameras.
I think that the TTA 23mm will probably be a hit, as while it isn’t a perfect lens, it delivers really stellar image quality, focuses just fine, and proved to be a great walkaround/street kind of lens.
You probably aren’t going to find a better autofocusing 23mm lens for less, but does that mean that this is the lens for you? Find out in my reviews!
Keywords: TTArtisan AF 23mm F1.8, TTArtisan, TTArtisan 35mm, TTArtisan AF, Autofocus, TTArtisan 23mm F1.8, 23mm, F1.8, STM, Review, Fuji X, Sony E, Review, Telephoto, Action, Tracking, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Sony a6700, Sony a6600, Fujifilm X-T5, Fujifilm X-H2, let the light in, #letthelightin, DA
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
TTArtisan is definitely starting to get some serious attention over their series of low priced yet relatively high performing prime lenses. Last year’s AF 56mm F1.8 has proven to be a popular budget portrait lens (only $129 USD!), and I gave it a positive review. They had released an AF 35mm F1.8 just a few months before that, but they decided that they could do better, and less than a year later, they released the AF 35mm F1.8 II last month, a lens that was reduced in size and but improved in performance. I was pretty impressed by their drive to improve, and it was reflected in my review. Between those two lenses, we have the standard prime (50mm) covered, the short portrait telephoto (85mm) covered, but what about the wide angle 35mm prime that typically completes the trilogy of primes? Consider that now covered in the form of the new TTArtisan AF 23mm F1.8. Priced at around $125 USD, this is yet another budget lens that is surprisingly good. Dive into my video review or read on in my text review to find out more.
Thanks to TTArtisan for sending me a review copy of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. All opinions and conclusions are my own. I’m doing this review on a 40MP Fujifilm X-H2 camera.You can find the visit the TTArtisan listing page for the lens to get more information.
You may have been a bit confused about my reference to 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm lenses, but because this series is made for for APS-C cameras, the focal length of each lens must be magnified by the crop factor of the cameras that they are made for. I’m reviewing the TTA 23mm on Fuji X-mount, but it will also eventually be available on Sony E-mount and Nikon Z-mount. The crop factor of all those systems is 1.5x, which means that a 23mm lens becomes 34.5mm, a 35mm becomes 52.5mm, and a 56mm becomes an 84mm full frame equivalent. The math isn’t perfect, but essentially you have a 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm full frame equivalent series of lenses…just high compacted!
As you can see, the 23mm isn’t quite as compact as the MK II version of the 35mm F1.8, but it is still a nicely compact lens that was a nice fit even on the X-M5, which I just reviewed and is one of Fuji’s most compact cameras.
I think that the TTA 23mm will probably be a hit, as while it isn’t a perfect lens, it delivers really stellar image quality, focuses just fine, and proved to be a great walkaround/street kind of lens.
You probably aren’t going to find a better autofocusing 23mm lens for less, but does that mean that this is the lens for you? Read on to find out.
Build and Handling
The little TTArtisan AF 23mm F1.8 makes a very positive first impression. I’ve been really consistently impressed by how nicely built and cosmetically attractive these budget lenses from TTArtisan have been. The TTA 23mm has an anodized black finish and everything is made of metal and glass.
It is a simple design, with no switches on the lens barrel nor an aperture ring (Fuji shooters will probably miss this!). Fortunately you can function just fine without either of these, and AF | MF switches on Fuji lenses are rare, anyway, though that’s not true on other platforms like Sony or Nikon. But the simple metal body comes off as looking clean and classic.
At the rear of the lens we have a metal lens mount complete with the appropriate electronic contacts; aperture will be controlled from the camera. Aperture control seems to work well; it is quick and responsive and the aperture iris blades are not noisy, with just a light click as the blades open and close.
There are nine aperture blades, but you can see below, they aren’t particularly rounded and don’t deliver a fully circular shape even by an aperture like F3.2:
Up front we have a fairly stylish looking front façade complete with 52mm filter threads (which are blessedly shared across all three lenses in this series, which is great for filter sharing!)
The included lens cap has a new font for the TTARTISAN logo imprinted on it, and I think it looks smart and modern.
TTArtisans first few lenses in the series featured somewhat odd lens hoods. While the lens hood was made of metal, it had an odd design that terminated in something looks like an anamorphic adapter (a rectangular opening) which prohibited either the use of filters or mounting the lens cap…plus it meant that you absolutely couldn’t reverse the lens hood for storage. TTArtisan changed that for the MK II version of the AF 35mm F1.8, and I’m happy to report that they’ve continued that trend here. We have a conventional hood that can be easily reversed for storage and doesn’t interfere with filters.
The manual focus ring is another positive, however. It is ribbed in metal and moves with a nice amount of resistance. The active focus area will automatically magnify when you start to focus, and this helps visually confirm accurate focus. The focus ring is not linear, so the amount of “throw” will vary based on the speed. As per usual on Fuji, manual focus at slow speeds does not feel linear, feeling instead like you move in little steps of focus rather than a smooth progression.
TTArtisan has continued with their design where the rear lens cap has a USB-C port along with electronic contacts inside that will allow you to transfer firmware updates to the lens through a computer. It’s an interesting alternative to having a USB-C port built right into the lens, though I do prefer the built-in option in case you lose the rear lens cap at some point.
TTArtisan has still not mastered the ability to design their lenses with great close focus ability. The minimum focus distance is 30cm, and, while they haven’t listed the maximum magnification, I estimate it as being around 0.14x.
That’s not great for a 35mm lens, but it is enough magnification to at least let you play with isolating a subject a bit.
So while this is a rather simple design, it is nicely executed. Other than the lack of features (no aperture ring, switches, or weather sealing), you would easily think of this as being a much more expensive lens. I suspect that those who are purchasing a lens from this series for the first time will be very pleasantly surprised by how premium their cheap lens feels.
Autofocus for Stills
As before, TTArtisan has chosen to equip this lens with a lead-screw type STM focus motor.
Fuji remains the least favorite of the four brands of cameras that I own and test, though the recent firmware updates on my X-H2 to V5 and beyond seem to have made some small improvement. Autofocus performance here is on the slow side of average, with decent speed in most situations. If you are intentionally going from a close to a distant subject (as I do in my tests), then autofocus speed feels a little more deliberate.
There isn’t a lot of noise in focus, though you will hear faint whines and clicks if you put your ear near it. I don’t hear any focus motor noise under normal shooting, however, even with my eye at the viewfinder. What you will hear is a little “clack” from the aperture blades opening and closing if you partially hold down the shutter.
Autofocus accuracy was good, whether I was using it to capture family moments:
…or capturing fancy holiday treats…
Eye detect worked well (as is pretty expected at this point). I had no problem with people or pets in getting accurately focused results.
No, autofocus isn’t in the upper tier of performance, but in real world use, I had zero problems getting the shots I wanted in all the settings I used the camera. No problems in a dim restaurant, for example.
I wouldn’t use this lens to try to capture fast action, but outside of that, no problem.
Video Autofocus
Fuji’s video AF on their cameras remains somewhat primitive, so take these results with a slight grain of salt and expect them to be better on Sony or Nikon. Focus pulls feature some obvious steps, with the majority of the pull occurring, then a slight pause, and then the final adjustment. In a couple of my pulls I saw a third microadjustment as the focus algorithms debated their final choice. Deliberate focus pulls remain an area of weakness for lenses in general on Fuji, but I can also see a difference here from some native Fuji lenses that I recently reviewed, so at least part of that is due to the AF in the TTA 23mm.
Focus seemed smoother in some clips where I moved in a more natural fashion towards a subject.
My hand test (where I alternately block and then unblock the camera’s view of my face with my hand) proved somewhat better. I saw a fairly decent focus transition from one subject to another, though there is some obvious focus breathing so that perspective does change somewhat.
Focus seemed to be stable when I had a static subject that wasn’t changing. There wasn’t any obvious focus noise during any of these tests. This isn’t the most sophisticated focus system out there, but it does a fairly decent job so long as you don’t try to force too many focus pulls.
Image Quality Breakdown
The TTArtisan AD 23mm F1.8 has an optical formula with 11 elements in 9 groups, including one High Index element and two Extra Low Dispersion elements. The MTF chart shows a fairly flat optical performance, with a good (not great) center performance, a slightly stronger mid-frame performance, and then so drop in the corners.
The MTF chart suggests only a minor improvement when the lens is stopped down. In fact, the corners show a slightly odd result, where in the corners there is actually a bigger separation between the sagittal and meridional axis. Bottom line is you shouldn’t expect amazing corners (ever, really), but the lens is should prove very competent everywhere else.
There is literally no platform that I test on this is more challenging than Fuji’s 40MP APS-C sensor, as it has (by far) the greatest pixel density. A full frame sensor would have to be more than 90MP to achieve a similar pixel density, which is 50% higher than the current maximum full frame resolution of 61MP. While the budget TTArtisan 23mm F1.8 is not anywhere near the top resolving lenses on the platform, it is also far from embarrassing itself and delivers a fairly strong optical performance from F1.8 on.
This shot holds up at a pixel level, too, with very nice detail in the bodice and fabric textures.
Let’s take a closer look at both strengths and weaknesses here.
If we look at vignette and distortion, we see both a great success and a great weakness.
There is the tiniest amount of pincushion distortion, requiring just a -2 to correct, but vignette required me to max out the sliders to get the result on the right. You will DEFINITELY need to correct vignette in your images.
Early TTArtisan AF lenses really struggled with a fringing, but that’s been an area where TTArtisan has really focused on improvement.
This real world shot of moisture on a window with light pouring through it shows a nice, neutral result.
There are only minimal amounts of LaCA (lateral chromatic aberrations), with little fringing on either side of black and white transitions.
I never really saw any kind of real world issue with LaCA.
So how about sharpness and contrast? Here’s a look at the test chart:
And here are the crops from across the frame at F1.8 at a 200% magnification.
You may notice that I have sampled the upper left corner rather than the usual lower right crop that I normally take. The reason for this is that my copy clearly has a centering issue, and the lower right corner is incredibly soft. If I take the same image and compare the lower left and the lower right, you can see that the lower right is much softer.
I didn’t notice the centering issue as much when shooting at landscape distances. If I sample both the upper left and the bottom right corners from a real world F5.6 image, I’m not really impressed with either of them, but one doesn’t look radically different from the other.
Shots taken on the lower resolution X-M5 work pretty well, though I would say that I actually probably preferred X-H2 images for the most part.
Real world contrast looks pretty decent, and in this shot from our New Year’s party, you can see that the detail really looks quite good. Not what I would call pin-sharp, but I suspect that this is plenty of resolution for most people.
It’s good that wide open sharpness is fairly good, however, as the lens doesn’t really sharpen up a lot as you stop it down (as the MTF chart suggested). That’s not to say there isn’t improvement, however. You can see see that the contrast and detail definitely looks different between F1.8 and F5.6 here:
As the MTF chart suggested, I find that the mid-frame results actually look the best. The F4 result looks better than what I see in the middle of the frame.
Stopping down to F5.6 and F8 shows mostly good results across the frame, but there is definitely ebbs and flows for sharpness depending on where you look. Here, for the example, the upper edge looks good.
After that, however, diffraction will become a factor, and the image quality will be slightly softer at F11 and then moreso at F16.
Sharpness isn’t top tier (lenses like the Sigma 23mm F1.4 or the Fuji 23mm F1.4 WR are clearly sharper), but, to be fair, this is a lens that costs $127, whereas those lenses are anywhere from $600-900. I took plenty of images that I liked with this lens.
The bokeh quality is pretty good. Perhaps the biggest weakness (for some), will be some serious flattening of specular highlights near the edge, giving it a bit of a swirl look in some situations.
In other situations, however, the bokeh looks fairly soft:
Even where the setting is a bit less favorable (more in the transition zone), I felt like the bokeh was pretty good.
An image like this is a little more jittery due to a lot being in the transition zone, but I don’t dislike the image. The bit of swirl effect works for me.
TTArtisan has had their struggles with flare resistance, and there’s definitely some remaining issues here. Perhaps the worst effect I saw was on a very cold night where a street light was right out of frame, but I still got a strong corona of flare artifacts.
In many ways I think the lens is more susceptible at large rather than small apertures. This wide open (F1.8) shot has definitely got some flashing and loss of contrast going on.
The same shot when stopped down looks radically different.
This window shot of Nala is pretty washed out due to veiling.
Then again, there are some who love optical flaws like these, feeling they add character. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder! In general, however, I felt like I got plenty of images that I liked, which is pretty impressive from such an inexpensive lens.
If you’d like to see more images, check out the image gallery linked here.
Conclusion
It’s pretty remarkable that a company like TTArtisan has progressed to making autofocus lenses that are fully usable and functional and yet still cost so little. A person could get this 23mm, the 35mm II, and 56mm F1.8 lenses from TTArtisan for around $380. That’s amazingly good value, and it feels like ten years ago that would have been the going price for one lens like this…not three.
When I dive deeply into the technical performance of the TTArtisan AF 23mm F1.8, I could find a number of things to criticize. But the truth of the matter is that in normal use, and particularly when shooting at larger aperture values, I didn’t find the lens fun to use, and got plenty of images that I liked just fine.
And that’s the real story here. Those on a tight budget can rejoice that once again TTArtisan has delivered another perfectly usable lens that can be had for under $130 USD. What’s ironic, however, is that TTArtisan has had a new Viltrox AIR series lens to compete with alongside each of these released. The Viltrox AIR 56mm F1.7 was released at just about the same time as the TTArtisan 56mm F1.8. The excellent Viltrox 35mm F1.7 AIR lens was released right after the 35mm F1.8 II, and, right on cue, the new Viltrox 25mm F1.7 AIR has just been announced. My experience has been that the Viltrox lenses tend to be sharper, but they are also typically priced about $50 higher. If you’re on a tight budget, that $50 might be the difference maker. And if you want something a little more “old school” feeling, the TTArtisan AF 23mm F1.8 might be just the thing. The AIR lenses are more corrected, more modern, while the TTArtisan AF series has a bit more of a retro vibe. Decisions, decisions….
Pros:
Very nicely built for the money
More conventional hood design
USB-C port in rear lens cap allows for firmware updates
Keywords: TTArtisan AF 23mm F1.8, TTArtisan, TTArtisan 35mm, TTArtisan AF, Autofocus, TTArtisan 23mm F1.8, 23mm, F1.8, STM, Review, Fuji X, Sony E, Review, Telephoto, Action, Tracking, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Sony a6700, Sony a6600, Fujifilm X-T5, Fujifilm X-H2, let the light in, #letthelightin, DA
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
It was just a year ago that TTArtisan released the first version of this lens and I covered it in my reviews. It’s rare for a company to do such a quick refresh of a newly released lens, but clearly TTArtisan is in a rush to get things right and felt like there were a few key areas that they could make improvements. My two two negatives from my review were 1) a very odd lens hood design and 2) rather poor minimum focus distance (60cm) and maximum magnification. The new TTArtisan 35mm II deals with both of those issues, with a more conventional hood design, a reduced minimum focus distance (40cm), and a smaller, lighter physical design to boot. Priced at only $125, this new lens is going to be a very hard one to ignore for those looking for a budget “normal” lens for their APS-C camera. Should you get one? Dive into my video review or read my text review, or just enjoy the photos below.
Thanks to TTArtisan for sending me a review copy of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. All opinions and conclusions are my own. I’m doing this review on a 40MP Fujifilm X-H2 camera.You can find the visit the TTArtisan listing page for the lens to get more information.
It’s pretty clear the TTArtisan’s ability to improve their lens designs is rapidly growing, as just a year has gone by and already we have a lens that is improved in pretty much every area. One of the key priorities for TTArtisan was to reduce the size of the lens.
TTArtisan managed to shrink the lens by a full 16mm, which may not seem like a lot, but in a lens this size that is nearly a 25% reduction in size. Weight has also dropped by 23g, making for a truly lightweight 176g. The biggest challenge for TTArtisan comes from a fellow Chinese company, Viltrox, whose new AF 35mm F1.7 Air lens will almost certainly be the chief competitor. The Viltrox lens is made of high quality plastics rather than metal (TTArtisan), but is even lighter at 170g despite having a slightly faster maximum aperture of F1.7. The TTArtisan 35II wins for size, however, coming in shorter by about 5mm.
35mm is a slightly oddball focal length on APS-C, landing at a 52.5mm full frame equivalent. It stands to reason why the 33mm (49.5mm) is more conventional, as it is delivering that typical 50mm “normal” angle of view. That extra 3mm is hardly likely to make much of a difference. This is a great focal length that gives a very normal, relatable point of view.
There’s no question that this is a pretty impressively good little lens for just $125…but how improved is it? Read or watch the reviews to get more info.
Keywords: TTArtisan AF 35mm F1.8 II, II, 2, TTArtisan, TTArtisan 35mm, TTArtisan AF, Autofocus, TTArtisan 35mm F1.8, 35mm, F1.8, STM, Review, Fuji X, Sony E, Review, Telephoto, Action, Tracking, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Sony a6700, Sony a6600, Fujifilm X-T5, Fujifilm X-H2, let the light in, #letthelightin, DA
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
It was just a year ago that TTArtisan released the first version of this lens and I covered it in my reviews. It’s rare for a company to do such a quick refresh of a newly released lens, but clearly TTArtisan is in a rush to get things right and felt like there were a few key areas that they could make improvements. My two two negatives from my review were 1) a very odd lens hood design and 2) rather poor minimum focus distance (60cm) and maximum magnification. The new TTArtisan 35mm II deals with both of those issues, with a more conventional hood design, a reduced minimum focus distance (40cm), and a smaller, lighter physical design to boot. Priced at only $125, this new lens is going to be a very hard one to ignore for those looking for a budget “normal” lens for their APS-C camera. Should you get one? Dive into my video review or read on in my text review to find out.
Thanks to TTArtisan for sending me a review copy of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. All opinions and conclusions are my own. I’m doing this review on a 40MP Fujifilm X-H2 camera.You can find the visit the TTArtisan listing page for the lens to get more information.
It’s pretty clear the TTArtisan’s ability to improve their lens designs is rapidly growing, as just a year has gone by and already we have a lens that is improved in pretty much every area. One of the key priorities for TTArtisan was to reduce the size of the lens.
TTArtisan managed to shrink the lens by a full 16mm, which may not seem like a lot, but in a lens this size that is nearly a 25% reduction in size. Weight has also dropped by 23g, making for a truly lightweight 176g. The biggest challenge for TTArtisan comes from a fellow Chinese company, Viltrox, whose new AF 35mm F1.7 Air lens will almost certainly be the chief competitor. The Viltrox lens is made of high quality plastics rather than metal (TTArtisan), but is even lighter at 170g despite having a slightly faster maximum aperture of F1.7. The TTArtisan 35II wins for size, however, coming in shorter by about 5mm.
35mm is a slightly oddball focal length on APS-C, landing at a 52.5mm full frame equivalent. It stands to reason why the 33mm (49.5mm) is more conventional, as it is delivering that typical 50mm “normal” angle of view. That extra 3mm is hardly likely to make much of a difference. This is a great focal length that gives a very normal, relatable point of view.
There’s no question that this is a pretty impressively good little lens for just $125…but how improved is it? Read on to find out.
Build and Handling
The little TTArtisan AF 35mm F1.8 II makes a very positive first impression. When I opened the box, the first thing I noticed is how small it is, and the second thing is that it is a very nicely made little lens. This is actually quite a handsome little lens. It has an anodized black finish and everything is made of metal and glass.
It’s pretty extraordinary how rich this cheap lens feels. It no looks very stubby when mounted on a bigger APS-C camera like my Fujifilm X-H2:
You’ll note that there are no switches on the lens barrel nor an aperture ring. Very possibly this is cost cutting measure. Fortunately you can function just fine without either thing, and AF | MF switches on Fuji lenses are rare, anyway, though that’s not true on other platforms like Sony or Nikon.
At the rear of the lens we have a metal lens mount complete with the appropriate electronic contacts; aperture will be controlled from the camera. Aperture control seems to work well; it is quick and responsive and the aperture iris blades are not noisy, with just a light click as the blades open and close.
There are nine aperture blades, but you can see (above at F2.8) that they don’t do an amazing job of keeping a perfectly circular shape as the lens is stopped down.
Up front we have a fairly stylish looking front façade complete with 52mm filter threads.
The included lens cap has a new font for the TTARTISAN logo imprinted on it, and I think it looks smart and modern.
One of my critiques of the previous generation lens was the odd lens hood. While the lens hood was made of metal, it had an odd design that terminated in something looks like an anamorphic adapter (a rectangular opening) which prohibited either the use of filters or mounting the lens cap…plus it meant that you absolutely couldn’t reverse the lens hood for storage. The new lens hood (pictured above), is much more plain and conventional, but all the better for it.
The manual focus ring is another positive, however. It is ribbed in metal and moves with a nice amount of resistance. The active focus area will automatically magnify when you start to focus, and this helps visually confirm accurate focus. Focus throw feels like it is somewhere near 160° of rotation.
One final interesting design element is that the rear lens cap has a USB-C port along with electronic contacts inside and will actually allow you to do firmware updates to the lens through a computer. It’s an interesting alternative to having a USB-C port built right into the lens, though I do slightly prefer the built-in option in case you lose the rear lens cap at some point. I’ve seen a similar approach to firmware updates through the rear lens cap with the Techart LM-EA9 adapter I reviewed a year ago.
One core weakness for the previous version of the lens was a rather poor minimum focus distance of 60cm. That often felt very restrictive, but TTArtisan has managed to significantly cut that down to 40cm on the new version of the lens. That’s still not great (the Viltrox 35mm can focus as closely as 33cm), but this feels slightly more usable, with magnification at roughly 0.11x (still on the low side).
Contrast isn’t great at this minimum focus distance, so while this aspect of lens design is improved, it remains somewhat of a liability relative to some competitors.
So while this is a rather simple design, it is nicely executed. Other than the lack of features (no aperture ring, switches, or weather sealing), you would easily think of this as being a much more expensive lens. Kudos to TTArtisan for being willing to rapidly improve. One word of caution: don’t do this too often, or consumers will start to say, “Just wait a year and you can get a nicer lens for the same money!“
Autofocus for Stills
As before, TTArtisan has chosen to equip this lens with a lead-screw type STM focus motor.
Fuji remains the least favorite of the four brands of cameras that I own and test, though the recent firmware updates on my X-H2 to V5 and beyond seem to have made some small improvement. Autofocus performance here is about average (though average is getting faster!), with decent speed in most situations though with a occasional rack in the wrong direction if autofocus doesn’t initially detect an obvious contrast point.
There isn’t a lot of noise in focus, with the motor making faint whines and clicks if you put your ear near it. I don’t hear much under normal shooting, however, even with my eye at the viewfinder. What you will hear is a little “clack” from the aperture blades opening and closing if you partially hold down the shutter.
Autofocus accuracy seemed fairly good, able to grab and lock on subjects accurately.
It’s been very cold during my review period, but the lens continued to function fine in sub-zero temperatures, locking on delivering accurate focus.
I did notice one quirk that may be fixed via firmware. Sometimes when shooting at F1.8 either with autofocus or manual focus, focus would reset after the shot. That proved a bit of a pain during my chart tests, as I couldn’t set focus and then just change aperture for subsequent shots. Update: this quirk seems to have been fixed via firmware.
Eye detect worked well (as is pretty expected at this point). I had no problem with people or pets in getting accurately focused results.
No, autofocus isn’t in the upper tier of performance, but the truth of the matter is that this lens focuses better than a number of native Fuji lenses that I’ve tested, so I have no complaints.
Video Autofocus
Video AF is another area that was improved by the firmware update. Fuji’s video AF on their cameras remains somewhat primitive, so take these results with a slight grain of salt and expect them to be better on Sony or Nikon. Focus pulls feature some obvious steps, with the majority of the pull occuring, then a slight pause, and then the final adjustment. In a couple of my pulls I saw a third microadjustment as the focus algorithms debated their final choice.
I saw visible steps in natural focus changes as well as the focus system transitioned from one focus point to another.
My hand test (where I alternately block and then unblock the camera’s view of my face with my hand) showed some similar steps. When my hand was removed, for example, there was a couple of obvious steps as focus returned to my eyes.
Focus seemed to be stable when I had a static subject that wasn’t changing. There wasn’t any obvious focus noise during any of these tests. This isn’t the most sophisticated focus system out there
Image Quality Breakdown
Interestingly, the TTArtisan 35II has a simpler optical design than the lens it replaces, with 10 elements in 7 groups. Though there is one less group, there is an additional ED element (now there are 2) along with two high index elements in the design. The MTF chart shows a completely different optical signature than the older lens, with a much sharper center, a slightly weaker inner mid-frame result, a much stronger outer mid-frame result, and a huge variance between the sagittal and meridional planes (low contrast) in the corners. I’ve charted the two MTF charts so that you can see the different signatures of each lens.
An interest secondary observation is that the stopped down performance on the chart was shown at F8 on the older version of the lens, while the new one is mapped at F5.6, and it generally delivers a much sharper result than the older lens save in the far corners.
There is literally no platform that I test on this is more challenging than Fuji’s 40MP APS-C sensor, as it has (by far) the greatest pixel density. A full frame sensor would have to be more than 90MP to achieve a similar pixel density, which is 50% higher than the current maximum full frame resolution of 61MP. While this little TTArtisan 35II is not anywhere near the top resolving lenses on the platform, it is also far from embarrassing itself and delivers a better than expected resolution result. The single biggest optical challenge is probably lower contrast when viewed at a pixel level. Contrast and detail looks fine when viewed large:
When viewed at a pixel level, however, you can see that the contrast and ability to resolve the fine details isn’t fantastic.
To be fair, the same is true of most lenses on this platform, including many who cost much, much more. When stopped down a bit, the amount of resolution and contrast the TTArtisan 35II can achieve is actually quite good.
So let’s break it down further.
If there is any metric where the new lens takes a step back relative to the first generation version, it is potentially in the vignette department.
The first gen lens wasn’t great in the vignette department, taking a +79 to correct in my tests, but I have to max out the vignette slider for this new lens. What’s more, the vignette is of the nature where there’s also some color attached to it, and you can see that even when maxing out the sliders, I still end up with a somewhat uneven result. Distortion seems to be about equal with the first gen lens – a tiny bit of pincushion distortion that will easily correct with a -2 or -3.
A few other observations. I received a pre-retail copy of this lens for testing (fairly typical), and the keen eyed among you may have noticed that Lightroom isn’t properly detecting the EXIF data for the lens. It is identifying it as the (Tokina) atx-m 33mm F1.4 X. The only thing right there is the “X”! As a result, Lightroom will also automatically assign the wrong correction profile to images. I’ve made TTArtisan aware of this, and they are working on both a new correction profile and a firmware update that should allow for proper recognition of the lens. Update December 17th, 2024: TTArtisan released a firmware update that addressed both this glitch along with a few performance bugs. The lens now properly identifies in Lightroom and a new (correct!) correction profile is applied.
One improvement, however, is in the longitudinal chromatic aberration department (LoCA), which is color fringing that shows up before and after the plane of focus and is typically most pronounced at large aperture values. There is still some fringing here, but it is definitely less pronounced than the first generation lens.
On these reflective Christmas decorations there is a bit of green fringing, but it’s pretty minimal.
There is some minor issue with LaCA (lateral chromatic aberrations) in the corner, though to be fair, I noticed it much more on my chart:
…than I did in real world shots.
So how about sharpness and contrast? Here’s a look at the test chart:
And here are the crops from across the frame at F1.8 at a 200% magnification.
As the MTF suggested, contrast in the center isn’t bad but the lens isn’t radically sharp. The midframe is interesting to me, as there’s quite a bit of variation even across that one crop, with the left side looking quite good and the right side looking much worse. The corner crop is the most interesting, however, as it is quite soft on the left side (closer to the center), but obviously better on the right side (right in the absolute corner). The MTF does suggest an unusual loop up towards the edge of the frame, however.
The bottom line to me is that there is enough resolution here even on the most demanding scenario to produce credible looking images:
Those shooting on lower resolution bodies will find their apparent sharpness quite a bit stronger.
At F2, contrast improves a bit. At F2.8 the contrast looks stronger still.
By F5.6, the corners look fairly good (but never exceptional). This is the upper left corner.
You can see that contrast has improved but detail is not exceptional.
Real world results are a little kinder, however, and I actually found the lens to be fairly sharp in many situations. This example at F5.6 (viewed at 100% in the crop) looks fairly impressive.
There’s a nice amount of detail in the shallow plane of focus in this F2.2 shot:
I actually think the lens is slightly sharper at F8 than it is at F5.6, and that’s true pretty much everywhere in the frame.
After that, however, diffraction will become a factor, and the image quality will be slightly softer at F11 and then moreso at F16.
I do want to add a caveat to my tests here, as there’s no question that Fuji’s 40MP sensor is easily the most demanding place to evaluate a lens. Look at how much better the apparent resolution and contrast look at 100% magnification if I scale the image down from the 40MP on the left to the more common 26MP on the right.
That’s the space that Fuji’s own 26MP sensors along with Sony’s most recent 26MP sensors occupy, and you can see that everything looks sharper, and brighter at that lower resolution level. On many cameras the TTArtisan 35II is going to look sharper than my results here show.
This is a budget lens, but it doesn’t mean that the performance is terrible. While bokeh rendering is high end, the lens is caprable of producing beautiful looking images.
This shot shows fairly good bokeh perforamce and good detail where it matters at F1.8:
The geometry of the specular highlights will definitely turn lemon-shaped towards the edges, but that’s hardly uncommon.
The previous version of the lens flared terribly, and that’s definitely an area that has gotten improved. A shot like this would have been full of flare artifacts, but I’ve let very bright sunlight coming though a window backlight this scene without any negative impact:
With direct, bright sun right in the frame, things aren’t quite as rosy. There’s some loss of contrast but also some light flashes, particularly when the lens is stopped down (image 2 below.).
I do think there is some improvement here, but it is perhaps unrealistic to expect high end coatings on such an inexpensive lens.
All told, however, this is a pretty good little lens optically, even though it seems a little unfair to test a $125 optic on one of the most optically demanding sensors in the world!
The TTArtisan AF 35mm F1.8 II is a unique lens. It is incredibly rare to see a second generation lens arrive so swiftly on the heels of the first generation lens. I’m not sure if this swift turnaround is due to less interest in the first generation lens than expected, or simply because TTArtisan wants to showcase their ability to produce ever better lenses.
There’s no question the lens IS improved. It’s smaller, sharper, has a better minimum focus distance (though not really an improved up close performance!), has a better lens hood design, and I think even the autofocus is somewhat refined. Not bad for a lens that still has one of the cheapest price tags I’ve ever seen for an autofocus lens.
The biggest question might be how it will compete with the Viltrox 35mm F1.7 AIR lens, particularly considering that Viltrox has really got a lot of momentum right now. But there’s no question that the TTArtisan AF 35mm F1.8 II is a valid option if you’re looking for an inexpensive yet fully functional “normal” prime lens for your APS-C camera.
Keywords: TTArtisan AF 35mm F1.8 II, II, 2, TTArtisan, TTArtisan 35mm, TTArtisan AF, Autofocus, TTArtisan 35mm F1.8, 35mm, F1.8, STM, Review, Fuji X, Sony E, Review, Telephoto, Action, Tracking, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Sony a6700, Sony a6600, Fujifilm X-T5, Fujifilm X-H2, let the light in, #letthelightin, DA
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
In the course of any given year, I review a LOT of gear. In 2024 I did 108 total reviews, including 7 cameras and many dozens of lenses at all price points. At this stage of my career, I have reviewed hundreds of lenses and many dozens of cameras. We are, I believe, in a golden age of photography. 2024 saw a slight shift in the overall movement towards using phones for photography with more people considering a “real camera” instead. But what gear stood out from the crowd in my reviews? Find out by watching the 2024 DA Awards below! There’s also a summary of the awards in this article.
If you just want a summary of what I covered in the video, you can can see the list of contestants in each category below along with the slide of the winner and a photo taken with each winner. Just to clarify: these are my top picks among the lenses I personally reviewed. I review Canon, Sony, and Fujifilm (APS-C and medium format), and Nikon, so there won’t be any M43 or Leica gear here…even though I’m sure there are several deserving products from those brands.
For the second year in a row, Sony wins with the top zoom lens. The Sony 28-70mm F2 GM was a winner to both me and my audience. Here’s one favorite photo from it.
DA Awards 2024 – Top Budget APS-C Prime Lens (Under $600)
List of contenders:
Viltrox Pro AF 27mm F1.2 (Sony)
Viltrox AF 56mm F1.7
TTArtisan AF 56mm F1.8
7Artisans AF 27mm F2.8
Yongnuo AF 11mm F1.8
Sirui Sniper 16mm F1.2
Sirui Sniper 75mm F1.2
Yongnuo 50mm F1.8 DA DSM Pro
Yongnuo 33mm F1.4 Pro
Viltrox AF 35mm F1.7
AstrHori 25mm 2-5x Macro
Viltrox takes home a win in this category for the second year in a row. The 35mm F1.7 AIR isn’t as high end as last year’s winner, but it (along with the 56mm F1.7 AIR) are big winners for providing very good optical instruments at budget prices.
DA Awards 2024 – Top Budget Full Frame Prime Lens (Under $600)
Here’s the list of contenders:
7Artisans AF 50mm F1.8
7Artisans AF 85mm F1.8
Nikkor 40mm F2
Viltrox AF 40mm F2.5
Nikkor 50mm F1.4
TTArtisan AF 75mm F2
Viltrox AF 28mm F4.5
TTArtisan 75mm F1.5 Swirl
Pergear 100mm F2.8 2x Macro
Thypoch Simera 28mm F1.4
Thypoch Simera 35mm F1.4
Sirui Aurora 85mm F1.4
The Nikkor Z 50mm F1.4 is a very solid lens at a shockingly affordable price of $499. In my review I concluded that it was “enough” in basically every category for most all photographers. Here’s a photo favorite from it.
DA Awards 2024 – Premium Full Frame Prime Lens
List of contenders:
Laowa AF 10mm F2.8
Sigma 500mm F5.6 Sport
Sigma 15mm F1.4 Fisheye
Sigma 50mm F1.2 ART
Voigtlander Nokton 75mm F1.5
Voigtlander Nokton 50mm F1.9
Sony 85mm F1.4 GM II
Fujinon GF 500mm F5.6
Tamron 90mm F2.8 Macro
Viltrox LAB 135mm F1.8
Laowa 55mm F2.8 T/S
I’ve been very eagerly awaiting Viltrox’s LAB series ever since it was announced, and the LAB 135mm F1.8 did not disappoint. It is feature rich, optically amazing, and sported a whole new autofocus system (Hyper-VCM) that allows it to have quick, accurate autofocus. It’s a treat.
DA Awards 2024 – Which Company Had the Best Year?
Sigma released a ton of interesting lenses this year, from intriguing zooms (24-70mm F2.8 II, 28-45mm F1.8, 28-105mm F2.8) to interesting primes (50mm 1.2, 15mm F1.4, 500mm F5.6), to being the first to move into the Canon RF (APS-C) space with both primes and zooms.
DA Awards 2024 – Which Lens Surprised Me the Most?
There’s nothing surprising about a 50mm F1.4 lens. But what is surprising is that a first party brand like Nikon would release a very good 50mm F1.4 for just $500. My conclusion was that this lens was “enough” for most people, and for Nikon to take the risk of undercutting more expensive options took a lot of bravery.
DA Awards 2024 – Most Disappoint Lens?
The sad thing about the Canon RF 35mm F1.4L VCM is that in many ways it is a very good lens, with great autofocus and amazing sharpness, but it also has a number of qualities that I consider inexecusable in a $1500 lens, like massive distortion and vignette along with some really questionable design choices. I wanted to love this lens, but ended up very disappointed by it…even though you can make some lovely images with it.
DA Awards 2024 – Reader’s Choice Awards
I polled my audience on YouTube over a series of weeks in three categories, and got around 1000 votes in each category. Here are the winners:
Keywords: DA Awards, 2024, Best, Worst, Reader’s choice, Viltrox, Viltrox AF, LAB, Viltrox LAB, #LAB, #LAB135, Nikon Z8, Sony a7CR, Sony 28-70mm F2 GM, Sigma, Nikkor, 7Artisans, TTArtisan, Yongnuo, Tamron, Laowa, Voigtlander, Sony a7IV, Sony Alpha 1, Sony a7RV, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, let the light in, weathersealing, #letthelightin, DA
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
I’ve had a long lasting love affair with vintage glass. Even though my contemporary lens collection features dozens of great lenses, I still have 6 or 7 vintage lenses that I enjoy taking out periodically. Some of those include classic SMC Takumars and Zeiss lenses, while others include some of the cult classics like Soviet Helios and Jupiter lenses. The latter category I have prized because of their unique “swirly” bokeh. These lenses are often optical designs derived from Carl Zeiss, and almost all of the lenses I own are based on the old M42 screw mount. Many of these lenses have gotten some revival in the mirrorless era, as they can be fairly easily adapter and mirrorless cameras have manual focus aids that make using them easier than ever. There is a subset of photographers who are turned off by modern lenses that are perfectly corrected, and they are more interested in lenses with some individuality and character.
I’ve wasted a lot of time down the eBay rabbit hole trying to find some of these classic gems at a reasonable price, but some of them are surprisingly expensive. The Zeiss Biotar 75mm F1.5 can cost thousands of dollars. But what if you could get a modern version of that exact lens for under $300? If that sounds intriguing, join me in exploring the unique TTArtisan 75mm F1.5 in either my video review or my text review…or just enjoy the photos in the gallery.
Thanks to TTArtisan for sending me a review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the Sony a7RV along with the Sony Alpha 1 that serve as my benchmark cameras for Sony lenses.
TTArtisan has chosen one of the three different housing designs this optical formula had in the past, which is often called the “Fat Version” that was sold from 1952-1967. The end result is a stubby lens that reminds me a lot of the recent Voigtländer Nokton 75mm F1.5 that I reviewed earlier this year. It has the scalloped focus ring, all metal body, and anodized finish of that lens.
This is built around that same old M42 mount, so that comes with both blessings and curses that we will explore. The upside is that the M42 is easily adaptable to a wide variety of lens mounts, up to and including Fuji’s medium format GF mount. I used to mostly use M42 glass on Canon EF mount, where the adapters would be quite slim, but because of the different flange distance on mirrorless cameras, you have to use much thicker adapters to get the optics where they need to be. You can see that the Vello adapter I used here is pretty chunky, which adds a fair bit of length to the overall package, unfortunately.
Initially the lens didn’t lineup quite right for me, but fortunately they have thought about that, as you can mount the lens to your camera, and then use the included allen key to loosen three screws near the lens mount, which will then allow you to rotate the lens to the proper position before tightening it back down.
It’s a good solution to a common problem with lenses like this. There’s no question this is an interesting lens with a lot of character. See that character in the images below.
Keywords: TTArtisan, 75mm, F1.5, swirl, swirly bokeh, TTArtisan 75mm review, M42, Sony Alpha 1, Sony a7RV, Fuji, Nikon, Canon, Review, mirrorless, Full Frame, Sports, Tracking, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Handling, Focus, Portraits, Resolution, High ISO, Image Quality, Sample Images, Photography, 61MP, #letthelightin, #DA, #Alpha1, #A7RV
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
I’ve had a long lasting love affair with vintage glass. Even though my contemporary lens collection features dozens of great lenses, I still have 6 or 7 vintage lenses that I enjoy taking out periodically. Some of those include classic SMC Takumars and Zeiss lenses, while others include some of the cult classics like Soviet Helios and Jupiter lenses. The latter category I have prized because of their unique “swirly” bokeh. These lenses are often optical designs derived from Carl Zeiss, and almost all of the lenses I own are based on the old M42 screw mount. Many of these lenses have gotten some revival in the mirrorless era, as they can be fairly easily adapter and mirrorless cameras have manual focus aids that make using them easier than ever. There is a subset of photographers who are turned off by modern lenses that are perfectly corrected, and they are more interested in lenses with some individuality and character.
I’ve wasted a lot of time down the eBay rabbit hole trying to find some of these classic gems at a reasonable price, but some of them are surprisingly expensive. The Zeiss Biotar 75mm F1.5 can cost thousands of dollars. But what if you could get a modern version of that exact lens for under $300? If that sounds intriguing, join me in exploring the unique TTArtisan 75mm F1.5 in either my video review or the text review that continues below.
Thanks to TTArtisan for sending me a review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the Sony a7RV along with the Sony Alpha 1 that serve as my benchmark cameras for Sony lenses.
TTArtisan has chosen one of the three different housing designs this optical formula had in the past, which is often called the “Fat Version” that was sold from 1952-1967. The end result is a stubby lens that reminds me a lot of the recent Voigtländer Nokton 75mm F1.5 that I reviewed earlier this year. It has the scalloped focus ring, all metal body, and anodized finish of that lens.
This is built around that same old M42 mount, so that comes with both blessings and curses that we will explore. The upside is that the M42 is easily adaptable to a wide variety of lens mounts, up to and including Fuji’s medium format GF mount. I used to mostly use M42 glass on Canon EF mount, where the adapters would be quite slim, but because of the different flange distance on mirrorless cameras, you have to use much thicker adapters to get the optics where they need to be. You can see that the Vello adapter I used here is pretty chunky, which adds a fair bit of length to the overall package, unfortunately.
Initially the lens didn’t lineup quite right for me, but fortunately they have thought about that, as you can mount the lens to your camera, and then use the included allen key to loosen three screws near the lens mount, which will then allow you to rotate the lens to the proper position before tightening it back down.
It’s a good solution to a common problem with lenses like this. Let’s take a closer look at the performance.
Build and Handling
The TTArtisan 75mm F1.5 Swirl has classic good looks. The lens has some heft to it, weighing in at roughly 570g (20oz). I measure the lens at roughly 73mm in diameter and about 72mm in overall length. The lens will grow an additional 10mm in length when focused to the minimum focus distance (externally focusing).
We have a common 58mm front filter thread on the front of the lens.
There are two rings on the lens. The first is the manual focus ring, which is the widest part of the lens and has easy to grip metal knurls.
There are etched distance markings with metric in white and Imperial distances in yellow. The lens barrel before the ring has hyperfocal markings (from F1.5 to F16) on it.
The second ring is near the front, and it a manual aperture ring. This is a clicked aperture with detents at the half stop position from F1.5 to F5.6, then only full stops. There are markings for each full aperture (starting at F1.5, then F2, F2.8, etc…). The aperture ring moves with nice precision.
There are thirteen rounded aperture blades inside that make for a pretty sexy looking aperture.
Minimum focus distance is 75cm, and the resulting magnification is not particularly high (probably in the 0.10x range).
There is no weather sealing, no electronics, or anything particularly modern. You’ll need to manually set the focal length for in-camera stabilization if your camera is so equipped. You will also miss a lot of EXIF data (only the camera based information like shutter speed and ISO will be recorded, though if you are shooting on Nikon you’ll have a chance to manually input some of that information).
The front cap is an old school threaded variety.
All told this is a nicely made lens that focuses nicely, has good aperture control, and costs a whole lot less than grabbing one of the classic lenses it emulates.
Manual Focus on Sony (Alpha 1 and a7RV)
When I first moved to Sony bodies, I found them a wonderful platform for manual focus. They had IBIS (in-body-image-stabilization), good viewfinders, and much more manual focus aids than the DSLRs that I was accustomed to. Since that point, however, essentially the whole industry has shifted to mirrorless cameras, so those advantages aren’t as distinct anymore. But I still found the TTArtisan 75mm F1.5 Swirl an easy lens to use on my Sony bodies and found that I could easily nail focus despite the large maximum aperture and narrow depth of field. Here’s a few reasons why:
EVF. An electronic viewfinder has a lot of advantages over an optical viewfinder when it comes to using manual focus lenses. You have the ability to see overlays, magnify the image to confirm focus, and as a byproduct I really didn’t have any misses. I don’t always love Sony’s viewfinders due to them going a bit weird when you half-depress the shutter for stabilization, but focus is still really easy due to the EVF.
Effective IBIS (Steadyshot Inside). Sony was a pioneer with IBIS, and while other companies have caught up and even surpassed them, having the ability to stabilize the viewfinder or LCD screen image while focusing makes manual focus much easier. You can hold that image still while you pull focus to the perfect point.
Useful manual focus aids. Sony’s options include the ability to have a color overlay to help to show what is in focus, though I will note that this works better when shooting at larger apertures and at close to medium distances. At longer distances where more is in focus, the color overlays can just become distracting, and just because a lot is in focus doesn’t yet mean that focus is where you want it. I prefer the secondary method, which is to enable an automatic magnification of the focus area whenever you turn the focus ring. This allows you to visually confirm focus is where you want it, and it is pretty foolproof. Sony’s system will both automatically magnify the focus area when you turn the focus ring and then also switch back to the full view when you go to depress the shutter so that you can ensure your composition is still what you want.
I own four different brands of camera (Sony, Canon, Nikon, and Fujifilm), and I can safely say that manually focusing on each of them is really quite easy…even when focusing on very shallow depths of field.
It is worth noting that the beautiful focus ring also makes doing focus pulls during video a treat. There’s nothing quite like a well calibrated true manual focus ring for smooth pulls.
TTArtisan 75mm F1.5 Swirl Image Quality Breakdown
This “swirl” lens has an extremely simple optical design of 6 elements in 4 groups. Two of those are HR elements.
Lenses like this are all about the rendering, the “look”, and not about their technical proficiency. I haven’t seen an MTF chart that looks this bad in a long, long time!
There’s a huge disparity between the wide open performance and the stopped down performance. The corners are particularly weak, but that’s essentially part of the design. The “swirl” that is so desirable in these lenses actually comes from uncorrected aberrations in the sagittal plane. In fact, most of the unique and desirable qualities we like about vintage glass come from optical defects, which is why modern lenses often feel fairly “clinical” by comparison. There’s a lot of defects in this image…but that’s a big part of the charm!
On the technical side of things, there is relatively little distortion and vignette.
There is a very small amount of barrel distortion (+3 to correct) and under 2 stops of vignette (+45 to correct). Neither metric is bad at all, which is good, as obviously lenses without electronics like this won’t get any kind of in camera corrections.
Not so good, however, is color fringing, particularly in high contrast situations. This is not a lens that will always hold up well when there are brighter lights in the frame. You’ll also see some color fringing before and after the plan of focus, and a general spherical aberrations that softens contrast (what we often euphemistically call “dreamy rendering”).
Other shots in lower contrast situations look better.
Stopping down a bit helps with the fringing in most situations.
Control of Lateral CA was pretty much perfect. The transition from black to white is flawless near the edge of the frame.
We can clearly guess that at large apertures, this is not going to be a very sharp lens, particularly when we consider that I am testing on a much higher resolution point than any classic lens had to deal with. All of my chart tests are shot on the 61MP Sony a7RV sensor with crops shown at roughly 200% magnification. Here’s a look at the test chart, which looks a bit like it is warping due to the unique optical signature of this lens.
And here are the F1.5 crops from across the frame:
There’s actually a decent amount of detail in the center of the frame, but you can also see that some fringing is reducing contrast, giving the textures a bit of a “bloom” to them. The midframe and corners are softer still, but it is mostly due to having very low contrast.
That’s all part of the unique look of the lens, however.
I did note some of the typical quirks with metering as I stopped the lens down for my test chart results. I found that I needed to bias results sometimes to keep metering accurate. As I got into the smaller apertures, it was not unusual to get underexposed results like below if I didn’t.
Stopping down to F2 will increase contrast a bit and eliminate a lot of the fringing. You can see that the whole image looks cleaner and brighter.
If we look in the center of the frame, we can see that the resolution and contrast have picked up considerably. It’s like a whole new lens.
The corners are a different story, however, as, while they are brighter, then look like they are in a fog and the sun is just starting to come out a bit!
Corners never get pin sharp, though they are pretty decent by F5.6:
Landscape apertures of F4-F8 look pretty good other than the extreme edges of the frame.
As expected on a high resolution body, diffraction will hit after F8, softening the image a bit at F11 and more so at F16, which is minimum aperture.
So sharpness and contrast will vary dependent on the aperture you choose, which does give you some flexibility with the kinds of images that you can create with the lens.
But if you are buying this lens for sharpness, you’ve missed the point. This is a lens that is more about what’s out of focus than what is in focus. So let’s talk about that bokeh. First of all, the lens is very capable of producing soft, creamy bokeh. Here’s a look at a scene where I’ve pulled focus back to minimum so everything is out of focus.
There’s actually a specific difference where the swirl is most pronounced. That will be shooting at F1.5 and a medium distance of about two meters.
If I focus further, we can see that there is relatively little swirl effect, so it really only works with the background, not the foreground.
On a practical level, this effect works best when there is something on either side of the subject to serve as the bokeh subject. Putting your subject near the center of the frame works better than composing in the rule of thirds zone, as the plane of sharpness is mostly located in the center of the frame and you can get better subject separation. I put my subject in the rule of thirds for this shot, but it doesn’t work as well.
The effect will be more pronounced with a larger sensor. Medium format users will see the biggest effect, while APS-C cameras will crop off a lot of the swirly look. You can obviously get a fair bit of the effect on full frame as well (as shown in this review).
Stop down a bit, and you can get a more conventional image, like this:
Likewise for landscape shots. Shooting at F5.6 or F8 makes for a pretty conventional looking image.
Flare results are going to be situational. In certain positions there’s a general veiling over a shot, like this:
At wider apertures you may see a ghosting artifact like this:
At its best, you can get some fairly artistic effects that really go along with the vintage charm of the lens.
I would say the results are generally better than some of the vintage glass I’ve used, but not as corrected as a modern lens with effective coatings.
I would say that color is good in most situations. Here, for example, it looks great:
It’s also great here.
But if you are shooting high contrast scenes at large apertures, the general lack of contrast can make colors look a little dull.
I would say that this is both part of the charm and the liability of a lens with vintage sensibilities. Use the TTArtisan 75mm F1.5 “Swirl” to its strengths, and you can get much more interesting images than a conventional lens. Use it poorly, and you’ll just get low contrast, mushy images that neither you or your audience will enjoy. You can see more images by visiting the lens image gallery here.
Conclusion
I’ve definitely intentionally sought out some of the “swirl” lenses myself in the past. It is great to see TTArtisan bringing back some of these fun and interesting optics to a modern audience in the TTArtisan 75mm F1.5.
This lens has to be evaluated with a different set of criteria than my typical lens review, because by definition this swirl lens in embracing certain optical flaws that make for visually interesting results.
Yes, you can get conventional looking results with this lens at small apertures, but that’s not really the reason to buy it.
The real reason to buy this lens is to fully embrace the swirly flaws and to shoot the kinds of images you’ll never get with almost all modern lenses. And with a price tag of just $270 USD, you don’t have to break the bank to get it. Just remember to pick up a cheap adapter for your preferred mount if you don’t already have one!
Pros:
The swirl!
Nicely built lens
Well executed focus and aperture rings
Low distortion
Bright aperture
Good sharpness when stopped down
Nice color in some situations
Unique and special rendering
Much cheaper than trying to find a vintage lens that does the same thing
Keywords: TTArtisan, 75mm, F1.5, swirl, swirly bokeh, TTArtisan 75mm review, M42, Sony Alpha 1, Sony a7RV, Fuji, Nikon, Canon, Review, mirrorless, Full Frame, Sports, Tracking, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Handling, Focus, Portraits, Resolution, High ISO, Image Quality, Sample Images, Photography, 61MP, #letthelightin, #DA, #Alpha1, #A7RV
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
2024 has been the year that TTArtisan has embraced producing autofocus lenses, and I had many good things to say about their 35mm F1.8 (my review here) and 56mm F1.8 lenses (my review here). But those were APS-C lenses, which are slightly easier to engineer than lenses for larger sensors. But TTArtisan is back with their first full frame autofocus lens – the TTArtisan AF 75mm F2. Have they been able to successfully level up as a lens maker once again? Find out by watching my video review, reading the text review, or just enjoying the photos below.
Thanks to TTArtisan for sending me a review copy of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. All opinions and conclusions are my own. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the Sony a7RV along with the Sony Alpha 1 that serve as my benchmark cameras for Sony E-mount lenses.
There really aren’t a lot of full frame 75mm options. We’ve seen some recent 75mm APS-C lenses (like the Viltrox Pro and Sirui Sniper 75mm F1.2), but the primary alternative to this new TTArtisan 75mm remains the Samyang AF 75mm F1.8 that I reviewed in 2020. And while I ended up gifting my copy to a nephew, I do have the Samyang V-AF 75mm T1.9 lens that has the same optical formula on hand. One area where TTArtisan is going to fair very well in this comparison is on price, as the Samyang AF lens retails for $350 while the V-AF version is a much more expensive $650 USD. The TTArtisan lens will debut at just $178, so nearly half the price of the Samyang version. While I think there are a few areas where the Samyang has some advantage, the same is true for TTArtisan’s new 75mm F2, which is very capable of producing beautiful images on your full frame camera.
It can of course be used on APS-C cameras as well, where it will give a 112.5mm full frame equivalent framing – very nice for slightly tighter framed portraits. I found that handy in an event setting to get a little more reach.
This is also the first of TTArtisan’s autofocusing lenses to receive an aperture ring, so it is great to see them moving forward in their development towards more feature-rich lenses while also keeping an eye on pricing.
Investing in a full frame mirrorless camera (this lens will be available not only on Sony but also Nikon Z-mount) can be very expensive, so the idea of getting a solid prime lens for under $200 is very intriguing. Let’s break things down in detail…
Keywords: TTArtisan, AF, Autofocus, 75mm, F2, TTArtisan AF 75mm F2, Sony, a7RV, a7IV, a7C, Alpha 1, Review, Telephoto, Action, Tracking, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Full Frame, let the light in, #letthelightin, DA
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
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