Category: Gear

  • 7Artisans lenses – Quite new lens maker on the block!

    7Artisans is a fairly new lens maker. Their story started in 2015 when 7 photo enthusiasts got together and decided to start making lenses. The story tells that it was agreed over lunch.

    7Artisans makes manual focus prime lenses for different mounts. They only make lenses for mirrorless cameras.

    I really like it when these new lens makers are challenging the old traditional lens makers. It means that we photographers have more choices. It also means that traditional lens makers need to be aware. Nothing is certain. It is possible to buy a camera body and buy all the lenses from third-party lens makers. Still not sacrificing quality. Other lens makers that I like are Laowa and Mitakon.


    I had a chance to test the 7Artisan 35mm f0.95. The focal length is a bit odd for MFT. The reason it is 35mm is that it was originally made for APS-C cameras. For that sensor size, it is a quite nice focal length. It is equivalent to a standard lens.

    Overall the quality of the 7Artisan 35mm, f0.95 is great. There is nothing to complain about the image quality. As you can see from the images below. They were photographed in the Kirsikkapuu puutarha in Helsinki.

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    Image: 7Artisans
    Image: 7Artisans

    The lens is very well made. It is full metal. All the specs can be found on the 7Artisan website.

    It has a very well-working aperture ring and focus ring. The aperture ring is clickless. That is something that I do not like, but a clickless aperture ring is very good for video.

    The aperture ring is placed in front of the lens. That caused me some problems. I am used to having focus ting in the front. I accidentally changed the aperture a few times when I was supposed to adjust focus. That is something that I will get used to when using the lens more.

    You can watch some more about the lens on my video about the 7Artisan 35mm f0.95 lens.

  • Laowa 10mm f2.0 – Very nice lens from Venus Optics

    Laowa 10mm f2.0 – Very nice lens from Venus Optics

    Venus Optics launched a new wide-angle lens for MFT on December 18th, 2020. It is a 10mm f2.0 C&D-Dreamer wide-angle lens.

    The new thing in this lens is that it has a connection to the camera. The aperture is controlled by the camera body and the info is recorded to EXIF. That is a very good thing. Without the connection, you need to add the lens info manually to your camera. Well, you do have to, but it is a good thing to do that. The IBIS will get the info to work at its best.

    Laowa 10mm f2.0 lens is manual focus. It is very easy to focus manually if you use focus peaking or magnify or both. The focusing ring is quite short so the focusing is really fast.

    In my video, there were two images missing. The part where I was talking what is the difference between the angle of view with the M.Zuiko 12mm f2.0 lens.

    This image is made with Laowa 10mm f2.0 lens. From the image below you can see the difference in field of view.
    This image is made with Laowa 10mm f2.0 lens. From the image below you can see the difference in field of view.
    Image photographed with M.Zuiko 12mm f2.0 lens.
    Image photographed with M.Zuiko 12mm f2.0 lens.

    I like it when there are new manufacturers that make MFT lens. Competition is always welcome. It is a good thing for consumers.

    If you want to get the lens use this link.

    I made a video about the new lens. More info from there.

  • Insta360 One X2 – a FUN 360 camera

    Insta360 One X2 is the newest 360 action camera from Insta. It is a consumer-level camera. It will capture 360 views with its two cameras. It can record video at 5,7K and images with the resolution of 6080X3040 (360) and 4320X1440 in panorama mode.

    Fun features!

    Even though there is a really good use of 360 cameras in many ways real estate videography is one. The Insta360 One X2 is more of a “toy”. By that, I do not mean that the quality of the image or build quality is bad. On the contrary, it is well made and the image quality is very good. By saying it is a toy it means all the fun features you can do with it. The fun features include Bullet Time, Stop Motion, Clone Trail, etc.

    Some of the features are shown in my latest Sunday Shorts about Insta360 and a few of its fun features.

    Is there any serious use?

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    Insta360 One X2 is waterproof to 10 meters. it can be used as an action cam. It can shoot of course 360, but also a 150-degree image. Also from the 360 images can be cropped any portion with Insta 360 app, Insta360 desktop app, or Premiere Pro. Premiere Pro needs a plug-in from GoPro. Yes, GoPro. It is called FX Reframe. With that, you can adjust the 360 images.

    With that, it is easy to make the 360 to a 16.9 “crop” from any part of the 360 videos. It can also be keyframed so that it looks like the camera is following you. That makes the Insta360 One X2 the best action camera right now. It is almost like you have a cameraman filming you.

    Most fun with the App.

    With the Insta360 mobile app, you will the best out of the camera. Its app has a trick section where you can pick your effect and the app does it for you. There is also instruction on how to shoot so that the effect can be applied. On the left side, you can see a few of the effects you can do.

    This blog post was not sponsored by Insta360. I bought the camera. Wanted to write a small blog post about it because I really like the camera. I will be using it for B-roll on my YouTube-videos.

    More info and specs from Insta360 One X2 product page.