With a slew of new lens manufacturers in the last few years, and by extension, many new lenses at attractive prices, it’s easy for some great glass to slip under the radar.
7artisans is one of a handful of new companies in the industry producing lenses that previously didn’t seem possible. For fast prime lenses with any camera manufacturer or well-known lens producers, you had to expect that your wallet was about to get significantly lighter. For years I would foam and froth over 85mm f/1.2 lenses for my Canon and Sony bodies, but never able to justify the sizable outlay to own one. Now, fast prime lenses are in high supply, at low costs.
As with all things, there’s a trade-off. First and foremost, these lenses tend to do away with autofocus systems to keep the price down. While disappointing, it’s completely understandable and if it opens up the opportunity for more photographers to get to play with fast glass, I’m all for it. Secondly, wide-open (which is largely the allure of these lenses with razor-thin focus) the lenses are usually pretty soft. However, if they’re fast enough, you have plenty of room to stop down and still get an extremely low depth of field. With the lens in this video, the 7artisans Photoelectric 50mm f/1.05 might be tricky to use in manual and a tad soft at f/1.05, but stopping down to f/1.2 or f/1.4 will likely resolve those problems and still be better than most lenses four times the price!
Have you used this 7artisans lens? What were your thoughts on it?