TTArtisan 50mm f/0.95 for Leica M Reviews
Flare, Flare and More Flare!
By John
Rated 2 out of 5
Date: 2022-05-06
Don't bother using this lens on bright sunny dqys. Hazy contrast, and loss of detail. Mechanically it is okay. Heavy (it is f/0.95) and difficult to focus (EVF helps, if available). There are better ways to spend $800. The only reason to get a lens this fast it use it at its widest aperature, and it fails in this regard!
not very good lens
By Alan
Rated 1 out of 5
Date: 2021-09-30
is not as good as review
What's not to like??
By Michael
Rated 5 out of 5
Date: 2021-09-21
I have the M10 Monochrome, and yes, I feel like a camera snob, but this lens is wonderful particularly for portraits. And honestly I haven't done much with the higher f stops. The bokeh is what one would expect from an f0.95, and the process and results for focusing is just like name brand Leica glass in the M10. At a price less than 10% of the Leica Noctilux, if you're seriously torn between the two, it would totally be worth your time and money to get on a plane, visit B&H, and try this lens! Or better yet, just buy it. High likelihood you'll giggle with delight at what this lens can do, particularly at this price!
This is a better lens than I expected
By Mark
Rated 5 out of 5
Date: 2021-06-16
I didn't expect a Noctilux at 1/18th the price. I've never used a Noctilux 0.95 (although I did own a 1.0 in the 90's and found it hard to nail focus on my M6, but loved the look when I did). I've had the 1.2 Canon 50 & 85 and eventually got rid of them for commercial work because it was too hard to nail focus (either me or the subject slipped out of place), but always loved the look. I'm using this lens with my Leica SL and Sony A7r (both with adapters) and due to the ability to punch in to focus, pretty much nailing it every time. At 0.95 (why shoot any other stop) there are areas of the frame that are sharper than others, but nothings truly sharp, just sharp-er - that's pretty much every fast lens. Once you learn those spots, all is good. Stop it down, it just gets sharper and less finicky - excellent in fact. I actually thought I'd try it, be disappointed, and send it back, but after less than a week, it's a keeper.
Great Bokeh alternative
By E. Roger
Rated 5 out of 5
Date: 2021-06-02
The TTartisans 50mm F0.95 lens is a very usable lens.
Very good sharpness at higher apertures and great bokeh at lower ones. Not as sharp at F0.95 as the Leica but very adequate and Loys of fun while saving
thousands of dollars
Great lens for the price
By Nicholas
Rated 5 out of 5
Date: 2021-05-11
Lens is built great. Has great bokeh and subject separation, which is why you buy the tool. Yes, it is a little soft and has chromatic aberration, but it's better than every other lens trying to be the Leica 50mm.
Spectacular Lens, Superb Value
By Arthur
Rated 5 out of 5
Date: 2022-01-22
As its label (50mm f/0.95) would suggest, this lens is an extraordinary photographic tool, either on an M-mount (Leica) camera or, with various adapters, on mirrorless cameras (albeit with manual aperture & manual focus). There's no issue with focusing accuracy with a mirrorless camera, of course, but with an M-mount camera the maximum aperture (f/0.95) accurate focusing may require an adjustment to the lens to work precisely with the camera's rangefinder, and TTArtisan kindly provides the tools and instructions for doing that. My copy of this lens, however, was perfectly adjusted right out of the box (whether that's the exception or the rule, I cannot say). This lens used good materials (metal) and is well put together---a quality product. Is this lens a paragon of optical perfection? No, far from it, but you don't buy an f/0.95 lens for that; you buy it for the unique effects you can obtain at maximum aperture. Is it a world-beating built-like-a-tank masterpiece of optical and mechanical construction like the Leica 50mm Noctilux? No, of course not, but it also costs only about 6% of the price of a Noctilux ($755 vs. $12,795), which makes it an extraordinary value for the money.
You get (less than) what you pay for, focus is awful at .95
By Jeremy
Rated 2 out of 5
Date: 2021-10-23
Let me preface this saying this is not user error, I have spoken with a handful of people who also have this lens or have returned this lens and have had this same problem. How this lens has any sort of positive review is mind boggling to me.
Its a beautiful lens with a nice weight to it... but as soon as you start shooting with it wide open you find the immediate issue that it doesnt have any point of sharpness at all. Shooting at .95 no matter what you do, you will not have any point of pure sharpness in the image, your sharpest point will still be blurry. same with 1.1 at around 1.4 you get a sharp focal point (and beyond of course) but why buy a 0.95 lens to shoot it at 1.4 and above? why even have a 0.95 lens at all when you cant get a focus wide open? The entire point of a lens that opens up this wide is to use it at its most open, in this case, TTArtisan have failed miserably. Why would anyone get this lens? to save $12,000 obviously, but unfortunately... you get what you pay for, however in all other off-brand lens versions, they tend to work really well... this one... not at all. Returning for a refund and hoping in the future there will be an affordable 0.95 with better focal abilities. For now... for shooting at 1.4, ill stick with my Sigma. Only giving two stars for price, how awesome the lens looks, and how it DOES work at 1.4 and above, but again, terrible wide open, as all would want to shoot with it.
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