Category: Lenses

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 The reason it is 35mm is that it was originally made for APS-C cameras.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.
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.

May 31, 2021
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.
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.

January 3, 2021
Mitakon 17mm 0.95 Review – [FAST prime with GREAT value for money!]

I had a chance to test the Mitakon 17mm f0,95 lens. It is an MFT lens from ZY Optics. I was interested to test the lens because of its fast aperture. 0,95 lenses are not that common and usually quite expensive. Mitakon 17mm f0,95 lens can be found under 400€/$. That is a good price.

The lens is a very good value for the money. If you are interested in Mitakon Speedmaster 17mm f0,95. you can get it from Amazon.
Get the lens from Amazon US:
Get the lens from Amazon UK:
What I liked about and what was not that good?
What I liked about is the look and feel, image quality when stopped down to f2. The downsides of the lens is the focusing ring. It is a “long” way to go from 1m to infinity. No clicks on the aperture ring. I do not like it when photographing, but for video, it is quite good. The at f0,95 lacks contrast, but that can be fixed in post.

Video about the lens on my YouTube channel.
Disclaimer: Some of the links might be Affiliate Links. If you use those links and buy something I will get a small commission. You do not pay any extra.

November 7, 2020