TTArtisan 21mm f1.4: Why This is the Worst Lens I Have Ever Tested

[@SimeonKolev]

3:35 moire has nothing to do with the lens and is actually a sign that the lens is sharp. So ... not a con.

[@joshhyyym]

3:39 Moire just indicates that the lens is sharp. This is not a negative feature of the lens, it just means it can accurately transmit high spatial frequencies to the sensor.

[@turo9992000]

Also, that it sucks.

[@joshhyyym]

@@turo9992000 How does it mean that it sucks? Any good lens should produce Moire. Typically, Moire is filtered out with a camera's anti aliasing filter, but this is often removed in high resolution cameras. This is not a negative property of the lens. A Summicron (or whatever) should produce the same Moire patterns under the same conditions.

[@AndreasKingMedia]

From what I've seen from TT artisan, I wouldn't go up the range this far in price. The real magic stuff from them is around the $100-$200 range where you can get pretty solid performance for a crazy low price. I have the 25mm F2 lens and while there's definitely a solid list of cons (Especially some edge softness and vignetting at the lower apertures), for $70 Canadian, it's given me a ton of great photos in a very compact and solid feeling body, for a fraction of the price that I would pay even from a more budget conscious company like Sigma for a similar focal length.

[@olivertrees]

i will say, their build quality is absolutely great for their price ranges. Was recently using the 11mm F2.8 for L mount, and it is GORGEOUS

[@__Lento__]

love my 25/2! but at this price range i’d probably just get something better used.

[@kevinslaney486]

Completely wrong in my oppinion. If your using full frame., they are Wonderful quality for the price. The 21mm is magic on full frame (for it's price. My copy anyway}. I would advise Matt Osborne aka Mr Leica, a serious pro who is very honest and a major Leica user, but not a Leica snob He reviews many cheaper lenses. The 50mm f0.95 is magic for the price also. I have heard good things about the 50mm f1.1 also. I guess if you want the super sharp, clinical, flat and dare I say boring look, then Sony, Nikon et al all have them in spades. I mean no harm to this reviewer but his actual photo examples are pretty dull in themselves

[@TungstenOvergaard]

For @markwiemels that would be “The lens that changed everything”, or “Lens changer” or “Best ever manual focus for the price”, or “The lens that should cost 4.000$ more”.

[@villegas24]

I see the value in cheap Chinese lenses but that guy is just ridiculous with his click bait.

[@npdady]

He will never say the lens' name until halfway through the video, if ever. Lol.

[@LittleWhole]

I doubt he would review a TTArtisan lens at this price range. The magic of TTArtisan lenses is their extreme budget manual focus lenses with absolutely insane performance for the price.

[@TungstenOvergaard]

@@villegas24 completely agree.

[@katanaboy4]

Feels surreal to see the photos of Culver City where I work, from someone who lives in Vancouver, where I only just moved from a year ago! Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the lens, Brandon. :)

[@Ivwin]

rough.. cons are huge issue for me... ty for the review

[@FryedWater]

I'm not into photography past my phone camera but I still love the art and dedication you put in your videos. Might pickup a dedicated camera one day soon to add to my list of hobbies 😊.

[@jamescaldwell5]

I just picked up the Ttartisans 90 f1.25, and I love it! Definitely dreamy. Incredible subject isolation while shooting portraits. Sounds like you’ll never get much background bokeh with such a wide angle lens, probably better to shoot for overall sharpness with a smaller aperture.

[@HxHStudios]

As you mentioned, worst is subjective, and I actually found I kinda liked the softness!

[@trustmeimareporter]

I've been a photojournalist for the past 31 years, and I really like this lens. A bit front-heavy on my Leica M9s, better balanced on my Lumix S5 (using helicoid adapter). Sharper than my Super-Angulon 21mm f3.4, which was always soft unless you stopped it down. I agree that the lens hoods for the TTArtisan 21mm are almost useless. I tend to use this lens with the subject in the foreground, so I don't need edge-to-edge sharpness. It's also built like a tank.

[@shueibdahir]

It seems like this is not just an issue with sharpness. This seems to have more to do with lack of contrast in the low and mid frequencies of the image affecting the overall perceived sharpness.

[@kawawete]

Do you use any Canon FD lenses ? I personally love them : cheap and sharp (if in good condition ofc)

[@brandonylee]

Yeah I have a 20mm and 35-105mm they are excellent. FDs are definitely up there for best budget vintage glass.

[@Invincibleagent]

Isn't it generally a bad idea to adapt this kind of full frame lens to cameras with smaller sensors (e.g. the APS-C sensor on the Fuji)? It just shows their flaws much more because of the crop factor and the high pixel density

[@HolybasilYT]

Not really. The weakness of lenses are usually up close and at the edge of the frame. On a crop sensor you eliminate the edge of the frame's periphery and since you zoom in further because of the crop you generally don't have as many close focus encounters.

[@noenken]

@@HolybasilYT That can be true for other lenses. But in this case the lens is just not sharp at the extreme apertures and that does absolutely get worse with smaller sensors aka higher magnification on the same output format.

[@Invincibleagent]

@@HolybasilYT You should watch some of the Christopher Frost lens reviews of third party full-frame E-mount lenses where he tries them on both FF and APS-C - some of them look OK on FF and terrible on APS-C, even in the middle. More fringing, worse contrast etc.

[@rbonacic]

I have this lens and my pics aren't as soft even at 1.5, could be a bad copy

[@natehaiden]

Serious question, why would you ever shoot scenes from far away at f1.5???? And why would you expect things to be nicely In focus? Am I missing something?

[@brandonylee]

The three situations I would personally do this are: 1. When I do not have a tripod and it's quite dark out 2. When you have a lot of foreground you want to throw it out of focus 3. You want the image to be soft intentionally Otherwise, I agree that if you focus that far away with enough light use a deeper stop.

[@8lec_R]

Pls try the kamlan 21mm f1.8 It's fantastic and cheap (75 bucks on ebay) Small, nice microcontrast and nicely sharp. Also close focus is great.

[@hfsyu]

have u tried 21mm lux?

[@geoffreybassett6741]

Give the Leica 21mm F2 APO a try, it is absolutely incredible.

[@Dave-zz9fk]

Umm, I feel bad, I really liked the wide open images. Wait, is that why I am so rubbish at taking photos? Should I just sell my camera and stick to iPhone?

[@HxHStudios]

The video and photography in this video were so good !! Props for that. 5:00 was especially amazing xd Also thanks for giving a balanced review to other elements of the lens despite the obvious cons, I might pick one up since F4 as the closest price competitor is a bit too small...

[@brandonylee]

I appreciate the comment! If you do pick one up report back and lmk what you think!

[@OrangeBrick8]

Love these m mount lens reviews!

[@tZork7]

This Lens is like the voightlander heliar classic 1.5. They market that as being this way though. its very dreamy but a completely different lens about f4. I use it for mostly film photos as the grain counters the bloom, or when im doing portraits where the dreaminess is nice. Its also 50m. haha

[@strippedlist]

Did you use the focus chart??? to calibrate the lens????

[@brandonylee]

Didn't need to. It was correctly calibrated out of the box. I have had to do that process before though on a different lens, it's a bit tedious.

[@smalldeekgeorge]

Holly shit how sharp is that lens for that much moire to show up 😮

[@Bbarm97]

too picky imho. for being a 1.5 its really good. so if you test a summilux steel rim it would be the worst lens you have tested too or because it costs 3-4k its now good?

[@Ybalrid]

Okay okay, you konw what would look cool though about pictures at night wide open with this soft mess of a lens? Shooting some 800T film (Vison 3 500D cinema film with the remjet removed, and cross processed in C41 chemistry instead of ECN-2) This has very strong red halation that will play very good with these bloomy lights, and this sort of film mistreated like that is a bit grainier so the loss of sharpness is not such a disappointment. But putting this lens on a digital body and shooting it wide open sounds like a waste of time...

[@foxwithacamera]

moire isnt a sign of a bad lens, quite the opposite actually. and its not the lens that would need to fix it, but rather an optical low pass filter over the sensor

[@ZachAR3]

Few hundred dollar lens 5 thousand dollar camera lmfao. In all seriousness though, great review! It's nice to see more professional content about more budget lenses so buyers know what they're getting.

[@villegas24]

The cheap TT artisans and 7artisans are the best lenses I have tested for the price they go for

[@mscadenn]

seems like the 35mm f0.95. Pretty bad at 0.95 but improve a Lot in the 1.4 and above.

[@CircuitBoardcokr]

Some of photos looks like 50s or early 60s zeiss lens. How curious.

[@teodormaxim5033]

bro doesn't like the lens but still shoots the most banger street photos on this platform. jokes aside this was an interesting perspective! i've personally enjoyed the bloom at f1.5 but I do agree that I wish it would've been a little sharper. this dual "character" of the lens reminds me of some of the Voigtlander lenses, such as the Noktom 40mm f1.2, which is also bloomy wide open but sharpens up quickly starting from f2. Though the TTArtisan presented here seems to be too blurry wide open when it comes to detail, not bloom, especially in the corners, so in the end I do agree that this "uncorrected" feel may be too exaggerated. I also personally for some reason seem to enjoy in many cases this onion bokeh which receives a lot of hate online, so that wouldn't be a deal breaker for me. An optical flaw I don't enjoy and I'm not sure you've mentioned is chromatic abberation, which from your example photos seems quite pronounced - in comparison to the bokeh imperfections I'm never a fan of these abberations. As for the build quality, it is indeed quite a pity that the lens hoods don't fulfill the role a lens hood should fulfill, especially given that the lens is also not properly corrected for flare. I can also see the points about weight and size. great video, great photos! thank you for the presentation. left me with a lot of thoughts. have you by any chance reviewed that TTArtisan 50mm f0.95 which is an imitation of the famous Leica?

[@Calderonvideo]

Wait, wait, this is usually the norm, lenses wide open suck. Kids these days :v :v

[@noenken]

3:32 That is not the lens though.

[@VijaiShyam]

i mean, if you dont like it you can give it to me :)

[@slothsarecool]

I hate that they just blatantly copy Leica, at least have some creativity, but I guess that’s how Chinese manufacturers roll

[@lomelyo]

That would mean more if you reviewed cheap lenses. Something I don't think I've seen you do. Don't you own a Leica? Man I got into this channel for interesting reviews. Now you are copying Marques for clout. Please don't make this a trend.