7Artisans M-mount lenses

JWMster · Feb 9, 2019

My entry into M-mount shooting (M4-2 and M6) has mostly worked with Zeiss's ZM's, but I see the Voigtlanders getting great reviews and a push for 7Artisans. Most current reviews are written for digital, and I've read the "Reid Reviews", but wonder about these 7Artisans lenses. The 50mm/1.1 kind of gets your attention given a fractional cost of the Leica equivalent. I'm sure most purists would never go down my path, but just wondering if anyone has, and if so, their views. THanks!

chip j · Feb 9, 2019

My friend has a 50mm 1.1--great-looking, well built, but soft wide open.

Nodda Duma · Feb 9, 2019

I have the 50 / 1.1. Great lens, soft wide open (as you would expect).

howardpan · Feb 9, 2019

It’s a great lens. I like it a lot and have not been disappointed by the results. I don’t have a Noctilux so I can’t compare them but nor woild I. I never felt I had to carry the Excalibur into battle. A sword by any other name is still a sword and will serve me well.

Alan Gales · Feb 10, 2019

There are reviews on YouTube with example photographs. Of course they are probably all shot on a digital camera.

btaylor · Feb 10, 2019

There are lots of discussions on the 7Artisans lenses over at the rangefinder forum you might find useful. On being soft wide open, with DOF so thin at f1.1 I would think it prudent to be positive the back focus and/or rangefinder are in adjusted accurately before judging the lens too harshly. Just a thought.

mshchem · Feb 10, 2019

It's not anything I would spend money on for a Leica. If I was shooting mirrorless digital, maybe . I have a beautiful Summicron 50mm 6 bit, I bought it used mint from a Japanese dealer, I think it's about 5 years old. For my 35mm lens I have a Cosina made Zeiss ZM 2.8. They call it a Biogon. It's so compact and sharp wide open . I paid close to 900 bucks for mine, but during the holiday sales you could buy one for 700 usd.
The China made lenses come with instructions on tuning the focus, I think that's more of a digital thing. Not something I want to mess with.
For me I want fast primes to be able to see with a DSLR or a film SLR . I hardly ever shoot wide open, except with that little Zeiss cutie at f 2.8

Huss · Feb 10, 2019

I like the comments about soft wide open. They are either from those who have read about this and repeating it, or are judging out of focus images. When you are at 1.1 you absolutely have to nail focus for it to be sharp wide open. I have two (silver and black) 50 1.1 and when you nail focus at 1.1 they are sharp. These lenses work better on film than digital as I find on my digital M there is magenta colour casts on the edges and corners, while no such thing happens on film.

Shot at 1.1

1:1 crop from the above image to show sharpness:

Ko.Fe. · Feb 10, 2019

7A 50 1.1 is sharp in the middle. They say it never gets sharp in the edge of the frame. But it might be variable from copy to copy.
Thier 35 f2 has some odd distortions, sometimes. And thier 28 1.4 flares, but they should have later, improved version.
Here is nothing too complicated to adjust it for film, it just takes time and film to verify.

mshchem said:
It's not anything I would spend money on for a Leica. If I was shooting mirrorless digital, maybe . I have a beautiful Summicron 50mm 6 bit, I bought it used mint from a Japanese dealer, I think it's about 5 years old. For my 35mm lens I have a Cosina made Zeiss ZM 2.8. They call it a Biogon. It's so compact and sharp wide open . I paid close to 900 bucks for mine, but during the holiday sales you could buy one for 700 usd.
The China made lenses come with instructions on tuning the focus, I think that's more of a digital thing. Not something I want to mess with.
For me I want fast primes to be able to see with a DSLR or a film SLR . I hardly ever shoot wide open, except with that little Zeiss cutie at f 2.8

Leica Summilux 35 and 50 were 1.4 during film only era and they were in production for decades.

I have Jupiter-3 it is 50 1.5 LTM, small lens. Not Cosina Zeiss "small". It has 40.5 filter size.
For small and sharp at f2.8, here is Cosina Viogtlander 35 2.5. Not Zeiss "small" even more, filter size is 39.
It is 400 usd on any day. And not prone to Zeiss wobble.

NB23 · Feb 10, 2019

I don’t have time to use anything else than my Leicas. There’s just no point of losing energy, time and money on anything else.

Shooting a non-Leica lens is simply taking valuable time and energy away from shooting a Leica lens. It just doesn’t compute in my head.

mshchem · Feb 10, 2019

Huss said:
I like the comments about soft wide open. They are either from those who have read about this and repeating it, or are judging out of focus images. When you are at 1.1 you absolutely have to nail focus for it to be sharp wide open. I have two (silver and black) 50 1.1 and when you nail focus at 1.1 they are sharp. These lenses work better on film than digital as I find on my digital M there is magenta colour casts on the edges and corners, while no such thing happens on film.

Shot at 1.1

1:1 crop from the above image to show sharpness:

Looks sharp. Don't get clunked on the head taking unauthorized girl pictures. .

mshchem · Feb 10, 2019

Ko.Fe. said:
7A 50 1.1 is sharp in the middle. They say it never gets sharp in the edge of the frame. But it might be variable from copy to copy.
Thier 35 f2 has some odd distortions, sometimes. And thier 28 1.4 flares, but they should have later, improved version.
Here is nothing too complicated to adjust it for film, it just takes time and film to verify.

Leica Summilux 35 and 50 were 1.4 during film only era and they were in production for decades.

I have Jupiter-3 it is 50 1.5 LTM, small lens. Not Cosina Zeiss "small". It has 40.5 filter size.
For small and sharp at f2.8, here is Cosina Viogtlander 35 2.5. Not Zeiss "small" even more, filter size is 39.
It is 400 usd on any day. And not prone to Zeiss wobble.

Read this no wobble new top notch lens

http://joerivanderkloet.com/zeiss-c-biogon-352-8-review/

Huss · Feb 10, 2019

mshchem said:
Looks sharp. Don't get clunked on the head taking unauthorized girl pictures. .

She's a friend.

Huss · Feb 10, 2019

NB23 said:
I don’t have time to use anything else than my Leicas. There’s just no point of losing energy, time and money on anything else.

Shooting a non-Leica lens is simply taking valuable time and energy away from shooting a Leica lens. It just doesn’t compute in my head.

Guess u don't care about your images, just the fact that you are using Leica stuff.

My Leica glass flares way worse than my other lenses. Specifically my Summilux Asph 50 1.4 and Summicron Asph 35mm f2. So in cases where I know I do not want veiling, hazy flare, I use my Zeiss ZM glass - the Planar 50 and the 35 1.4, and their coatings are far superior.
If I want a more period, timeless look for portraits, then I use the 7A. If I want an image to be sharp across the field wide open, the Summilux Asph is fantastic. So as you can see I use the tool appropriate for the job.

What is a waste of my time and valuable energy is using incorrect equipment for the images I am trying to create.

NB23 · Feb 10, 2019

Since when Leica lenses weren’t good enough for any given job?

As for me, long enough ago I decided I would stop some nonsense regrarding gear. I’m not rich enough to buy cheap, and that’s what it is for me.

Huss said:
Guess u don't care about your images, just the fact that you are using Leica stuff.

My Leica glass flares way worse than my other lenses. Specifically my Summilux Asph 50 1.4 and Summicron Asph 35mm f2. So in cases where I know I do not want veiling, hazy flare, I use my Zeiss ZM glass - the Planar 50 and the 35 1.4, and their coatings are far superior.
If I want a more period, timeless look for portraits, then I use the 7A. If I want an image to be sharp across the field wide open, the Summilux Asph is fantastic. So as you can see I use the tool appropriate for the job.

What is a waste of my time and valuable energy is using incorrect equipment for the images I am trying to create.

JWMster · Feb 10, 2019

WIth Leica, I use the ZM 35/2.0, ZM 50/2.0 and ZM 21/2.8. The only non-ZM lens I have is a Tele-Elmarit 90/2.8 which I almost never use. I've thought of replacing the 90 with a ZM 85 but just haven't been shooting the Leica enough lately to justify it as I've been doing a lot more TLR work and enjoying the whole MF 120 challenge. Shooting a RF is fine, and I very much prefer the quiet, unobtrusive shooting experience, but the 3.5F TLR is such a friendly camera to make friends with.... and MF 120 has really demanded that I learn to step up my game in ways that are definitely good.

But as I look to the next 6 months, I expect to shoot more 35mm and in working with CatLabs, they tout these lenses, so I've wondered whether there's anything I'm missing in the faster speed 7Artisans.... and it sounds as if that extra speed isn't really going to do much for me. Nice lens is that's what you need. But F/2.0 is probably fast enough under most circumstances.

narsuitus · Feb 10, 2019

I currently use the following lenses on my Leica M6:
35mm f/1.4 Zeiss
21mm f/1.4 Leitz
90mm f/2 Leitz

However, the thought of shooting with a fast 50mm on my M6 has been on my mind for some time. I have considered the following:
Noctilux 50mm f/.95 ($10,000)
Noctilux 50mm f/1 ($5025 used)
Leitz 50mm f/1.4 ($3900 new; $1500 used)
Leitz 50mm f/2 ($2000 new; $1079 used)
Zeiss 50mm f/1.5 ($1261 new; used $760)
Zeiss 50mm f/2 ($651 new; $589 used)
Voigtländer 50mm f/1.1 (used $799)
Voigtländer 50mm f/1.5 ($729 new; used $530)

The wide-open soft-focus reports are the only thing preventing me from adding the 7Artisan 50mm f/1.1 ($369 new; $278 used) to my list.

warden · Feb 10, 2019

narsuitus said:
I currently use the following lenses on my Leica M6:
35mm f/1.4 Zeiss
21mm f/1.4 Leitz
90mm f/2 Leitz

However, the thought of shooting with a fast 50mm on my M6 has been on my mind for some time. I have considered the following:
Noctilux 50mm f/.95 ($10,000)
Noctilux 50mm f/1 ($5025 used)
Leitz 50mm f/1.4 ($3900 new; $1500 used)
Leitz 50mm f/2 ($2000 new; $1079 used)
Zeiss 50mm f/1.5 ($1261 new; used $760)
Zeiss 50mm f/2 ($651 new; $589 used)
Voigtländer 50mm f/1.1 (used $799)
Voigtländer 50mm f/1.5 ($729 new; used $530)

The wide-open soft-focus reports are the only thing preventing me from adding the 7Artisan 50mm f/1.1 ($369 new; $278 used) to my list.

Lots of good choices on your list there. A used 7Artisan would be very low risk, and you could sell it on if it doesn't work out. And even if it didn't work out it would be fun to try. I use the Zeiss 1.5 and it's great too.

warden · Feb 10, 2019

NB23 said:
Since when Leica lenses weren’t good enough for any given job?
.

Since forever? Lenses render differently, as Huss nicely stated. Doesn't make Leica worse, it makes them different.

JWMster · Feb 10, 2019

ReidReviews gives exceedingly high marks to the Voigtlander 50mm 1.1 relative to the Noctilux 50/0.95. Though he rates lenses using digital, I've been generally impressed the relative renderings between lenses on a medium (film vs. digital) vary more on the basis of the lens manufacture than on the medium. But just because my experience is limited and my eyes as well, doesn't mean this holds across the board. I recall references where the different drawing characteristics of a lens were discussed relative to use with film and then with digital. But for my money, I've found a good lens is a good lens, and a great even better, but there are limits in the same way that you can taste the differences between a good red burgundy up to about $ 200 a bottle, and after that the differences become less and less distinguishable (if at all) by more than a very, very few persons. I'd be happy with a Voigtlander 1.1/50mm in any case and the extra stop + it'd give over my F2 ZM. But as a guy who's shot Portra 400 with a Rollei 3.5 TLR handheld at night and pleased with the output, I'd find the difference in speed useful only on very rare occasions.

Huss · Feb 10, 2019

NB23 said:
Since when Leica lenses weren’t good enough for any given job?

As for me, long enough ago I decided I would stop some nonsense regrarding gear. I’m not rich enough to buy cheap, and that’s what it is for me.

When I don't want lens flare in a pic, the $4000 Leica 50 1.4 and $3300 Leica 35m f2 are not good enough for a given job. There are much cheaper options that do a much better job.

NB23 · Feb 10, 2019

Guys, I ENERGETICALLY applaud you for cherry picking your cheap lenses with your deep knowledge of their inherent looks and all the extra stuff they bring to your images.

I am impressed.

Huss · Feb 10, 2019

NB23 said:
Guys, I ENERGETICALLY applaud you for cherry picking your cheap lenses with your deep knowledge of their inherent looks and all the extra stuff they bring to your images.

I am impressed.

Hey, you're the same dood that started the Leica Apo 50 is the bestest thing ever thread!

Now it all makes sense.

NB23 · Feb 11, 2019

Yes, that’s me!
What a fantastically entertaining thread that was. I will have to revive it soon. Ahh the 50 apo, the lens of the Gods.

I also started a thread about ilfotec DD-X being an intergalactically great developer. And many more.

Huss said:
Hey, you're the same dood that started the Leica Apo 50 is the bestest thing ever thread!

Now it all makes sense.

ciniframe · Feb 11, 2019

To everyone but especially to NB23.
If you haven’t already read this article by Mike Johnston, please look it up.
Search “The 50mm lens and metaphysical doubt”
It was written about 18 years ago but is still spot on in my opinion.

7Artisans M-mount lenses

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