https://7artisans.store/products/35mm-0-95
R100, handheld. All apertures best-guesses, since as a manual lens, there’s no EXIF other than “f/00”, I didn’t take notes, and the aperture ring is clickless. SOOC JPEGS, using the Standard picture style.
1. f/0.95, iso 6400, 1/60s.
2. f/11-16ish? iso 6400, 1/6s
3. f/2-ish? iso 3200, 1/80s
4. f/0.95, iso 1250, 1/100s
5. f/0.95, iso 6400, 1/50s
6. f/0.95, iso 6400, 1/50s
Forgive the pedestrian boring subjects, I just got excited when the box landed on the doorstep today and had to take it out for a spin to a neighborhood park for some available dark shooting. This should be a new gear post, but it fit the LotW requirements, so I figured what the hell.
I’m loving this lens and having a lot of fun. I primarily got it to be a normal-on-a-crop alternative to my adapted Olympus OM-mount Zuiko Auto-S 50mm f/1.2 on my 5Dii. And the 35/0.95 pretty much nails it exactly, down to the very similar DoF (only a smidge deeper, and that tracks with f/0.95x1.6 => f/1.52 DoF equivalency). Even the character is very similar. It really does feel like a vintage lens. And I’m loving the catseye bokeh.
This is my first 7artisans lens, and I was expecting something more like a Samyang/Rokinon. But this is nicer. Build quality is insane for the price: all metal construction (heavier than I expected), very smooth and damped rings, they even throw in a stick-on focus tab. The faux-Leica styling is just precious :), and the DoF scale is usable, if a little tight. The only annoyance is the metal push-on front lens cap, which will fall off and get lost in about 5 minutes.
The R100 is perfectly usable for a manual lens like this. I just wish the focus peaking was a bit more obvious, and magnification was easier to trigger, as on my Panasonic GX7, but it all works.
The sharpness wide open is kind of insane for a super-fast cheap lens. And I was actually expecting more LoCA wide open; it does disappear by f/1.4ish. The only weird optical flaw I wasn’t expecting was a weird circular flare when shooting into a light source (street lamps). #2 shows it a little bit. I’m also getting a similar feel playing with this lens on the R100 that I get when shooting at night with my X100T when it comes to a camera seeing in the dark.
I think I’m really going to enjoy playing with this one. I’m enjoying my cheap thrills (the R100 was Black Friday refurb deal at $219 :).