TTArtisan AF 27mm f2 8 XF vs Fujifilm 27mm f/2.8 WR

Today, I will introduce you to two 27mm lenses. These two lenses are both F 2.8 maximum aperture and very compact lenses. One is Fujifilm 27mm F2.8 WR lens (sold at $399.95), and the other is TTArtisans 27mm F2.8 lens (sold at only $159), which is cheaper than the Fujifilm lens. I will test these two lenses and share some testing results.

Sharpness

Let’s start the review by looking at the image sharpness of the TTArtisans 27mm F2.8 lens. I will also be going to make some side-by-side comparisons with the Fujifilm lens.

If you look at the image’s centre.  At F2.8, the TTArtisans lens’s Centre sharpness is quite decent, but if you compare it with the Fujifilm lens, the Fujifilm lens is a tiny bit sharper and has slightly better contrast.

When stopping down the lens to F4, the TTArtisans’ centre sharpness is excellent with improved contrast.

But if you compare the TTArtisans to the Fujifilm, there isn’t any noticeable difference anymore, and centre sharpness remains excellent until we get to around F11.

Diffraction softens the image a bit. At F16, the image is noticeably softer.

Now, let’s have a look at the corner and let’s look at the TTArtisans lens at F2.8. Let’s compare the two lenses and at F2.18, both lenses are slightly soft at the corner but still very usable, to be honest, and there isn’t much difference between these two lenses in terms of corner sharpness.

When stopping down, the lens would gradually improve the corner sharpness.  The Fuji lens is slightly better than the TTArtisans lens at the same aperture. At F5.6, Fuji’s corner is already excellent. At the same time, TTArtisans, you have to stop down a bit more to F8 to get a similar corner sharpness, so the Fuji is a slightly sharper lens, but overall, the difference is pretty slight.

Bokeh

Next, let’s talk about bokeh through TTArtisan’s lens. You will either like or don’t like the bokeh from this lens, while I don’t see any Halo ring at the edge of the bokeh. There is some pretty strong cat’s eye effect from this TTArtisans lens, especially when you’re shooting at F2.8.

The Fuji lens also has a bit of cat’s eye effect, but if you compare the two side by side, you can see the TTArtisans has a much stronger cat eye effect, and this is something that will either make you really want to buy this lens or immediately stop you from purchasing the lens.

Vignetting Performance

Let’s compare the vignetting performance of these two lenses. Let’s look at the test photos that were shot at F2.8. You can see a big difference between the two lenses. The TTArtisans have some noticeable light fall-off near the corner of the frame, while the Fuji has only a little light fall-off, even at F2.8.

Now, while the TTArtisans’ vignetting performance will improve as you stop down the lens, you need to stop down to F11 if you want minimal vignetting. The Fuji lens is much better in this area.

Now there’s one thing I want to mention, like all the mirrors camera lenses.
The Fuji 27mm F2 lens also relies on lens profile correction to minimize vignetting. If you use Adobe Lightroom, you cannot disable the correction, so I downloaded a trial version of the Iridium Developer software and used that to disable the correction for the Fuji lens. Indeed, I do see quite a bit more vignetting after disabling the profile correction. The TTArtisans still have much vignetting, especially once I also disable the lens profile correction.

Chromatic Operation

Next, we’ll see if these two lenses have good or bad chromatic operation control and if both lenses have excellent chromatic aberration control. I was looking at the actual photos that are shot with these lenses. When it comes to TTArtisans lens, I don’t see much colour fringing. Even though the images are shot at F2.8, there’s virtually no colour fringing.

Distortion

Now, let’s have a look at distortion. I shot these two test photos side by side with these two lenses. These two lenses are very similar and have a very minimal amount of distortion. I noticed that the fuji has a slightly wider field of view, but the difference is relatively small.

Now, since I already downloaded the Iridium Developer software, I also use it to check the distortion test file and remove lens profile correction again. You can now see some noticeable distortion with both lenses. The TTAritsans lens has more distortion than Fuji.

You will need to stop down a bit more at the minimum aperture F16, sunstars become sharp, and it looks pretty lovely t my eyes. On the other hand, there are better choices than the fuji lens if you want to have sharp and long sun stars.

SunStars

It would help if you stopped down to F11 to have some sun stars in the photo, but the tails of the sun stars are pretty spread out and look quite messy to me, even when I stop down to the minimum aperture of F16.

Lens Flare Control

The lens flare control is usually one of TTArtisans’ weakest areas, and this time when I did the side-by-side test with a Fuji lens, it became more apparent. You can see lens flare with the TTArtisans lens quite easily contrast and drop a lot when there is a vital light source in front of the camera. The Fuji is imperfect, but its lens flare control is much better than TTArtisans.

This TTArtisans lens is tiny and looks very similar to the Fuji 27mm F2.8 lens.
Both lenses are very compact and similar in size, and they both have an aperture ring. The TTArtisans are slightly thicker than the Fuji lens. But you can still call it a pancake lens because it is still compact.

Build Quality

Regarding its build quality, TTArtisans is decent. It feels solid and has a metal lens mood; again, it feels very similar to the Fuji lens. However, Fuji is a weather resistance lens, but the TTArtisans is not. I have used the TTArtisans lens under a bit of rain without any issues, but Fuji is probably a better choice if you plan to shoot under bad weather regularly.

Both lenses have an aperture ring and free clicks per stop to adjust the aperture precisely. The aperture ring on the TTArtisans lens feels very nice, but the Fuji lens’s clicks feel slightly better. This is a very subtle difference between the lenses, but Fuji feels slightly more satisfying when turning the aperture ring. The Fuji lens has a lock button for the aperture ring, so if you have moved the aperture range to a position, you need to press the lock button to move it back to the menu aperture control.

When it comes to Fuji lens has two separate lens caps that come with the lens. One is for you to use with the lens hood, and one is without the lens hood. While with the TTArtisnas lens, you can still use the original lens cap if you fit the lens hood. So, I think that that’s a more user-friendly design.
The TTArtisans rear cap is a USB dock to update the lens firmware. When I reviewed TTArtisans 27mm AF lens, I asked them why the lens used a micro–USB Port and I said it really should use a USBC port instead. So I’m glad to see this time, the TTArtisans lens uses the USBC connector instead if you’re wondering whether TTArtisans would provide firmware updates if you go to their website.

Additionally, TTArtisans 27mm F2.8 lens has better autofocus performance. What impresses me the most is that the autofocus operation is quiet and smooth. It is quieter than the Fuji lens, which sounds like it is pumping air when focusing.

However, the TTArtisans are quieter in terms of autofocus noise. Its aperture is noisier compared with the Fuji. The autofocus speed is also reasonably fast, definitely faster than TTArtisans’ first autofocus lens. I’m very excited that TTArtisans has matured its autofocus implementation a bit. Maybe that means shortly. We will see some faster or longer focal-length autofocus lanes from TTArtisan. One day, we know an autofocus version of the F0.95 lens that would be amazing.

TTArtisans lens can focus down to 35mm, which is not bad at all and even when you are shooting at the minimum focus distance and maximum aperture F2.8
At maximum aperture F 2.8, the photo is still sharp. Now, the Fuji film’s minimum focus distance is supposed to be slightly closer at 35mm when I test that it is the opposite. The minimum focus distance appears to be about 1cm or so further away than the TTArtisans lens. That gives me a slightly lower maximum magnification ratio. In the photo from fuji, the fuji lens is very sharp, even shooting at F2.8. I was a bit surprised when I first heard TTArtisans was going to announce this lens.

Conclusion

TTArtsans lens is a reasonably good lens and delivers good performance optically. The biggest weakness is still lens flare control which is usually TTArtisans. The biggest drawback is, and I hope they can improve this area in the future.
Compared to this lens, TTArtisans’s first autofocus lens, I already saw some good improvement, and the autofocus is quite fast.
I did not notice any difference in accuracy or reliability when I shot side-by-side with the Fuji 27mm lens. I think that it’s fair to say that the Fuji is still a better lens.
Overall, it is slightly sharper and has much better lens fare control, less vignetting and a better seal.
Many people would view the TTArtisans lens as a cheaper copy of Fuji. I’ve mentioned a few times that TTArtisans is still exploring the different aesthetic designs of the lenses, pretty much every single lens from TTArtisans. It has a very different scenario.
TTArtisans has created some lovely and excellent value-for-money lenses like this 27mm f2.8 lens, and I like to see them keep improving and maturing. The exterior design is probably one area they could work on and improve in the future.

Camera Accessories Recommendation

Read More

Fujifilm XF 23mm F2 Review

TTArtisan APS-C 50mm f/0.95 Review – Low-Budget Ultra-Lens