Introduction

So far the only native 28mm prime lens is the Sony FE 28mm 2.0. Now 7artisans is offering a version of its 28mm 1.4 M-mount lens with an optical design adjusted to the thick filter stack of the Sony cameras. This is the first 7artisans lens reviewed here, so let us find out what this new manufacturer has to offer.

Update 01/21/20: added sharpness infinity chart for Leica M10 and a few additional information regarding its use on a rangefinder camera



Sample Images

Most of the sample images in this review can be found in full resolution here.

Specifications / Version History

The lens comes in two versions, the “normal” version optimized for Leica cameras and the “FE-Plus” version with an optical design adjusted to the filter stack of the Sony cameras. Both come with Leica-M mount though and from the outside can only be distinguished by a small “FE-PLUS” mark on the bayonet. The FE-Plus version also has a click stop at f/11 that was absent on the Leica version I tried.

In the beginning there was also a version with an obvious ring flare when used wide open. As far as I know only few were made and all “FE-Plus” versions feature the improved flare resistance.

Apart from this both versions look exactly the same and share the following specifications:

Diameter: 60mm Field of view: 75° (diagonally) Length: 69mm (+adapter) Weight: 490g (+adapter, without hood and caps) Filter Diameter: 52mm Number of Aperture Blades: 13 (rounded) Elements/Groups: 11/9 Close Focusing Distance: 0.7 m Maximum Magnification: 1:20 (measured) Mount: Leica-M



You may also have a look at the official page.

The lens is available on B&H, amazon.com/amazon.de ebay.com/ebay.de for about $499 (affiliate links)

When buying on ebay make sure you buy the FE-plus version.

If you want to make sure you get the right one you can always use this link pointing you to the official store.

Handling / Build Quality

From the outer apperance this looks very much like a Leica M lens including the famous red dot. Markings are yellow/white (seem to be slightly engraved and filled with paint) focus ring has an absolutely perfect resistance (just like the Leica Summicron 90mm 2.0 pre Asph I used to own) and turns slightly more than 90° from the minimum focus distance of 0.7 m to infinity.

The aperture ring has full stop click stops which I think is a good design decision. It makes changing the aperture to the desired value without looking at the lens very easy.

The aperture ring is oh so slightly wobbly if you try to move it in an axial direction. I am sure most of you would never notice this as normal people would not try to move the aperture ring like that, but I have never used a 7artisans lens before so I wanted to know where they stand in terms of build quality. At a first look (after a few weeks of usage) they are pretty good.

The lens features a rangefinder coupling which can be adjusted yourself using a small screwdriver. Being an owner of an M-mount camera now I cannot stretch enough what a wonderful design decision this is: the lens can easily be adjusted to be perfectly calibrated to your rangefinder camera and give best possible results without sending it in. I wish every M-mount lens would offer this.

If you don’t intend to use this lens on a rangefinder camera you can also remove the brass part and save some (very little) weight.

My lens also shipped with a rectangular lens hood (with hole for using with a rangefinder camera) and a focus tab with adhesive on the back that you can put on the focus ring if you like to.

Vignetting

light falloff







Wide open there is strong light falloff of roughly 2.5 EV, stopped down to f/2.0 this improves to 2.0 EV, stopped down to f/2.8 it is 1.9 EV and pretty much stays at that value on stopping down further. Wide open this is a little less than the competition, but stopped down slightly more. There is no Lightroom profile available so far.

color cast

The lens also shows noticeable green color cast in the corners, similar to the Voigtlander VM 28mm 2.0 Ultron. This can be corrected e.g. by cornerfix or using gradients in Lightroom (the latter being my preferred option).

mechanical vignetting



Very fast yet compact lenses usually show a significant amount of mechanical vignetting. Without going too much into technical details mechanical vignetting leads to the truncation of light circles towards the borders of the frame.

In the center of the frame almost every lens will render a perfect circle, but only lenses with very low mechanical vignetting will keep this shape in the corners.

So in the following comparison we move from the center (left) to the extreme corner (right) and see how the shape of the light circle changes.

For comparison’s sake I included the Voigtlander VM 35mm 1.7 here. I consider this performance to be slightly above average for a small lens with these parameters.

This comparison was done at 0.5 m focus distance, you may get slightly different results at other distances.

Sharpness

infinity (42mp Sony A7rII)

Center resolution is very usable wide open and we see only little optical aberrations. It improves on stopping down but already wide open we see a bit of moiré on the small roof in the front of the house.

The lens shows a noticeable midzone dip (due to field curvature) at infinity at f/1.4 to f/2.0. This is not too uncommon with fast lenses and also present on e.g. the Sony/Zeiss 35mm 1.4 ZA, the Zeiss ZM 35mm 1.4 or the Zeiss Loxia 50mm 2.0.

The corners look slightly better at wider apertures compared to the midframe, this is a tradeoff we often see with Zeiss lenses.

At f/2.8 you have very usable resolution across frame, by f/4.0 everything looks good to me and peak performance is achieved somewhere between f/5.6 and f/8.0.

Personally I prefer having a better looking midframe at wider apertures to better performance in the extreme corners, but then the performance is very even already at f/2.8, which cannot be said about many fast yet small lenses.

Focus shift (see corresponding section) had not been taken into account for these shots, so with stopped down focusing you can get slightly better results at f/2.0 to f/4.0.

The corner crops have been pushed in post to reveal more details.



infinity (24mp Leica M10)

Many of you have been asking how the FE-Plus version behaves on a rangefinder camera and now I could finally have a look at this.

The center performance is similar to that on the Sony sensor, no surprises. The focus shift effect is a bit more visible here between f/2.0 and f/4.0 though, so either use live view (if possible) or stop down to f/5.6 in the first place.

The midframe looks actually significantly better on the Leica sensor, I see about a two stop improvement.

The corners look slightly worse between f/1.4 and f/4.0 on the Leica.

Best across frame performance is also reached at f/8.0 on the Leica sensor, but the midframe surely looks better on this camera.

I said on the Sony f/2.8 yields usable resolution across frame, on the Leica the midframe is better at f/2.8 but the corners are worse, so I would rather stop down to f/4.0 or better f/5.6 here (to also get rid of the focus shift effect).

For many applications the better midframe instead of corner resolution will be favorable though.

Focus shift (see corresponding section) had not been taken into account for these shots, so with stopped down focusing you can get slightly better results at f/2.0 to f/4.0.

Compared to: Voigtlander VM 35mm 1.7 + 5m PCX

As you know the Voigtlander VM 35mm 1.7 Ultron + 5m PCX filter is my lens of choice in this focal length range for quite some time now, offering a very balanced package of maximum aperture, bokeh and stopped down across frame sharpness.

The 7artisans lens holds up well in this comparison. The center performance wide open is comparable. Interestingly close to the center different structures show moiré when comparing both lenses.

The Voigtlander shows much better midframe but much worse corners at wider apertures and the corners don’t improve as fast. So the Voigtlander lens with correction filter needs to be stopped down to f/8.0 to show the same across frame performance as the 7artisans lens at f/4.0.

Up to you what you prefer, there is definetly something to be said for either approach.

The corner crops have been pushed in post to reveal more details.

portrait distance

100% crops from outer midframe center, A7rII

For taking a full body portrait in landscape orientation you need a distance of about ~2.0 to 2.5 m to the subject.

The midzone dip we can see at infinity starts to have a visible influence at these distances, too. Wide open we get a bit softer results with less contrast and detail. Stopping down to f/2.0 will mostly solve this.

At half body portrait distances (~1.0 to 1.5 m) I did not found this to be an issue. Here I was always happy with the sharpness wide open regardless of where in the frame I put the subject.

close (0.70m, 1:20)



100% crops from center, A7rII, because of focus shift (see corresponding section) I refocused for every shot.

Similar to many other (especially fast) lenses without a floating elements design the performance wide open at the minimum focus distance is a bit reduced.

But stopping down to just f/2.0 improves the performance significantly and f/2.8 looks plenty good.

close (0.22m, 1:4.2) with 4mm extension tube

100% crops from center, A7rII, because of focus shift (see corresponding section) I refocused for every shot.

Like most M-mount lenses the minimum focus distance isn’t great so I am using the lens with a helicoid close focus adapter.

The performance is quite comparable to that at the actual minimum focus distance of 0.7 m. Slightly soft at f/1.4 with a significant gain at f/2.0 and really good at f/2.8.

Keep in mind that this lens was never intended to be used at these distances by the designers.

Despite the shortcomings wide open at this focus distance the lens is capable of delivering pretty cool results:

Flare resistance

Flare resistance is definetly better than I would have expected. Loss of contrast is rarely an issue, but depending on where you place the sun in the frame you can catch a green and/or purple ghost (above you see the worst example I managed to provoke).

If the sun is in the center of the frame you will rarely see ghosts, but at f/1.4 you can still provoke a halo around the sun. This completely goes away on stopping down to f/2.0.

With the sun close to the corner of the frame you can make almost every lens look bad, this is also the case here:

Stopping down doesn’t help much, but the slightest reframing will make this veiling flare go away.

Coma

A good correction of coma seems to only rarely make top of the lens design criteria priority list of most manufacturers. Many fast wide angle lenses I reviewed seriously struggled here, so my expectations were pretty low.

At f/1.4 we see noticeable coma in the corners, but most of it is gone at f/2.0 and f/2.8 is super clean.

Comparing my samples to that you can find in the Sony FE 28mm 2.0 review it seems this 7artisans lens shows better performance.

I am greatly surprised by this and as soon as I get the chance I will be using this lens for some real astrophotography and update the review with some milky way shots.

100% crops from extreme corner, focused on corner, A7rII

I also got the opportunity to use this lens for some landscape astrophotography. As I was expecting after the testing with city light I found it to be a pretty good performer. The T-stop of the lens is slightly worse than that of the Sigma 35mm 1.4 Art, but coma is less obstrusive.

With very bright stars in the corner you will be able to spot very slight coma in the corners looking at the files at 100%, but in real pictures this will hardly be visible.

Distortion

The lens shows only shows very minor yet slightly wavy distortion. This will barely be visible in real life shots but to fully correct it (e.g. for critical architecture work) we have to wait for a lens profile.

Bokeh

I am / I was in the market for a fast (meaning f/1.4 or faster) 28mm lens, as for the likes of environmental portraits this is my preferred focal length (also pairs nicely with an 85mm lens). So far there was no 28mm lens with these specs that appealed to me available, so I was using the Voigtlander VM 35mm 1.7 + 5m PCX for this task.

I also tried my luck with the SLRmagic 35mm 1.2, but it is a rather basic design without aspherical elements and bokeh wasn’t completely to my liking.

The optical design of this 28mm 1.4 though looked very interesting and more advanced: aspherical element, ED elements, high refractive elements. So I was very curious to find out what the bokeh is like.

As with most lenses (especially wide angle lenses though) the quality of the bokeh is highly dependant on the focus distance.

In close up scenarios I think it looks really good and is much better than I would have hoped for: nice transition from in focus to out of focus, comparably low cat’s eyes effect, little to no outlining and onion ring structures.

This pretty much holds true when taking pictures at half-body-portrait distances. I like what I see here and the results are much better than I would have expected from a lens with this combination of parameters and price.

When taking full-body-portraits there are a few things to watch out for: the sharpness at f/1.4 at these distances off center is not as good as it is at closer distances. You will barely notice this when using a 12mp camera, you may notice it when using a 24mp camera and you will definetly notice it when using a 42mp camera and zooming in to 100%. This is mostly resolved when using f/2.0 instead of f/1.4 (see sharpness section).

Edges in the background with very high contrast can show noticeable outlining. This seems to happen due to longitudinal CA and can be lowered a bit by correcting these in post. If you heavily edit your pictures (reduce highlights, increase shadows) this will be more obvious, so something you may want to watch out for (many other fast wideangle lenses like e.g. the Sony FE 28mm 2.0, the Nikon AF-S 24mm 1.4G and the Voigtlander VM 35mm 1.7 show a similar behaviour).

Also at these distance light circles towards the edges of the frame take on trapezoidal shapes, show outlining and sometimes even contain a second circle with smaller diameter inside.

I tried to give you a thorough basis here to decide whether you like the bokeh rendering or not. This is a matter of personal taste and will also heavily depend on what you use this lens for.

I was using this lens on several occasions to see how it works for me in many different scenarios. In the end there are way more pictures where I like the bokeh compared to those where I don’t like it.

Sunstars

This is the second lens with 13 rounded aperture blades I reviewed (first one being the SLRmagic 35mm 1.2). With that higher number of blades the correct and equidistant spacing between these is very important to get decent sunstars.

I was very surprised to see we get clear and respectable sunstars between f/5.6 and f/11. Judging by my experiences with other lenses I really did not expect that. They are actually very similar to those of the Sony FE 24mm 1.4 GM or 85mm 1.4 GM (both featuring 11 rounded blades).

100% crops from outer midframe, A7rII

They are less pronounced compared to the likes of Zeiss Loxia or Voigtlander (see this article for further reference), so this is how it will look like in a real picture:

Chromatic aberration

lateral

100% crops from extreme corner, A7rII

There are only very minor lateral CA visible that are easily corrected either in camera (for Jpegs) or in a raw developer like Lightroom by one click.

longitudinal

In close up scenarios there is only a bit of green behind and magenta in front of the focal plane visible, but this aberration is masked by spherical aberration quite a bit when shooting at wider apertures here. It is reduced on stopping down to f/2.0 and mostly gone at f/2.8.

There is a bit of purple fringing visible along very contrasty edges wide open:

Even in very demanding scenes like the one below only very little loCA are visible. This is a really good performance, better than many way more expensive lenses.

Focus shift

50% crops, A7rII

When stopping down the plane of optimal focus shifts to the back, so you have to focus a bit closer for best performance. This is most noticeable at close range, less so at infnity. I still recommend focusing at working aperture with this lens to get best results.

Alternatives

Sony FE 28mm 2.0:

This is your obvious choice in the FE system being a native lens that offers autofocus and being affordable at the same time. It never appealed to me as I find f/2 is not fast enough for me at this focal length and I can’t work with the non linear focus ring. If these things do not bother you it can be pretty good value for the money.

Sigma Art 28mm 1.4:

This is a very high resolving lens already wide open that also comes as a “native” lens with autofocus including eye-AF. Unfortunately it is almost double the weight, triple the price and also very big.

Voigtlander VM 28mm 2.0 Ultron:

This lens shows severe field curvature due to the thick filter stack of the Sony cameras. It has slightly higher across frame sharpness stopped down, shares the color cast issues in the corners and is a bit more expensive while being a full stop slower.

As I have used this lens in the past I can say that the 7artisans lens is more appealing to me.

Zeiss Batis 25mm 2.0:

What I have written about the 28mm 2.0 applies here as well, but unfortunately this lens is also very expensive (new) though it seems to me its value (used) dropped significantly with the introduction of the Sony FE 24mm 1.4 GM.

Sony FE 24mm 1.4 GM:

This is probably the best 24mm f/1.4 lens you can buy today. It has slightly higher sharpness across frame, autofocus, GM build quality, great minimum focus distance.

If you don’t mind the 4mm difference in focal length and a 3-4 times higher price you should definetly have a look at this one.

Conclusion

good bokeh

sharpness and contrast at f/1.4 (most distances, most parts of the frame)

across frame sharpness starting at f/2.8

correction of CA

Coma correction

sunstars (f/5.6 to f/11)

build quality

size

price average light falloff (f/1.4)

distortion

flare resistance

weight not good light falloff (stopped down)



color cast in the corners

minimum focus distance only 0.7m

focus shift

A 28mm f/1.4 lens for less than 500 bucks from a manufacturer I haven’t seen anything notable before. What was I expecting? Not much to be honest.

But after thoroughly testing the lens and using it in the field I can stand before you and tell you I was wrong. Very wrong.

First thing you notice is this lens does not feel like your cheap sub 500$ chinese lens (I am looking at you, SLRmagic 35mm 1.2). In terms of build quality it seems to be much closer to the Zeiss Loxia or newer Voigtlander lenses.

I liked the Bokeh in most cases a lot. I consider it to be quite similar to the VM 35mm 1.7. Like most fast wide angle lenses it struggles at full body portrait distance (when transition zone and background overlap). Still, it holds itself up well here and I would need to compare it directly to the Nikon AF-S 28mm 1.4E or the gigantic Sigma 28mm 1.4 Art to see if those actually fare better at these distances.

Also from f/2.8 onwards the image quality at infinty is pretty much on par with the highly regarded Voigtlander VM 35mm 1.7 when coupled with the 5m PCX filter (my lens of choice in this focal length range for infinity shooting), making it a very versatile and capable landscape and architecture lens.

There are a few things I don’t like: the midzone dip between f/1.4 to f/2.0 is definetly something to watch out for.

Flare resistance is not bad, but not as good as the VM 35mm 1.7 either (I see that as class leading though, so nothing be to ashamed of).

There is noticeable green color cast in the corners. Again, similar to the VM 35mm 1.7, but something not found on super fast native lenses like the Voigtlander 40mm 1.2 E.

The minimum focus distance of 0.7m really ain’t that great, so I advise you to couple this lens with a close focus helicoid adapter like the Voigtlander VM-E close focus adapter or the one from Hawk’s Factory I am currently using. This will increase the entry price a bit if you don’t already own one though.

I see this lens as a very welcome addition to the sparse line up of 28mm lenses optimized for E-mount cameras. As you can probably tell from the sample images I had great fun using this lens and have added it to my kit.

This lens feels a lot like a Zeiss ZM 35mm 1.4 with 28mm and for about a fourth the price, so I am tempted to call it an actual bargain. After 3 months of regular usage I still like this lens a lot and it often finds a way in my bag.

Update: Performance on Leica M10

Many of you have been asking in the comments which lens to get if they intend to use this lens on Sony and Leica cameras. After investigating the performance on the M10 I tend to say: get the FE-Plus version. There really isn’t much you loose when doing so.

By the way, I really like the option to adjust the rangefinder coupling myself. I adjusted it once for infinity and afterwards was spot on at every distance. Just be careful of the focus shift between f/2.0 and f/4.0 to get best possible results.

The lens is available on B&H, amazon.com/amazon.de ebay.com/ebay.de for about $499 (affiliate links)

When buying on ebay make sure you buy the FE-plus version.

If you want to make sure you get the right one you can always use this link pointing you to the official store.

Further Sample Images

Most of the sample images in this review can be found in full resolution here.