We will have a look at the TTArtisan 23mm f/1.4, This lens is suitable for APS-C mirrors cameras and micro focal cameras. It is an affordable lens as it is only around a hundred dollars. As usual, this is an entirely independent review. I will share with you my honest opinion about this lens. If you would like to purchase this lens after watching this review, you can go check out their website, as they have quite a lot of very cool products.
The TTArtisan 23mm f/1.4 lens is a compact and lightweight lens. This lens is available for most of the popular APS-c mirrors cameras in the market. (Sony E, Fuji X, Lecia L, Canon EF-E, M43). This lens will give you approximately 35 mm full-frame equivalent focal length on the APS-C camera. That is my favorite everyday focal length. Using it on an M43 camera will provide you with approximately 46mm full-frame equivalent focal length, which could be a perfect choice as an everyday general use camera lens. There are two different versions for this lens: one is a black version and another is black and silver or some may call it a zebra version.
The black version looks lovely on my Fujifilm xt3, but I think the zebra version would look even better.
I’ve reviewed quite a few different TTArtisan lenses, and I noticed that TTArtisan likes to change between different exterior designs for their lenses. TTArtisan 17mm f 1.4 and TTArtisan 35mm f1.4, TTArtisans 23 mm f 1.4 lenses, and TTArtisan 40mm macro lens, and even their new autofocus lenses are good lenses I’ve also done the review. All designs look so different. I would prefer if they stick with one or maybe two designs, which is easy for customers to recognize their brand without seeing the lens logo.
Focus Ring
Now let’s have a look at this lens. It is a fully mechanical and manual lens, so there’s no electronic context and no electronic features. This lens is not an internal focus lens, so the length of the lens will change a little bit when you are changing focus. When it comes to its focus ring, it is very smooth and has a short focus flow, approximately 90 degrees.
The aperture ring is at the front of the lens, and it features clicking. I like this exciting design. Another attractive design is an extruded edge of the lens’s front, allowing photographers to grab the lens when setting the camera. It is easy to move the lens’s barrel together. There is one click every half stop from f1.4 to f4. It is one click per stop to f8, and the last stop is at f16. This lens has a 43 mm front filter thread, which is so different from all other TTartisan f1.4 APS-c lenses. I found that all TTArtisan f1.4 APS-C lenses with f 1.4 have utterly different filter sizes, which could be a bit of pain for the user who uses the filter and shoots with all these TTArtisan lenses.
Minimum Focus Distance
The lens’s minimum focus distance is only 20 centimeters, close to a 23-millimeter lens. I do not know the exact maximum magnification ratio, but if you look at this sample photo that I shot at the minimum focus distance. The maximum magnification ratio is not bad at all.
Image Sharpness
Let’s have a look at the image sharpness at f 1.4. The center sharpness is already quite decent, with minor hints of chromatic aberration.
Stopping down the lens to f2 and the lens becomes very sharp. All the chromatic aberration disappears, and the contrast also improves a bit.
Stopping down the lens any further wouldn’t make any difference to the center sharpness of this lens.
Let’s have a look at the corner sharpness now.
At f 1.4, the corner is soft. The extreme corner at f 1.4 is not usable if you want to capture any details while stopping down the lens would gradually improve the corner sharpness.
It would help if you stopped down the lens to f 5.6 or f a for the corner to have acceptable sharpness.
With the fast f 1.4 maximum aperture, you can capture some shadow depth of field images, especially when taking close-up photos. Bokeh from this TTartisan 23mm f1.4 aps-c lens looks alright overall. Some of the images have excellent and smooth.
However, sometimes there could be a bit of halo at the edge of the bokeh balls, which could make the image look slightly nervous. This lens’s bokeh remains in circle shape even at f4.
Barrel Distortion
Let’s have a look at this brick wall test photo. There is a bit of barrel distortion the amount of barrel distortion. I found that it is just fine. If I use a plus six distortion correction in lightroom, it gets rid of most distortion.
Vignetting
Let’s look at my vignetting test photos at the maximum aperture f 1.4. There is some noticeable vignetting, but I think the level is quite acceptable for an f 1.4 lens. Stopping down to f2, vignetting becomes a bit better, and at f 2.8, vignetting is not that noticeable anymore.
Lens Flare
Lens flare is usually not TTArtisan’s strongest area. The lens flare performance is decent for this 23mm f 1.4 lens. I don’t get too much lens flare or ghosting even when shooting directly into the sun. I may get a little bit of fan-shaped lens frame when shooting into a bright light source. Apart from that, the lens flare performance of this TTArtisan lens is decent overall.
Chromatic Aberration
Chromatic aberration appears to be quite well controlled by this TTArtisan lens. I found a very minimal amount of color fringing in my photos, including some pretty high contrast. I’m pretty impressed with my local test photo, and I see a small amount of longitude chromatic aberration. All in all, I think it’s still pretty decent when shooting at the maximum aperture of f1.4.
There is some strong coma look at this sample photo. You can see some big coma butterflies flying around near the corner. At f2, coma is reduced by quite a lot. You still need to stop down further to around f 2.8; then the comma becomes not that noticeable.
Sunstar
If you want to get some pretty sun stars, you need to stop down to around f 2.8. Sunstars become pretty sharp, and you can see the beautiful 10-point sunstars, which is my favorite sun star shape when stopping down to f5.6.
When shooting at the minimum aperture of f16, you can get some crisp sun stars in the photo.
Focus Breathing
This lens is probably more designed for photography than videography. Let’s look and see if this lens has a lot of focus breathing or not. This is a test footage shot at f5.6, and the focus distance changed between 1 meter and infinity. If we look at the brick wall on the left, we can see some moderate focus breathing.
Price: $99
TTArtisan 23mm f/1.4 Fuji x : https://amzn.to/34kzTPe
TTArtisan 23mm f/1.4 Sony E: https://amzn.to/3JGBiQr
TTArtisan 23mm f/1.4 M4/3: https://amzn.to/3FRR34p
TTArtisan 23mm f/1.4 Canon EOS-M: https://amzn.to/3zATDK9
Conclusion
The TTArtisan only costs around $100, and it is compact, has excellent build quality, and has good feelings in your hand. The lens is so great when I’m shooting photos. It has excellent center sharpness even at the maximum aperture. It renders beautiful sun stars, and they are not too much vignetting or lens flare. But the biggest downside is its corner sharpness: it is soft even if you stop down a bit. The comma is also quite noticeable at f 1.4. This TTArtisan 23mm f 1.4 lens is a very affordable lens for you to shoot under low light or create some shadow depth of field photos; it is also a fun lens to use.
