Hmmmm.... 4 burgers or this lens?.... No, I think this lens wins :D As usual thank you for a very detailed review! Maybe I see the shortcomings a bit differently; the vignette will help frame your shot, the field curvature will help emphasize your subject focus on the centre, and the flaring/glaring will give you some artistic look, even with the loss of contrast. Overall, I see this thing oozes character and is a very fun lens to have if you want to use its limitations creatively, or if you save the price of a lunch to buy your first lens!

I dont shoot for money I shoot for fun. I have several systems mft, nikon z, fuji. I buy these ttartisans 25mm and 50mm for each of them. I shoot them all manual. These lens are so fun and make me want go out with each system and actualy make photography.

Cool little lens. I really like small lenses, so I think the trade-offs are worthwhile; small and cheap, at the expense of corner performance. At that price, I think I might try buying one and reverse one of the elements to get wild swirly bokeh, like people do with Helios lenses. On Nikon Z mount, the 40mm f2 offers a similar story but with better corners, flare resistance and autofocus. It’s not a whole lot more expensive from my perspective, but I’d say each one is probably a good deal for the price.

I love this lens. I shoot street around NYC using the A7c and it's a perfect match. The whole kit is like 1.2lbs. F8 or F11 and zone focusing... then you're free to just compose on the fly and focus on storytelling. Super fun little lens.

Your results are much better than I expected. I've been curious about TTArtisan quality. Thanks for your testing and review.

at 6:38 if you look at the green "cityshop" sign on the right side you can see how it goes from a light green to a dark green as you go from the center to the right of the frame. This perfectly demonstrates my main problem whith these lenses: they loose contrast in the middle to very unpleasant extents. It is also harder to correct in post, since there are no pre-bulilt tool for this like there is for vignetting or chromatic aberration.

This lens doesn't seem too bad optically, but given the vignetting and field curvature, I feel like the optical design wasn't intended for full-frame - even if the image circle just about covers it.

thanks for testing the focus breathing

Awesome review. Typical of the excellent work we've come to expect. Cheers, Cam from NZ :)

Seems like the old rangefinder lenses adapted to mirrorless. Even with all the optical faults I think is a good buy: it's compact and good enough for the price

I've just purchased a used 25mm/f2 for 34 bucks from KEH. It hasn't arrived yet but I'm pretty excited about it!

Very quick and thorough review. Lots of useful information. Thank you.

Good video! I have the TTartisan 25mm f/2 for Fuji, which is almost its twin in looks. I'm adding the 50mm for a very small walk around set with my Fuji T-1.

I hope this company makes tiny cinema lens. I bought the 25mm and modified it into cine lens. This lens is fun and amazing!

Thanks for a terrific review! I felt the same that even if the images were poor the look and feel of the lens would justify the ticket price. However, the images are beautiful, very similar, as another commenter said, to the 70s and 80s Zuiko. Just for the record though, on my Fujifilm X 24mp cameras I can see no vignetting although obviously the corners are soft. I’d assumed this might be because I was only getting the centre of the image on my cropped sensor. The first impression is not hurt your eyes sharpness but a lot of detail is resolved. I would guess more than the Olympus. I’d love to see a comparison between these, the 50 and/or 25 with the recent Cosina/Voigtlander manuals. Best Wishes.

Reminds me of my Pergear 50mm f1.8 I got on ebay...for ~44 USD, after a double Black Friday discount; bit soft wide open, shows contrast drop on anything but candle light..but for the money, you just got to shut up and enjoy it😁

I have the TT Artisan 17mm F1.4 and 50mm f1.2. I could be very tempted by this lens because of its size but I don't really need another 50mm lens and the overall performance may let it down just a bit. Great review though Richard.

Thanks for all the advice on the S5. Loving it! Pondering the 85mm now that I have the 20-60, 50, and 70-300.

Optical performance better than I thought 🤔 maybe I should get one

such a great video - great info and presentation, i'm definitely sold on the lens! thanks a lot.

Hi Thansk a lot for your review, buying it tomorrow! Just out of curious, are you from Hong Kong?

Hi Robin, thanks for the test, another great review, as always. I'd like to see you reviewing also the new TTArtisan 25mm F2, i can see it as "shoot it all lens" and as being a small pancake design, especially onto the Fujifilm X-E and X-A series, but also onto the M1, like mine. ;-)

My copy for z mount will be delivered. However was thinking the L mount version would be awesome to make the FP even smaller

Amazing, reminds me of my Olympus OM 50mm f1.8 F.Zuiko Auto-S lens from the late 1970s. Wonder how they would compare optically?

Hi thanks! Real life photo indeed look nice from this lens

Thank you for testing corner sharpness by refocusing the lens, it would be strange for a lens to have "inverse field curvature" to accommodate a flat wall 15 feet away; the distance from camera to center of the wall vs corner wouldn't be the same. Although modern lenses are being designed to be sharp when shooting flat objects several feet away because modern lenses are judged wide open, even wide angle lenses. But the truth is most lenses would improve a lot if refocused by using liveview. Well sharpness anyway, not contrast, distortion, and chromatic aberration.

Richard, this lens reminds me of the Pentax SMC M 50mm f2 lens. Have you ever considered comparing one of these modern lenses to the 40 year old Pentax lenses?

You wouldn't want to add a protective filter to this lens as that would more than double its cost! How on earth do they do it as this price?

excellent review

The bokeh looks good on this one, and it's nice having an f/2 aperture, but wow, that corner sharpness is very unimpressive - and the vignetting, coma, fringing - leaves a little to be desired from the looks of it. I'll stick with my $30 Industar-50-2 50mm f/3.5 pancake lens I think!

We NEED small compact lenses on mirrorless!

Lovely review

Is really bad glare an intrinsic quality of pancake lenses? I just got this lens and I kinda regret getting it instead of the Canon FD 50mm 1.4 w/ adapter, because the glare is really horrendous even on a cloudy day. Really unsure if I want to keep it, but I probably will just 3D print a hood for it and keep it, but that beautiful form factor goes away :(

1.6ft is damn close to focus for a lens like this if you are sitting down at a diner you can put the camera right up to the face of the person across the table. No idea what you mean here.

plz reply sir , i can use this lens for fuji xt 200

i had three of these lenses, all were new and had a wrong infinity-position, and the pictures at infinity were not sharp. i had to repair the lens by myself

Bro, did you just stop a phat Kia Ora on me?

TTartisan have another 50 mm , TTArtisan 50mm F1.4 ASPH. Full Frame, in ur opinion who is better?

Bro i have 7Artisans 50Mm 0.95 Z mount lens but I’m confused which adapter i buy for autofocus please tell me ??

Is it really a F2 lens, my camera reads it as 2.8 even at F2

It's not expensive but I'd rather buy a vintage Nikon 50mm f/1.8 Series E pancake lens for around the same price (or even less).

I have one but it's not a pancake lens :)