Apologies in return — I’ve been AWOL here —I retired, then we moved from Austin TX to Bellingham, Washington State. In the middle of a nature preserve — nature a different photography for me 🙂 I thought I’d even sell my M system, but the very nice guy at the Leica store persuaded me I could do just as nice work with an M. Also I walked out with Leica binoculars, which are spectacular. I use a clear (UV) protective filter instead of a cap so I'm always ready to shoot instantly. I only use a cap when I throw this in a bag with other gear without padding — which is never. The UV filter never gets in the way, and never gets lost, either. TTartisan 50mm f/1.2 @1.2 – Missed focus on the eye a little bit. (open image in new tab for full size) The very best protective filter is the Hoya multicoated HD3 67mm UV which uses hardened glass and repels dirt and fingerprints.

Nikon's AF-S 50mm f/1.4G on an FTZ adapter is sharper in the corners than this lens as shot on a Z camera, and autofocuses and handles so much better. Adapted lenses are kludgy at best, and the autofocus LEICA to Z adapter is more of a science experiment than anything for practical, serious shooting. I ended up speaking to Hamish about this, as I know he has also tried this lens on his M10. He confirmed that he too found close focusing with the TTArtisan 50mm f/0.95 to be an issue when shooting wide open. I asked him to comment for the benefit of this review: The closer answer to my question about the optical design was that yes, lenses tend to focus shift when stopped down. Stopped down? Damn, they must have though I am a proper idiot! And please stop nodding everyone… Lately there have been two rising stars on the Chinese lens manufacturing scene. One is 7artisans and the other is TTartisan. While their name is VERY similar, they”re NOT the same company as far as I’ve been told. They both get their optics done by DJ OPTICAL, but they each do their own lens designs. Mitakon 50/0.95 internal optical construction. Ultra-High Refractive Index, Glass, EDand 特高透镜片 extra high lenselements.For most portrait applications this will not be a problem though. Bokeh Sony A7rII | TTArtisan 50mm 0.95 | f/0.95 The TTArtisan 50mm 0.95 has a DOF of 9cm at 2m distance, 2cm at 1m, 1.4cm at the 0.7m minimum focusing distance (MFD). We are getting a DOF of 20cm at 3m and at 10m the DOF is 2.3m. I tried all these distances, trusting that calibrating it well at 2m would be all. In the end we are in a similar situation here as we were with the TTArtisan 21mm 1.5. At this price point there is no alternative with the same specs available, but there are clearly some compromises you should be aware of, which I tried to outline in this review. Join the family on Patreon!Instant access: 200+ exclusive posts including 100+ videos, 2 group Zoom calls/month, Friendly private Facebook group.. *Sign up to Patreon for 12 months and get 10% off!

The other issue lies in the instructions about how to correct and how much to turn that flange for adjustment. Again, a 35mm 1.4 and a 50mm 0.95 have vastly different corrections levels, and the suggestions in the instructions are way too much for the lens in hand. Have a look at the instructions on the focus chart itself: if you follow that reference amount of turning according to where the lens is focusing you are in for some surprises! I never expected to follow these indications to the letter given that the lens was such a different one but I think a dedicated set of instructions should be supplied. TTArtisan is a Chinese lens manufacturer owned by Shenzhen Mingjiang Optical Technology Co. Ltd. It specialises in mirrorless lenses and it seems to be outsourcing the actual manufacturing of the lens to DJ-Optical, a Chinese company that also manufactures lenses for the very similarly named lens brand7Artisans, also from China. 7Artisans has appeared on the market in 2017 with a fast 50mm 1.1 lens that made a bit of a splash in the rangefinder and mirrorless photographic community with its incredibly low price and surprising performance. TTArtisan released its first lens in 2019, an M-mount 35mm 1.4. Apparently the two brands are not related at all, only sharing the outsourcing of production to DJ-Optical. I wonder why TTArtisan decided to use a brand name that matched so closely the already existing 7Artisans. This naming similarity led to a lot of confusion among us users about the relationship between the two manufacturers: a common opinion circulating on the web was that TTArtisan was the brand for higher quality releases as opposed to 7Artisans. I don’t think the guys at 7Artisans really liked that. To shoot at f/0.95 in direct sunlight you may need a neutral-density filter. I use my Made-in-USA Tiffen 0.9 (8x or 3-stop) neutral-density filter. Not only are Tiffens among the least expensive ND filters, they are the best because they are the most neutral and made of glass. Too many other brands cost more, are made overseas, are made of plastic and add color casts. When we buy cheap item, we dont only something of low value, we buy something which kills our economy!!! Which return we have from this big bully? Just bully.If this 1,200×900 pixel crop is about 6" (15cm) wide on your screen, then the complete image printed at this same extreme magnification would be about 20 × 30" (50 × 75cm). There is a little bit of vignetting wide open, but not too much. I would say about 1/3 exposure stop. It goes away at f/2. It is to be expected, so no surprises there. Wide open there is strong light falloff of roughly 3.7 EV in the extreme corners, stopped down to f/1.4 this improves to 3.0 EV, stopped down to f/2.8 it is 2.8 EV and further improves to 2.5 EV at f/8.0. I'm unsure if there's an easy user adjustment on the lens. If there is, adjust it so your rangefinder indicates perfect focus when the lens is set to the infinity stop and you're focussing on something at least a couple of miles away.