Is This The King of Ultra-Budget APS-C Lenses?

GET THE LENS HERE: Sony E - geni.us/wEiog or bit.ly/3uK6ifu or geni.us/VMz2MR Fuji X - geni.us/xbpKF or bit.ly/48molGn or geni.us/juGmEw Canon EOS-M - geni.us/fgbnVz or bit.ly/3I9DeB6 or geni.us/DQ9Ws Micro 4/3 - geni.us/9hmf0YT or bit.ly/49l6scg or geni.us/DfL2eO Nikon Z - bit.ly/3Ib3OtD

As I return to hobby photography after a decade-long hiatus, I find that a lot of "influencers" spend much of their time trying to impress viewers with their high-end gear and pixel-peaking-worthy results. I get the sense that most of us hobbyists are more interested in having fun and producing usable results (for our meager purposes) than in maxing out our gear specs and creating extremely precise images. That makes inexpensive lenses like this so compelling.

Just grabbed a 7artisans 25mm second hand and spent 2 hours in our Cathedral w the aperture wide open with my Fujifilm X-T1. What a lens! At that price! Thx a lot for your inspiring videos on low budget lenses. This experience pushed me into a new direction. Thanks again!

I have been shooting budget and vintage lenses for about one year. The biggest suprise is that I seldom miss the ability to auto focus. It is a great way to learn zone focusing and aperture settings. Manual focus is not really a problem when shooting video either, as you will never ruin a shot when your camera starts searching or loses a focus point.

I had this lens for a while now, and I love shots I've taken with it. At one point, I sort of didn't like it as much and tried to sell it for really cheap but no one was buying it. I decided to try it a few more times after a while and just learned to love it and use it if I need that focal length (aside from using my zoom). Also love how close you can get. Great lens, especially for how much you're paying for.

Affordable or ultra-budget lenses hold a special place in my heart! I adore their imperfections, quirky charm, and unique surprises they bring to photography. And I absolutely love experimenting with all of them! While I do own prime lenses, my true preference lies in the realm of low or ultra-low budget lenses. These unassuming gems allow me to have more fun, evoke emotions, and infuse my photography with unique personality.

This has been my favorite street photography lens for some years now. Its surprisingly sharp and compact. Best casual lens.

i love this lens. I'm a noob and got this as my first lens. Shot a music video with it and my friend was so amazed, called me a profession lol.

I have a copy of the 7artisans lens. I just wanted to note that you can get the same soft and high quality background blur at F4 if you are close enough to the subject in focus. I have taken some of my best pictures with this lens doing exactly that (using X-E1 and X-T3). You can get both the good sharpness and the nice subject isolation and background blur that way when the situation and lighting conditions allow it. Between these two I would personally choose the 7artisans F1.8 every time because of that. I just believe that the glass in this lens has the better potential to create beautiful images. It can do things on close range or wide open that the other lens can't. I say that even though I normally prefer a clicked aperture ring and I also like the visual design of the TTartisans F2.0 more but it's the results that matter the most. By the way I think it's a great match for my X-E1. The size and weight is perfect for the small body, the focal length is very versatile and since this old (but great!) camera has slow autofocus it's not much of a disadvantage to use a manual lens with it.

I've had this lens for about 3 years now, and it's a pretty solid performer. However it was made for micro four thirds (and I would advise you to use it on an MFT camera as a 50mm equiv if you want to take full advantage of it). On APS-C, we clearly get outside of the area for which 7artisans have corrected it. What does that mean? Well center is extremely sharp but the corners are absolutely horrendous. This is especially apparent at closer focusing distances. Even when you stop the lens down, they don't sharpen up until about f/11 (which is not indicated on the aperture ring??), and that's also where the image softens up due to diffraction. In a nutshell, it's a really good lens if you want shallow DOF, with a subject in the center of the frame. For everything else, either shoot crop 1:1 or stop down the lens at f/11 or tighter, and accept the diffraction limits. Forget landscape photography if you want maximum sharpness with it. It's not a bad lens. It's a very good value for what it is even. King of budget lenses though? That just makes me want to NOT look at the other budget lenses...

Bought this for my beater camera (OM-D E-M5), it's great and tiny, manual focus is smooth and fun, I think I'll start shooting B&W, thank you Mark for bringing this lens up.

I owned this lens for quite some time and I mostly agree with you. My only criticism and the reason I sold it, was that it is not possible to zone focus. There is a focus scale on the lens yes but mine (and apparently others who wrote about it online) was completely off. Still a great lens but keep that in mind, if you buy it for street.

In this ballpark, I don't think I'd give up my 23mm F1.4 from TTArtistan. I can't recommend it more for those who are cool with going full manual and want a 35mm full frame equivalent. Cool video, as always.

Originally bought this lens a while ago for Fuji x mount. Loved it then and now just re bought it for my Sony NEX 6. It works really well as long as it is not against the light. I find mine gets a lot of flare and loses contrast in such circumstances. Great video; thankyou.

I actually prefer to manual focus. It's how I learned photography way back in high school (B&W only, fully manual, developing the film and image prints by hand) and love the hands-on approach it forces. It's why, after having and loving my Canon 70D for a decade for its live view and video, I got a used Fujifilm X-T2 for its dials and ability to ignore bells and whistles with being forced to manual focus with the cheap lenses.

Just bought the 7A lens for my NEX 6. Got it for $60 here in the UK. Love it. Works really well with the peaking on the NEX! Great video; thankyou!

It would be great if you show the full frame coverage when you review apsc lenses. Sometimes is more than enough for full frame, with only a bit of vignette. It's interesting for all of us that use full frame cameras

And that is why I went with viltrox AF 24mm f1.8, picked it up for 180... Can't beat that value

I just ordered this lens over the weekend. My go-to is my X100v however I set out to create a poor man’s GRiii for something more discreet. To that end I have been shooting on an XM-1 with the TT Artisans 27mm 2.8 - a fun pocketable lens - however I feel like it suffers a little during midday shooting. Enter the 7artisans 25mm f1.8 - word across the board is its sharpness and contrast are impressive. Very much looking forward to seeing if that holds true. Your reviews are very much appreciated.

I have been using it for almost 2 years and the image quality is amazing