Here is my video review:
Fun factor a.k.a. “Mojoness”
- OVF on X-PRO3: it’s not blocked, the effect that you see with the corner of your eye, when rotating the zebra ring it’s giving you the desire to shoot and shoot
- good tactile aperture ring with good clicks
- smart aperture values with half stops from f1.4 to f4 full stops f4/f5.6/f8 and a double stop (f8-f16)
- the design of the lens – Carl Zeiss Jenna look / beautiful, vintage and practical!
- packaging – superb for the price, on the premium side with vintage accents
Design and Ergonomics
- practical rings – really love that!
- you identify by feel the aperture ring and also the focusing ring
- beautiful Carl Zeiss Jena zebra design
Build quality – very good
- solid bottom cap
- all metal
- good dumping and resitance of the ring
- focusing operation is very smooth but it took a little to lubricate well
Focusing
- excellent scale
- very good in highlight peeking… very accurate!
- I was able to nail the focus on my fast moving kids and also on streets but I need more practice at f1.4 but the focusing it’s so well made that it’s giving me the confidence to try and practice…
- excellent operation of the focusing ring
- excellent distance scale
- at infinity point you can shoot at f8 and f16 but at f16 you have diffraction – I recommend to use the hyper focal distance of the lens (3.5 meters at f8) and you’ll have sharp pictures from 1.29 – to 4.5 meters
- the lens works better than an adapted lens, and using the lens it’s making me remember the Zeiss Loxia lens that I had.. it’s that good the focusing mechanism!
- Minimum Focus Distance it’s 20cm very very good and also sharp! (You can’t get that with a Leica M mount lens).
Image Quality
- must be judge for what this lens is and the price: street, documentary, fun, replacement for a vintage lens at a price under an old 30 years vintage lens!
- it’s sharper than my Carl Zeiss Jena Flektogon 20mm that I had and other vintage lenses
- very sharp for what I’ve expected
- also very sharp at macro level at f1.4
- very filmish looking colors and BNW tones
- very organically looking jpegs and raw files
- very good in real world use for what it is
- yes you’ll have chromatic aberration and some flare in difficult lighting situations, but regarding flare I would say it’s stays pretty well / so for the price I must add that the CA/flare are well controlled
- Good contrast – not low, to to strong!
- Vignetting.. yes it’s there.. but nothing to worry if you know photography and practice photography in real world 😉
- Some smudgy corners at f1.4 f2.8
- Field curvature at f1.4 can appear in certain situation
Conclusion
- it can be used for production in the studio for a special look
- excellent manual focusing experience
- it has a special vintage rendering but with a punch of a modern lens – excellent combination!!
- it’s a lens full of mojoness and with x-pro3 it’s a match made in Heaven!
- I wish it had water resistance so you could take it with you anywhere.. it’s that good for the price.
- very good MFD – 20cm !!!
- the price is unbelievable for what it’s offering – if you a vintage lens without the problems of adapting and without the problems of an old lens, this is the lens to get!
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Images Gallery With TTArtisan 23mm f1.4 on My Fujifilm X-PRO3
Check here for my Flickr album with SOOC jpegs: click here
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