Damned if they haven’t started to win me over, enough so that I make a second post on the same day. Hoping to find another prime or two that’ll work on the R7, I checked out the TTartisan RF 21mm f/1.5 full-frame lens today. It didn’t impress at all on the R7’s demanding sensor, not at any aperture.
What I’d been looking for, though, was the APS-C RF-mount 50mm f/0.95, and I contacted the local TTartisan distributor in my search. No luck there, but I learned that the company makes an APS-C 50mm f/1.2 in RF mount, and that it had just arrived at the same store where I got my Viltrox 85mm. So I headed over there.
Bear in mind that this is a lens of all-metal construction with perfectly symmetrical aperture blades that costs less than $90 USD!! At that price I was almost sold on it before I tested it, but I was not expecting much at all. Other than some CA on white borders wide open, I couldn’t see any obvious flaws.
See for yourself below: two uncropped shots with nothing more than a touch of sharpening added. The first shot was wide open (f/1.2) and the second shot was at f/4. Not a Noctilux by any stretch, but for less than $90 it’s hard to beat. And with a cheap Nisi filter and a $6 metal fluted screw-on hood, it’s ready for more action tomorrow.
I was so stoked on the price-to-quality ratio that I also grabbed a silver TTartisan 28mm f/5.6 Summaron copy so I’ll have at least one lens when I choose an M camera. Both lenses fly in the face of other manufacturers’ claims that metal-bodied lenses are impractically expensive to manufacture, and that fast glass needs to cost a small fortune.
The 28mm has been well-reviewed by respected commentators, and is constructed like the proverbial brick outhouse. The 50mm, well, even if it proves to be not so durable, it’ll be a lot of fun for something that costs less than a Zeiss hood!
