The flares are big and bold. You wont find crisp orbs and lines like you do with other vintage lenses such as the Canon 35mm f/2 LTM, Minolta M-Rokkor 40mm f/2, or the modern-vintage Voigtlander Nokton Classic 35mm f/1.4 MC. The focusing ring has the perfect amount of resistance. Not too much, not too little. I would say the closest thing to this focusing ring is actually my Leica Summicron 50mm f2 v5. And having to reference a Leica lens in regards to build quality makes it abundantly clear just how well built this 7artisans 35mm f0.95 lens really is.

In my tests I removed the lens hood of the Leica Summicron lens since the 7Artisans lens doesn’t come with a lens hood.

It’s a modern lens in that it has been newly designed and built, the materials it uses are modern and the various coatings it employs are based on today’s optical standards – but the optical design is still the optical design. Lens design – Sonnar If you’re interested, I rant a bit about this at the end of the article. In short, my response to these people is: get over yourself. Build quality I haven’t tried this brand lens yet. I do however have and use the Voightlander 35mm f/1.2 full frame in Leica M mount. I love it! I have the Kamlan 50mm f/1.1 lens in Sony E mount. I also have the 7 Artisans 50mm f/1.1 lens in Leica M mount. This is another fine lens. My least used but fine lens in Sony E mount but in APSC coverage is the 35mm f/.095 lens. With this one you can literally see in the dark.

One thing I noticed on a few frames here and there was obvious barrel distortion. It’s not something that’s going to draw your eye when shooting busy scenes but use the lens for architecture and you might need to exercise some lens correction in post-production (if you’re into that deviant sort of stuff). A modern Sonnar?

I will finish my list of gripes with with a look at the edges of the image. Things get shmeary in the periphery. If you wanted a modern lens with sharpness across the field, you will be disappointed. If you are looking for some funk in the periphery, it’s funky. In this image, the peripheral funk even makes the image seem to have a miniaturization effect. Those are full size trees but the peripheral smear and distortion almost makes them look like they were photographed with a tilt shift lens. Overall, I think it looks kind of good on a camera I love this thing's tiny size and workable handling. Image quality. This lens is tiny size and very low price indicating to me a potentially very simple optical formula. As long as it isn’t an environmental portrait and I am shooting wide open to hid any peripheral shmear. It hits a sweet spot between being very creamy, and presenting some imperfections such as semi-harsh edges on the out of focus specular highlights. It also skews the OOF blur near the edges, which gives a little “zoom in” effect to your images. This is all of course when shot wide open (which is what I guess you will probably do when shooting bokehliciousness) when you stop down the 9 curved aperture blades ensure specular highlights that are still semi-round. Also the skewing of the edges will subside.

Mitakon 35mm f/0.95 mkII– Best for shallow DOF and very very smooth bokeh combined with Fujinon image quality. This lens is a true gem. Period.Outside of my joy for the Sonnar formula, to my mind the 7Artisans 35mm f1.2 lens does seem to offer pretty great value. It might not be built to the exacting standards of something out of the stables of the big boys, and it might offer a slightly unusual user experience but neither of these factors are deal breakers at the price point… Ultimately, if you’re looking for a 50mm equivalent fast lens for your aps-c camera, it’s hard to argue with the 7Artisans 35mm f/1.2 ! I have been cleared to tell you that it will, at most, sell for 17 Quadloos. I’m sadly not in a position to tell you how this converts to your specific currency (market volatility makes any conversion immediately out of date). That said, based on 7artisans’ 50mm f/1.1 my gut tells me that it will very likely be the most affordable new 35mm M-mount lens out there. While this lens definitely can’t match the Fuji 35 f2 or f1.4 for technical image quality, it is smaller, cheaper and faster than either of them. And it produces beautiful images with a unique look and (mostly) creamy out of focus renditions.

Voigtlander lenses compared: Left to Right – Skopar 2.5, Ultron f2, Nokton 1.4, Nokton 1.2 v3, Nokton 1.2 v2Probably the most eye catching thing about this lens is its on-paper specification as a f/1.2 35mm. Unfortunately, it’s only designed to be used on aps-c cameras, as such, that specification is a little less exciting than it would be if it was a full frame lens.