greetings again everyone and let's get
right into checking out a new lens from
china the tt artisan 23 millimeter f 1.4
at only 99 us dollars it's one of the
lowest priced f 1.4 camera lenses i've
ever tested and that focal length of 23
millimeter on the aps-c cameras the lens
is designed for is incredibly useful the
downsides are that this is a fully
manual lens manual focus and manual
aperture and its image circle only
covers an aps-c sensor here's what
you'll see if you shoot on full frame
the focal length is the full-frame
equivalent of 35 millimeter so it's a
moderately wide field of view but one
which still gets you just a little nice
emphasis on your subject the lens comes
in fuji x sony e micro four thirds canon
eos m and rf leica l and nikon z mount
mirrorless cameras just about everything
that's mirrorless and it comes in black
or black with silver i'd like to thank
tt artisan for sending one over to my
test lab for today's video but as usual
this is a totally independent review its
trends will not be overemphasized nor
its weaknesses ignored let's start by
looking at build quality considering the
lenses by temperature it's actually very
small and only weighs a little over 200
grams but it's made of metal so it does
feel really solid at the rear is the
manual focus ring it turns extremely
smoothly with just about enough
precision to make manual focusing
achievable without too much of an issue
the lens displays some clear focus
breathing as you can see here zooming in
noticeably as you focus more closely
just above the focus ring lies the
aperture control ring strangely it has a
very thin serrated grip which feels
uncomfortable to use the aperture stops
are not spaced out evenly but it does
have slight clicks to it to help you
feel where you are when shooting with a
camera which is one nice thing a
slightly odd design overall though the
lens comes with lens caps but no hood
its filter thread size is a very small
43 millimeters wide overall for a very
low budget manual focus optic the lens
feels pretty solid and for those with
the patience to manually focus it'll
work just fine that aperture ring is a
little awkward to use though
let's move on and take a look at image
quality then i'm testing it here on a
sony a5100 with its 24 megapixel aps-c
sensor straight from f 1.4 picture
quality in the middle of the image is
fairly sharp contrast is ok but we do
see purple fringing on contrasting edges
i'm going to do something unusual here
and show you the mid section which is
looking particularly soft as we look
further into the corners though the
image quality takes us on a bit of a
roller coaster ride going sharp again to
soft again right in the very edges it
didn't seem to be an issue of a warped
plane of focus in this case i did test
for that the sharpness is just pretty up
and down as you look away from the
middle which isn't particularly
desirable at f2 there is more brightness
sharpness and contrast in the corners
midsection still looks weak as you can
see
but now the middle looks absolutely
fantastic stop down to f 2.8 and the
middle is the same the mid section well
a little better and the corners just a
little better again except for the very
edges stop down to f4 and the mid
section and the corners become much
sharper and there are further
improvements at f 5.6 f 8 and f 11.
wow well those sure were some
interesting results so when it comes to
image sharpness the lens is capable of
good results but only when you have the
subject in the right place and when you
stop down a bit so your results might be
a bit hit and miss here
okay let's look at distortion and
vignetting now the lens project moderate
barrel distortion and the corners are
quite dark at f 1.4 at f2 they brighten
up a bit and at f 2.8 they look bright
enough
now let's see about close-up image
quality the lens can focus down to 20
centimeters close enough for pictures of
smaller subjects when shooting at f 1.4
the contrast bottoms out of your
close-up pictures stop down to f2 to see
contrast return and at f 2.8 we see
excellent sharpness too so if you're
shooting close up stop down
let's see how the lens works against
bright light we see a little flaring in
the main part of the image in response
to bright light but i'm also clogging a
bright halo around the light source
itself and a flash of glaring when a
bright light is on the edge of the image
so it's not a good show here really and
while we're working in the dark let's
take a look at the level of this lenses
coma as you can see at f 1.4 coma
smoothing is a serious issue here
however stop down to f2 and it's
considerably tamed and at f 2.8 it's
gone
now let's see about this lens's bokeh
it's actually fantastically nice and
smooth the outer focus backgrounds in my
images always looked absolutely
beautiful with this lens
and finally related tobacco comes
longitudinal chromatic aberration at f
1.4 it is there although it's hard to
see because of the soft close-up image
quality at f2 any colorful highlighting
that was there is now reduced at f 2.8
it's pretty much gone
overall well it's an f 1.4 lens that
costs under 100
there are going to be optical
compromises the technical image quality
of this lens is not great those looking
for critical sharpness and magical
contrast should look elsewhere but for
the money you're paying still it's able
to get some pretty nice looking images
as long as you don't want to blow them
up too big to see fine details for the
money you're paying here its quality is
acceptable
i hope you found this review helpful i
really enjoy putting them together and i
know they're useful to so many people if
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get all kinds of exclusive content ciao
for now