TTArtisan 50mm f/1.4 TILT lens review with samples

[@jonqphotography2016]

I think sharpness doesn't matter much to me when it comes to this kind of lense. This is a kind of lense you have fun you with, or get creative with. For the price, I wouldn't mind buying this at all and just have fun, or maybe, just maybe, make some money shooting some vintage looking portraits 😁 but as always, really enjoy your reviews!

[@ethannarrow5209]

Completely agree!

[@jamesbrown4107]

think these lens are for stitching panoramas etc

[@ralph95vip]

I might have a slightly different take. I think center sharpness is ok wide open or sharp enough at f2. There are worse 50mm lens out there. And if you are using the lens properly, as in tilting the lens. You should not care much about corner sharpness as it's going to get blurred out, like always, because the shift in focal plane. Definitely low opportunity cost for such a low cost. Worth every penny to try it in my opinion. I just wish it's a tilt shift with a shift option as well

[@fandyus4125]

Well, if it could shift then it would A) not do much at such a "long" focal length and B) would be way harder to design because the image circle would have to be ginormous and getting that well corrected at f/1.4 would probably be fit for a lens that costs at least a grand, even with how well the chinese price their gear. This way all they had to do was design a dirt cheap f/1.4 and stick it on a tilting mechanism. It's kind of a shame they went with such a bright optical design. If they shrunk it down to say f/2 or f/2.8, I imagine they could have corrected it way better at this price. But the blur would be lesser I guess.

[@seth094978]

I would want to use it for getting more of the frame in focus, not less, so I'm glad he covered those drawbacks.

[@The_CGA]

@@seth094978 exactly, for commercial and product photography(more) in focus is the raison for tilt lenses

[@itstakenby]

i think i should test and use this lenses

[@Kukainis]

why would you even want your pictures blurred out ? Bokeh is not cool. 😅 In focus is where it's at.

[@jewknee7870]

It is very nice to see TTartisan trying more stuffs. Also, I was told that this lens will come to Fuji X system, so it would be interesting to see how it performs on APS-C

[@pizzablender]

I'd get a Chinese tilt lens adapter. For example a Pentax K to EF and an EF to Sony tilt adapter. Of an M42 mount adapter. You can get better lenses, and have a choice of FLs.

[@Drunken_Hamster]

Given the crop factor, it'd be like a 75mm, so... They should make a shorter focal distance version first/in addition to doing that.

[@LucasHalastra]

Well, im thinking about using it in product / architecture photography. Im steping down to f8 - f11 anyways so o think it should work just fine. Thank you for great and honest review as usual

[@fellowcitizen]

Thanks for reviewing this lens. I already have some perfect lenses, but don't have tilt or shift lenses, so I'm considering this.

[@pobutscrackerbox]

These lens reviews are quite valuable (and I've used the knowledge gained to find gems and avoid turds). This lens has an attraction for those of us who only occaisionally need tilt for special shots. In video making, filming a line of subjects from the near to far is one such case. This would be an ideal lens for that application and, for $200, an easy purchase, especially considering how much a Canon EF tilt lens costs (even used). I think this will be an F4 or smaller aperture lens for me but I'll take the softness to get the shot. Thank you, Chris.

[@SyntheticFuture]

F2.8 look very usable for most applications aside from cropping to a corner or really large scale prints. I wonder how much bokeh you got left at 5.6 at medium range but let's be honest: tilt shift is more often used for architecture and product shots where you have all the time to take your picture and high shutter speeds are rarely a must. It's definitely on my "in consideration" list for product photography 👍🏻

[@caleidoo]

We must assume that the coverage of the 50mm is larger than a normal 50mm? Otherwise you would have vignetting on fullframe. Maybe that explains the lack of sharpness. I wish there was a way to dismantle this lens, and use the TILT part for other mounts, like Pentax 645 or bigger. Shame the glass in this one is a bit low quality. But the price is right, of course.

[@russell2165]

thank you for all your reviews, Christopher. they're very helpful. however there's one thing that i wonder about a little.. you often say, "build quality you would expect from a cheap chinese lens"... that line would make one expect a cheap, light, disposable, plastic object, with bad fit and finish. but these lenses are mostly metal, with very decent heft, and pretty smooth rings . their build punches well above their price point. i think they are well built 'despite' being cheap lenses.

[@videosuperhighway7655]

Looks like a good deal for 199 bucks for a tilt/shift lens made out metal.

[@boblebricoleur6575]

Excellent review, very constructive and you gave me all the element I needed to make a choice. Nice video from France !

[@skyshay001]

Hey Chris, can you review the SLR magic 35mm f1.2 cine lens? I'm interested in how such a bright aperture lens that's cheaply designed for video will par against those of the photography side. Thanks!

[@PolioVitruvius]

Might be interesting reverse mounted at f8 for macro photography with tilt ability.

[@Axonteer]

i find it wild that you can create a... plane of focus wich has a central plane line that goes into the image sort of... (i lack the words to describe it properly). I know its just optics aka physics but still i find this a very cool application

[@Drunken_Hamster]

What are you considering 'tilted along' vs 'tilted against'? Is it the sensor pointing more "along" or "against" the subject, or is the lens being pointed more "along" or "against" the subject? Seems like the lense would always have to be pointed at the focal point for correct framing, which means it's the former, but I'd like confirmation from you, first.

[@jonathanMallard]

I am considering this lens for really elevating my church photography.

[@Illuminationsfromtheattic]

I'm waiting for the tilt/shift lenses Nikon is working on for Z mount.

[@dieterjanssen]

Can you elaborate on the mount - the lens is labelled as an L-mount but doesn't appear to fit the e-mount as listed on their website. What's the trick?

[@GrizDrummer25]

Can always count on Frost for a good review! ...that is, a proper review, as you clearly hate this lens and are biting your tongue, lol! Definitely an artistic vision lens, and not trying to be a high-performer 50mm. The photo of the vase in the middle made me wish I still had my previous job, as that tilt does make some great product photography! I appreciate you putting it through your normal testing to show where it shines and where you maybe shouldn't use it. For 170 USD on eBay, it's not a bad lens just to dink around with :)

[@normstewart546]

Very valuable detailed analysis and frank assessment.

[@bobceffo]

I reminds me of my Helios with inverted element. I guess it is quite peculiar, and useful for artist porpuses. Maybe it could find a place in my bag. Thanks for sharing

[@momentsbyron]

Well .. I watch your review on the Nikon tilt shift 19mm f4 lens which cost about $3k with your z7 and also hv somewhat similar issues - maybe it's just part of the limitations (as you mentioned) when using this tipe of specialty lens, at least the ttartisan is kinder to the wallet.

[@sclogse1]

The enhanced depth of field you can obtain might even work for animators doing table work.

[@MarshallBananar]

Huh, would be interested to see that mounted on a GFX camera, it would probably be quite useable given the larger image circle

[@fandyus4125]

Tilting does not require a large image circle. Shifting does. I believe this has a normal image circle.

[@MarshallBananar]

From my understanding (I don't have much experience with tilt shift lenses, more with large format film plane movements) tilting requires less of an extension of the image circle, but still some, and we don't need much more than full frame to fill a GFX sensor, so there should still be an improvement And it'd be very fun to play with given the large aperture

[@pizzablender]

It is barely enough for the tilt on FF.

[@ADNZ5442]

Is it Normal for banding on Sony A7IV with lights. My Lumix can go very high without banding on Shutter speed

[@Ni5ei]

Weird they don't give you the option to rotate the lens 90 degrees both ways.

[@asahelmartinez7508]

¡Hola Christopher me encantaría que probarás la lente Meike 50mm f0.95!

[@MattTrevett]

The vignetting was straight up just seeing the edge of the lens body especially due to til. Interesting.

[@joseacarrasm]

Great review as always!

[@mengshun]

Thank you for calling a spade a spade. Take care, Christopher!

[@NashCityRob]

Between this and the Astrhori 50mm 1.4 tilt. Which would you consider? Both are the cheap end of Tilt lenses, and I'm going to use it for artsy stuff. Just curious which to play with.

[@mhs6305]

Would you recommend it for product photography? Btw thanks for sharing.

[@HamdaniFaizan]

Is it available for canon rf

[@Celestialrob]

I love your reviews, but applying your template to a very specialist lens seems like a wast of time as i would never use it as a "normal lens". It's a creative / specialist lens.

[@jcblum1507]

Nice lens for creative photos

[@teegee8807]

Why did you not test its tilting abilities and the results from that? That would have been more appropriate.

[@DrJohnWatson8]

I bought it for fun, it’s great lol I would pay more for fewer flaws but I can buy a used canon or Nikon tilt shift in that case

[@Twobarpsi]

You're going to buy it for the tilt. To judge it negatively in any other way is a bit unfair. You nailed this review, well said!

[@thinkingape7655]

Tilting lenses are nothing new, but this one looks interesting indeed. I’ll be looking forward to the release.

[@lazylazyshark]

what are you expecting from a < $200 lens.. keeping optical expectations low and getting creative might help

[@paulreading8980]

Disappointed that you didn’t photograph any buildings and show the distortion correction and if it was usable for this purpose.

[@MattTrevett]

This lens very starkly demonstrates a green vs. magenta side in every photo, especially in the longitudinal CA test (book photos). It would take at least one mask in Lightroom to remove since you could eliminate the green on the whole image then pull a gradient across the other side to remove the magenta. Or just live with it, if it fits the style.

[@airdailyx]

TT going clickless on the aperture ring is a dealbreaker especially with the amount of focus breathing this lens exhibits. secondly creating the focus effect in post is pretty easy these days so I dont really see much practical use in a 50mm lens like this apart from the fact that it looks really cool. Still though, I appreciate TTArtisan branching out and innovating these concepts no one else is doing.

[@exkeks]

You can’t create the „tilt along the subject“ effect in post. And I‘m very thankful to Christopher to have shown a lens usage beyond cliché in this video.

[@johnhufnagel]

some prefer to do it in-camera, not "fix it in the mix." and this sorely needs to come in a K-mount.

[@TanmayHSingh-mj1ne]

Can we have the sharpest lens? Top 10? Please.

[@Twobarpsi]

For Canon it would include: Canon EF 50mm 1.8L, Sigma 18-35mm 1.8, and Canon 70-200 2.8L III

[@pizzablender]

He's done that in the past.

[@Alchimaera]

Think I'll stick with my Lensbaby Edge 50, not as wide but much better image quality imo

[@jgharding2]

Essentially, it’s an f2.8 lens for usable quality

[@StefanoCostantinoCoccia]

love when you say "ouch" ahaha

[@lewcehjitl3282]

Cool!

[@PavlosPapageorgiou]

Interesting!

[@endrocahyo15]

What a wonder

[@jothkell9173]

The clickless aperture is a cinema thing

[@TravelwithJom2003]

Maybe I can do that on my phone just use some app to blur it

[@fandyus4125]

Well, this has way worse quality than even my vintage Porst 55mm f/1.4. But at least it gets the job done at f/4-5.6 and hey, you get tilting. It might not be that good optically but I applaud TTartisan for being somewhat innovative at least.

[@alexmilesg3]

I usually like your reviews, but in this case I must admit the best review is below: kzbin.info/www/bejne/j2PTfKpnm9Nja5Y With such a specialty lens nothing speaks more than real world examples of what one can do with it.

[@davidm5790]

People like Jared polin and ken Rockwell are so obnoxiously xenophobic and prejudiced against Chinese lens manufacturers, meanwhile they continue to push the market forward much more than the big three have in recent times

[@ashleyarchitect]

How is putting a poor quality pre-digital era (contactless) lens on a flimsy tilt mechanism pushing the market forwards? My impression of the fairly similar products being turned out is more like a race to the bottom. I might exempt Laowa from this generalisation.

[@dominiclester3232]

@@ashleyarchitectWell Chris summed it up well...poor quality below f5.6 but making a Tilt lens with such a wide aperture is brave and hopefully newer versions will do better.

[@ashleyarchitect]

@@dominiclester3232 I guess we are looking at different ends of the market... recent brilliant innovations by the "big 3" include: Nikon's lightweight and relatively inexpensive 800 PF, and 400+600 with built-in TCs Canon's compact and lightweight pro 70-200, and f2 28-70 Sony's excellent PZ lenses for vlogging And Tamron, while not (yet) big 3, made huge waves with their 35-150 f2-2.8 among others Anyway, I do agree that Chris fairly and brilliantly covers all corners of the industry - thank you Christopher!!!

[@Someone-dl7it]

​@@ashleyarchitect instead of jumping to conclusion how bout you check out other offerings by these allegedly "poor quality manufactures"

[@ashleyarchitect]

@@Someone-dl7it , oh how I would like to try them out! Sadly, I am a rather lazy (and maybe lousy) photographer who happens to really like mid-late 20th century innovations like auto aperture, zoom lenses and auto focus, as well as 21st century ones like stabilisation and in-camera CA and vignetting corrections using lens profiles...so unfortunately there's nothing yet on offer from these makers I've seen that appeals to me. But since they are "driving the market forwards" at such pace I'm sure these features will be appearing in their products soon! I'm in the market for a constant f2.8 standard zoom and a 300mm f4.0 prime in the next few years, and will definitely check out what's on offer from all 3rd parties with all those features I rely on to make my mediocre shots look OK :)

[@simmybear31]

You could buy it for £250 and enjoy it OR you could just dream of never being able to afford a £2,500 Canon shift lens

[@nitten13]

Well said.

[@Scheistermeister]

Garbage lens. Received mine yesterday, took 5 pictures and a screw fell out of the lens and scratched the IR filter on top of my sensor in my camera.

[@genem9725]

A gimmick

[@powerlurker]

gimmick toy ，i would say

[@carlosandreviana9448]

Disappointing quality. And unusable for architecture because it is not wide. Probably the worst lens released by ttartisan

[@מיכאלקונטרוביץ]

The worst 50 mm lens I have ever seen

[@alchemist_x79]

Wow, this lens is trash. What a shame.