TTArtisans 23mm f/1.4

[MountainMan79]

So I just received the brand new lens today, and am testing it around the house.

Here are my first impressions and thoughts, in no particular order-

• Great build quality
• Looks fantastic
• Focus is smooth and enjoyable to use
• Aperture ring is nice, but oddly stepped and skips over things like f11 and f13, and it’s easy to be unsure where you’re at, as there isn’t a little dot to indicate
• A little heavier than I thought it would be. Not a bad thing.
• The metal lens cap will be put back in the box, never to return to the lens for 3 reasons -
  • It’ll fall off and I’ll lose it
  • It says APSC on it, which would otherwise be fine for any of the other mounts it’s available in, but kind of dumb on m4/3
  • I obsessively attach protective filters to my lenses. Once I attached a filter, the lens cap no longer slides on.
• The filter size is 43mm. How weird. It took a little hunting to find the filter, and now it’ll take a little hunting to find a plastic center pinch lens cap
• Pictures wide open are a little soft, even in the center when wide open. To be expected. The bokeh is quite pleasant. EDIT- This will require more careful work. Focus peaking alone can’t be trusted, and magnifying the area for critical focus will result in a sharper photo. More to come on softness/sharpness.
• Stopped down it appears quite nice
• The close focus is about 8”. Not bad.
• At $93 shipped on eBay, this is great bang for the buck.

Overall, I think I’ll enjoy this lens, and I’ll continue to add pictures and thoughts here. Feel free to post yours.

Here’s how it looks on the Pen F. I got the silver version. There is also a black version available.

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Here are some wide open samples. SOOC with no sort of Pen F filters applied.

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And at f4

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Hope this helps somebody!

 

[MountainMan79]

It does appear that they shouldn’t let the factory workers shave their beards while assembling the lenses however, as it looks like there are 8-10 stubs of hair inside when held up to a strong light. I’m not going to complain...doesn’t appear to have any adverse effects closed all the way down...but poor quality control on the assembly floor. Certainly not a clean environment. Makes me wonder if on a $400-600 Leica or GFX TTArtisan one would see the same?

 

[Iron]

Thanks for posting @MountainMan79. I'm actually interested in this after seeing it on Rob Trek's channel. Is the distance scale accurate? I had to re-scale/reprint a distance scale on my other cheap lens because they didn't bother checking the accuracy. I use zone-focusing a lot with manual lenses hence, the need for the accurate scale.

It says APSC on it, which would otherwise be fine for any of the other mounts it’s available in, but kind of dumb on m4/3

True. It's not going to cost them that much to do so, but they had to do it for, you know, profit's sake.

as it looks like there are 8-10 stubs of hair inside when held up to a strong light

I am not sure if I will be OK with that unless it's MY hair.

 

[MountainMan79]

Thanks for posting @MountainMan79. I'm actually interested in this after seeing it on Rob Trek's channel. Is the distance scale accurate? I had to re-scale/reprint a distance scale on my other cheap lens because they didn't bother checking the accuracy. I use zone-focusing a lot with manual lenses hence, the need for the accurate scale.


True. It's not going to cost them that much to do so, but they had to do it for, you know, profit's sake.


I am not sure if I will be OK with that unless it's MY hair.

Not 100% sure yet on the focus distance markings, but I was actually examining that. It appears to be pretty close. I wasn’t terribly surprised to see the main distance markings to be mostly correct, but more surprised that it also appears the hyper focal distance/f stop markings may actually also be correct. I would’ve bet money they were a carry over from another mount and must surely be different, but again, it appears pretty close so far.

 

[MountainMan79]

Some unscientific continued play today doing a “bookshelf” test reveals -

• Corners are soft wide open. Center is acceptable(ish)
• No real loss of contrast or color wide open, at least in good lighting
• At f2 it becomes better, although on my copy the bottom right is softer than any other corner, and is still very soft
• At f2.8 it is acceptably sharp in all corners except the bottom right
• At f4 it is tack sharp across the frame
• Remains just as sharp at f8

In other testing -

• 10 point sun stars are relatively sharp and attractive
• Flares a bit in extreme lighting with some rainbow effects
• Bokeh balls remain rounded at any aperture, very nice
• Only mild cats eye on bokeh balls in the corner, but still very pleasing

When I have more controlled results, I’ll post them up

 

[MountainMan79]

Ok. Threw on a joby tripod and set a 2 second delay. Interpret results as you will.

I focused on the bottom right corner (as I thought my lens suffered there) using peaking and magnification. The bottom left is now soft. Although I was square with the bookshelf, there is about a 2” difference in how the books sit depth wise, so that’s probably all that was...no corner was necessarily worse than another. But again, up to your own interpretation....

F1.4

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F2

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F2.8

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F4

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F8

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[agentlossing]

I don't have a lot of experience with decentered lenses but that is what seems to be going on to me. Which would scarcely be surprising from the price point. It's relatively minor though, I have always viewed soft corners a little like vignetting, not the worst "vintage" effect, you just have to frame to use it to your advantage.

 

[MountainMan79]

I don't have a lot of experience with decentered lenses but that is what seems to be going on to me. Which would scarcely be surprising from the price point. It's relatively minor though, I have always viewed soft corners a little like vignetting, not the worst "vintage" effect, you just have to frame to use it to your advantage.

Maybe. Maybe it’s all the beard hair inside. Who knows such things?

Overall I’m happy with it, and it’s not going back. It’s a joy to handle and the OOF areas are honestly lovely. Compared to most adapted vintage lenses that will cost about the same or more, this may actually be a bit better, even given the flaws. In this case I agree...the flaws aren’t serious, and add a bit of character. However, at f4, this lens strike me to be as good as any other I have. The focal length is great for me, and between this lens and some custom color profiles I’ve been experimenting with on the Pen, I think it’ll actually bring out some creativity in me.

 

[agentlossing]

Maybe. Maybe it’s all the beard hair inside. Who knows such things?

Overall I’m happy with it, and it’s not going back. It’s a joy to handle and the OOF areas are honestly lovely. Compared to most adapted vintage lenses that will cost about the same or more, this may actually be a bit better, even given the flaws. In this case I agree...the flaws aren’t serious, and add a bit of character. However, at f4, this lens strike me to be as good as any other I have. The focal length is great for me, and between this lens and some custom color profiles I’ve been experimenting with on the Pen, I think it’ll actually bring out some creativity in me.

That's good news. If the distance scale and hyperfocal scale points continue to be more or less accurate, I think I will probably end up getting one and trying to recreate what I do with my M-mount Voigtlander and 35/2.5 Skopar. I nearly always zone focus with that.

 

[MountainMan79]

That's good news. If the distance scale and hyperfocal scale points continue to be more or less accurate, I think I will probably end up getting one and trying to recreate what I do with my M-mount Voigtlander and 35/2.5 Skopar. I nearly always zone focus with that.

I did some more tests here as well, albeit just with a tape measure on the floor, and pretty unscientific as well. It appears the distance scale is pretty nuts-on. Seems to be correct to within an inch or so I’d say, and that could just very well be the +/- margin of error I need for my janky experiment. However, the hyperfocal zone focusing scale does actually appear to be less accurate than originally assumed. Perhaps by a factor of 50% in either direction. My feeling is it would be pretty much right on an apsc sensor, but the scale hasn’t been adjusted to m4/3. Although they’re always handy when they work, this lens will need peaking and magnifying for critical focusing. The distance scale can be relied on, but be wary of the hyperfocal scale.

 

[donbga]

cheap lens because they didn't bother checking the accuracy. I use zone-focusing a lot with manual lenses hence, the need for the accurate scale.

Even on more expensive lens like manual focus canon, nikon, leica and so forth I slow down and use zone focus.

 

[agentlossing]

I got one of these little fellows today - a birthday present! Hurray me. I have to say, it isn't bad IQ at all. f1.4 is not sharp, but this is at f2 already. Focus is on the plant and flowers at the top of the shelf.

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And a LR processed version to taste with a bump in light and color, and some sharpening (no noise reduction, letting the grain fall where it may). Oh, and the purple fringing edited out.

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Camera JPEG:

And the edit:

The distance scale on mine seems nearly accurate, just a few inches off indoors at between 1 and 2 meters. That's not bad, but the distance between 2 and 5 meters is almost non-existent, so bumping the focus ring can make a big difference. I'll have to do some outdoor tests soon!

 

[MountainMan79]

I got one of these little fellows today - a birthday present! Hurray me. I have to say, it isn't bad IQ at all. f1.4 is not sharp, but this is at f2 already. Focus is on the plant and flowers at the top of the shelf.

View attachment 292457

And a LR processed version to taste with a bump in light and color, and some sharpening (no noise reduction, letting the grain fall where it may). Oh, and the purple fringing edited out.

View attachment 292458

Camera JPEG:

View attachment 292459

And the edit:

View attachment 292460

The distance scale on mine seems nearly accurate, just a few inches off indoors at between 1 and 2 meters. That's not bad, but the distance between 2 and 5 meters is almost non-existent, so bumping the focus ring can make a big difference. I'll have to do some outdoor tests soon!

Does yours have beard hair in it, or do I have a special edition?

 

[agentlossing]

Does yours have beard hair in it, or do I have a special edition?

I haven't seen any! Though I do have a beard, so I might suspect my own being the culprit if I find one later.

 

[agentlossing]

I'm really impressed with the results from this lens. This was at f5.6, about 2m focus on the focus scale. The EM5ii was set to auto WB and natural JPEG color mode; the lens seems to put out pretty warm images in sunlight. I like it.

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[agentlossing]

I am really glad I spent some more time with this lens, because I continue to be blown away with how good the colors look, when the light is right. I shoot close to wide open whenever possible (easier with the 1/8000 max of the EM5II) and in the "natural" JPEG mode on the Olympus. And I just love these files.

Overcast evening:

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Directional sunlight:

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And a bit of evening almost-sunlight, seriously this looks so much like film to me:

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I must say I quite like this inexpensive little(ish) lens.

 

[MountainMan79]

Believe it or not, today was my first real outing with the thing since I bought it.

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[MountainMan79]

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[MountainMan79]

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[MountainMan79]

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