About a month ago I took a small chance on a lens I knew next to nothing about. I felt fine experimenting with something new because the price was so low, but at the same time I presumed that because the lens was so inexpensive that the performance would be nothing really to write home about. Or to write about here. As usual, I was wrong. The lens turned out to be a really good performer and it's one of the few lenses that I carry around with me almost all the time.
Part of that is because of how good the lens actually is coupled with its relatively small size and weight. It's so manageable. But it's partly because of how much I like the focal length and the smart compromise between focal length and moderate aperture.
The lens is the TTArtisan's 75mm f2.0 Autofocus lens for the L mount camera systems. It's smaller than either of my similar aperture, big brand, 50mm AF lenses and about half the size and weight of the ponderous Sigma 85mm f1.4 Art lens (type2) that I bought years ago and only use when I have a very specific use in mind. Why do I mostly ignore the Sigma 85mm? Even though the optical performance is surely state of the art the darn thing is too kludgy and weighty to be a fun walking around lens. In studio or on a client project? We'll suck it up and bring it along but for a walk down Congress Avenue with a stop at Jo's for coffee? Nah. Not likely. But the TTArtisan? That's just the ticket. And it's a nice break from all the wide and semi-wide focal lengths that are ubiquitous out in the photo wild.
Over the last decade or so people's tastes in lenses has changed. A lot, I think. Because of phone cameras and popular compact cameras like the Leica Q series and the Fuji X100 series people have become acculturated to seeing photographs that are mostly taken with wide angle and semi-wide angle lenses and largely presented un-cropped. The iPhone cameras for years sported a 26mm equivalent focal length and people seemed happy enough to use it for portraits and all kinds of documentation.
I think the wide angle embrace moved the classic use of lenses into wider and wider zones. In the 1970s one of the most popular portrait focal lengths was the 100-105mm. Followed by the 85mm for people who wanted a bit more context in their portraits. Now lens makers are presenting 50mm lenses as "perfect portrait" lenses. I'm old school but I get the appeal of wider points of view than those we embraced earlier in our careers. For me 75mm is the new 85mm. 85mm is the new 105mm; and so on.
As we progress I'm almost certain that we'll end up using the 50mm focal length on full frame cameras as the de facto "formal" portrait lens. But in the meantime I find that the 75 matches the way I like to see things very well.
This TTArtisan lens is sharp enough at f2.0 and as sharp as anything out there at f4 and f5.6. I have no fear whatsoever using the lens wide open nearly all the time. Since it's an AF lens with electronic contacts for the L mount system (also available in lesser mounts as well....) it works and focuses well with all of my Leica SL and CL cameras as well as on my Panasonic S5 camera. With focus assist turned on and the camera set to manual focus when I touch the focusing ring the system punches in and shows me a highly magnified image with which to focus. Same as my Leica lenses, my Sigma lenses and my Panasonic lenses.
The lens even has a USB-C port built into the mount to enable firmware updates.
All of the images in this post were done with the combination of the 75mm f2.0 lens and a Leica SL2-S, 24 megapixel camera. A nice pairing for walking around making random photographs.
I paid $185 for my brand new copy. After I bought one my friend, Andy, who is far more patient than I, picked up his brand new one during one of Amazon's sale days for a whopping $158. Amazing for a lens that works as well as this one does. Now we'll have to see about reliability, etc. But really? Can you go far wrong at that price???
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