Some lenses make a blur, and some lenses create a blur. And then there are lenses like this one. This is undoubtedly it if you’re looking for a lens that makes just about the most blur possible for a very affordable price.
7 Artisans 50mm f0.95 for Fujifilm X is an excellent APS-C Normal-length Lens which takes your photography to the next level. And it is a good lens for portrait photography.
7Artisans 50mm f0.95 Fujifilm x
7Artisans 50mm f0.95 Sony E
The 7 Artisans 50mm f0.95 is genuinely a blur monster!
Not so long ago, only the rarest and most exotic lenses from the most expensive lens manufacturers could achieve an aperture of f0.95 and still preserve a high-quality image. Most manufacturers didn’t even attempt it, which makes it all the more remarkable that 7 Artisans have been able to produce a lens with a huge maximum aperture while preserving the quality of the image.
Before I go on, I should confess, frankly and honestly, that I am a blur junkie. There, I said it. I like background blur, and I shoot most of my lenses wide open for most of the time, whether they’re simple and unpretentious f3.5s, my (rather too large) collection of vintage f1.4s, and my genuinely unique Olympus Zuiko 55mm f1.2. It is established, I hope, that I do like a bit of the blurry stuff.
Nevertheless, before I shot this lens, I wondered whether it would give me too much of a good thing. I’ve shot many f2 and f1.8 lenses and made fantastic images with them, and I got some nice background blur from them, too, the same with my 1.4s and my 1.2. But after using it for a while, I was hooked, and I can now report that there is no such thing as too much blur – one
This is a very nicely made lens and quite a heavy one too. The body is made from anodized aluminium with a very smooth and tactile finish – aluminium is a solid but light material, so the weight in the lens must be due to the sheer number of glass elements within the casing. Remember, this is a complex lens to make and needs several elements to preserve the quality of the image at the widest aperture.
It’s been machined very nicely – the focus ring, with slim metal ribs for grip, turns smoothly with a delightfully fluid action and has a reasonably short movement range of about 90 degrees; the minimum focus distance is a valuable 45 centimetres.
The aperture ring, at the front of the lens, is much slimmer than the focus ring and identifiable by feeling with your eye to the viewfinder. It, too, turns very nicely and smoothly, with a beautifully engineered sense. It’s clickless so that videographers can change the aperture settings during a shoot, and it’s easily adjustable to get precisely the amount of blur you want!
The front of the lens is significant at 50mm – the size of the filter ring is 62mm, giving an idea of its dimensions. The important glass front element is beautiful, at least for those who appreciate the extraordinary craft of grinding glass into optical elements – it glistens and gleams in the light. Its coatings give it a hint of purple, almost violet. The lens cap is, I think, the best, quite simple slip-on metal cap lined with felt to give it some grip.
So the lens feels lovely to handle and to use, and it’s a nicely proportioned lens too – it sits very well on my Fujifilm X-T2, and of course, it doesn’t need an adaptor, adding another inch or two of length, as vintage manual lenses do.
There are a couple of things I wish were different, though. I want the manufacturers to engrave the lens markings rather than print them onto the lens body. The markings are very clearly printed in white, but published markings will eventually wear and ultimately fade.
How quickly they wear will depend on how much the lens is used, and realistically I don’t think most users will encounter problems in this area. But the lens is so nicely made it seems a shame to spoil the ship for a ha’penny worth of tar, and I think engraved markings on this lens would be the icing on the cake – a nicely engineered finishing touch for a nicely engineered lens.
I’d also like a rubber grip on the focus ring, just like there is on many of my vintage lenses. The old Olympus Zuiko lenses have a rubber ring with diamond-shaped studs on their surface, and they’re lovely to use. They’re classy, feel fantastic, offer plenty of grips, and make the focus ring very easy to find with your eye on the viewfinder.
This would give a very nice finishing touch to a very nice lens. It would fit with its classic feel, too – this is, after all, a manual focus, manual aperture lens, and as such, it would be a very nice feature to see.
So it’s nicely made, friendly to hold, and nice-looking, but what’s it like to use? Will it live up to expectations, or is it all mouth and no trousers? Well, let’s find out!
Even wide open, at f0.95, this is a sharp lens. It’s not the sharpest lens I’ve ever used wide open, but then I’ve never used an f0.95 lens before, and at that vast aperture, it doesn’t feel soft, at least not in the central, most important part of the image – the part that matters.
The corners are a bit soft and wide open, but I’ll give it a pass for that – it’s a minor imperfection that, for me, doesn’t matter. You can shoot this lens all day at f0.95 as I did and produce more than acceptably sharp images, all with that incredible blur too!
Of course, it sharpens up if you stop it down, as any lens will. F2.8 is very sharp right across the frame, and by f5.6, it’s bitingly sharp, but I didn’t bother stopping down except to make test shots to judge the lens’s performance. Other than that, I just left it wide open and shot it, and I enjoyed every minute!
And if you stay wide open, blur is magnificent, monumental, extraordinary – pick your superlative and apply it, and this lens will live up to it. It just makes so much blur! At the closest focus distance of 45cm, it’s enormous, so much so that all form disappears, and we’re left with a wash of light and colour.
Pulling back the blur remains considerable, and at portrait distance, this lens can make some adorable images with very soft and beautiful backgrounds. Pull back further, though, and the blur persists. This lens will give separation between subject and background at almost any distance. There is rarely a point wide open when the entire visual field is in focus unless you’re shooting a bunch of very distant objects.
The character of the blur is generally very smooth – unlike many vintage lenses – and in that sense, it has a more modern feel. Blur is usually consistent in that it’s soft, well-behaved, and not wild like an Olympus Zuiko 55mm f1.2 or a Helios 44 58mm f2; both vintage lenses are well known for their unruly and unpredictable bokeh. This one is far smoother and more reliable most of the time, but as I discovered, certain distances can bring out a wild side, where the quality of the blur starts to fool around and get a bit naughty! On the street, I found that shooting subjects about 6-7 feet, or a couple of meters away, with a reasonably distant background, the usually unflappable bokeh starts to change a little; it becomes less smooth, gains a bit of character, and in my eyes anyway, becomes more entertaining! I like that – it does have a wild side, and I’d be happy if it were wilder!
One thing’s for sure, though, if you use this lens wide open – and why would you buy an f0.95 lens to stop it down – there’s blur behind most subjects at most distances, large or small. This is a true blue monster!
I was initially a little worried about using this wide-open lens on the street. After all, the depth of field at f0.95 is small, and I was a little concerned that I might not be able to focus easily and quickly on moving subjects, particularly people.
In the event, though, I needn’t have worried – it’s sharp enough and contrasty enough to make focus peaking work very well, and I found it no more difficult to focus on the street than a vintage manual focus f1.4 or f1.2 lens – and in fact, it’s a good deal more accessible than some of that vintage glass.
I found no problem making sharp images of moving objects – people, animals, or anything in the busy street environment. This lens is easy to shoot wide open in any situation, whether it’s street, events, children’s parties, or anything else!
Depending on conditions, there’s sometimes a little purple fringing present while shooting wide open, but the lens is perfect in this regard, and it happens only infrequently.
I’m glad to report that the colours produced by this lens are very nice indeed, and compared to other Chinese lenses I’ve tested, it seems to give more saturation, which for me, is excellent. I love bumped-up, saturated colours, and to maximize this effect, I shot lots of images using the Velvia preset (Fujispeak for vivid).
Still, it gives intense colours in other modes, too – they just burst out all over the place, and it can be challenging to keep them down!
The lens compares well in this respect to other high saturation lenses I’ve tried – the Helios 40 85mm f1.5 springs to mind, as does another colour monster, the Olympus Zuiko 55mm f1.2. If saturated colours aren’t your thing, then adjust your settings to suit, but I’ve certainly no complaints about the colour representation from this lens. And as well as striking colours, the lens makes images with a light and bright quality that’s quite beautiful.
It’s a very contrasty lens, which no doubt helps with its intense colour performance, but also allows it to produce striking monochrome images with rich, deep blacks and bright whites. The lens’s strong contrast helps this lens to make images with an intense quality; they’re robust, rich and full of depth, and I think the difference between this one is as its colours are a little stronger than other Chinese-made lenses I’ve used.
So, overall, I wasn’t sure what to expect before I shot this lens. In a very fast lens of this sort, I’d usually expect a lot of compromises to achieve that vast aperture, and that’s certainly been the case in some f1.2 vintage lenses I’ve shot. In the event, I was pleasantly surprised to find that with this lens, you can shoot wide open all day and produce images with good sharpness, great colour and contrast – and of course, lots and lots and lots of background blur!
Shot wide open, images are unique, and the lens gives a degree of separation between subject and background that few others can match. No matter what the distances involved, this lens pops!
Price:
Sony E：https://amzn.to/3zJ9oOU
Nikon Z：https://amzn.to/3FdYaDq
Fuji X：https://amzn.to/34uEcaE
If you’re looking for a 50mm lens with excellent contrast and colour, excellent sharpness from wide open, and maximum background blur, this lens will certainly supply it. If your experience with it is anything like mine, you’ll have great fun with it too!
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