TTArtisan 75mm F2 Review, this is awesome.
TTArtisan 75mm F2 review : Is this the best Portrait lens for under $200.-?
Hello and welcome to my in depth TTArtisan 75mm F2 review, this 75mm Auto Focus full frame lens is currently available in both the Nikon Z mount and Sony E mount.
So what’s so great about this lens? Well the price for one as this lens costs under $200.- or €200.- and it’s also an autofocus lens, that’s light, easy to carry around and full o9f character.
Now, if you are thinking this lens is super cheap so it must be rubbish then brace yourself for a bit of a shock… It’s not, in fact, I really like this lens, it has a lovely look and feel to it and it’s capable of delivering lovely creamy backgrounds, for this price of this lens that’s truly remarkable.
I will be testing this TTArtisan 75mm F2 lens on my Nikon Z8 and I will be running you through all the samples shots I have with it.
I will also be covering sharpnesss, distortion, vigneting, focus speed, focus breathing, flaring, contrast and of course Bokeh too as well, so come on lets get into it and I will walk you through why this lens surprised me…
You can read on below or if you prefer you can also watch my TTArtisan 75mm F2 review video below.
Price
The TTArtisan 75mm F2 lens is currently just under $200.- for both the Nikon and Sony version, it’s usually around $199.- but you can check the latest price for the Nikon Z mount here and the Sony E mount here on Amazon.
Please note those are affiliate links and it doesn’t cost you anything to use them but I may make a slight commission from them which I use to create videos like this and run my website so thank you for your support.
For the money it’s a real steal and utterly amazing value for money, after playing with this lens for only a few minutes I just had to go online to double check the price as I honestly thought there must be some mistake here.
So for price it’s going to be incredibly hard to beat this lens.
What’s in the box with this 75mm F2 lens?
Inside the box you have the lens, the lens hood, a front lens cap and the rear end cap but you might miss the fact that there is also a USB dock in that rear endcap.
This is for future lens software upgrades of course, so that’s very handy to have and I personally prefer having it in the dock rather than having a USB port on the lens as it’s one less thing to get damaged on the lens then.
Size and weight
The TT Artisan 75mm F2 lens weighs 328-340 grams depending on what mount you get it in with the Sony E mount being the slightly lighter option, so it’s a nice light lens and with it being only 7.4cm x 6.7cm x 6.7cm it’s also very compact and easy to carry around with you.
So if you want to travel light this lens is truly amazing.
Build Quality
Looking at build quality and construction now, I have been using this TTArtisan 75mm F2 lens for over two months now and the one thing I noticed straight away about it was it’s build quality. In fact as soon as you take it out of the box you can feel it has a solid metal body and that’s surprising for a lens at this price range.
It immediately gives you the feeling that you are holding a farily robust lens and you could easily believe this lens cost two or three times as more than it actually does.
The front element and filter threads on the lens look well and again they feel very well made, the rear flange and metal mount again would inspire a lot of confidence in this lens.
So overall this lens punches well above its weight in terms of build quality.
Focus Ring and operation
The large focus ring is nice and smooth, it’s super easy to find when shooting and it has a focus throw of about 100 to 120 degrees but interestingly this is also speed dependent, in other words the slower you turn the ring the more the ring needs to turn to travel across the focal plane.
This all means you can quickly whip the focus ring into the rough focus position you want and then slowly position it for ultimate pin point precision.
Aperture Ring
The Aperture ring is again solid and feels relatively robust with solid clicks as you change the aperture in 1/3 stops, now a point to note here is you can’t de-click or switch off these rotational click.
Just to be clear though in Auto mode where the camera changes the aperture there is no clicking as the Aperture changes.
One thing I would like to see here would be a lock for the aperture ring so it won’t accidentally pop off auto and you are wondering for a second or two why you can’t change your aperture.
To select Auto simply swing the ring all the way around to “A” and that’s it, now your camera can adjust the Aperture automatically.
Another point to note here is the Red A is also the point that you use to line up the lens with the dot on your camera body to physically mount the lens on to your camera.
Lens hood
This brings us to the TTArtisan 75mm F2 lens hood. While it serves its very purpose well, it does feel a bit cheap and if you don’t line it up right it can slip past the groove and go further onto the lens then it’s supposed too.
Yes, that’s a minor quirk and I am being very picky here now… You can of course pop on the lens hood backwards for storage while travelling to reduce its size, which is nice.
The point to remember here is this is an incredibly cheap lens so you have to expect slight issues like this and I would much prefer the lens performs well as it does and the accessories are the parts I am not in love with.
Focus speed and accuracy
Looking at Focus next and the Focus speed is fast and while focusing the lens is also quiet while delivering very good focus accuracy, this lens also works well with Eye and Subject detection so all positives here.
As I repeatedly focus backwards and forwards in the video above you can see the focus works quickly and it’s also very positive when locking onto the subject with minimal hunting. The STM focus motor is what powers this speed, accuracy and quiet operation.
Focus breathing
Again looking at the video you can see there is a bit of focus breathing in this lens so for video shooters that’s something to bear in mind, but it’s not too bad so unles you are shifting focus a lot it’s not off putting at all.
Again you can decide for yourself by watching the video.
The one point to mention here again is the focus mechanism is relatively quiet so that’s a positive for any hybrid or video shooters looking to use it.
How sharp is the TTArtisan 75mm F2 lens?
Now, it’s not the sharpest lens I have here obviously and when I started this review originally a few weeks ago I did the technical test charts first as I always do, I go into a lot of detail on those charts in the video above and while the results were good they were not mind blowing, I would say more average really.
It was only when I started to use this lens in real world situations that I found this is not about technicalities or super sharp pristine images this lens is more about the look and feel you can get from it and all at a great price.
I have a sample test chart image below shot at F2 and it’s zoomed in at 100% and you can see how sharp it is.
Again if you check the video I have far more detail in that.
The more I use this lens, the more I liked its rendering and character, this is a great compact 75mm lens that is fantastic at taking portraits and as a general purpose telephoto carry around lens. It’s as simple as that.
Let me show you what I mean here… So below we have a photograph of Dobby shot at F2 and as you can see it keeps Dobby eyes sharp but also renders a nice soft creamy background, next to it then we have the same photo shot at F16, I purposefully put some random items in the background to kind of mess it up a bit but as you can see the F2 photograph has melted away the background and blended it into a far more photogenic one.
Minimum Focus Distance
The minimum focus distance and going back to the photo of Dobby again this was as close as I could get to Dobby without losing focus on the eyes as the closest focusing distance is 75cm, now again for portraits that’s perfect and not an issue at all but if you like more close up macro work then this is something to consider as it won’t get you close enough to your subject.
Starbursts
You can also see in the F16 photograph…. this lens produces some nice starbursts around the light sources in the image, so that’s another positive for the lens.
Speaking of starburst let me show you this photograph of the sun there now and you will notice this lens does have a bit of flaring in it as you can see here and also here with the colour abnormalities there also.
So that’s one slight thing to look out for. This by the way was the worst flaring I could get from this lens and I had to mess around with it a lot to get it this bad.
So it shouldn’t show up like this for you normally.
Contrast and light leak
One of the nice characteristics of this lens is that when it’s wide open it does ever so slightly lack a tiny bit of contrast which again for most portraiture is a nice touch. Stopping down to F 2.8 or even better F4 kills does kill this lack of contrast then.
Looking at this example photograph you can see how the strong backlighting has brightened the branch and reduced the overall contrast in the scene.
What I have found is it all just helps to give this lens a bit more of a light airy feel to it and I can’t help but likeing the look from it.
Let’s have a look at some more shots there now and how this lens translates the light for you.
As you can see there is a nice soft filmic kind of feel to all the backgrounds, which is something you often times miss from modern ultra precise or clinical lenses.
Now don’t get me wrong I love super sharp lenses but they are not always what you want to use or they also may not suit your particular style.
Lens Design
So how does this lens work and how does it produces images like this?
Well by having 10 elements in 4 groups like this, it also has a 9 blade diaphragm in it, to help give you those beautiful out of focus backgrounds. The 10 elements are there to minimize distortion and vignetting so let’s check out how it did on those points in out test chart now. As you can see and as you would expect from most lenses when shot wide open there is some vignetting there… this can be easily corrected in your editing software though so it’s not an issue at all. There is some distortion there also and its pin cushion distortion, but if you are going to have any distortion in a portrait lens that’s the one to have as it will help ever so slightly to slim faces for you. You can of course again correct this distortion in a split second in post processing so neither vignetting or distortion are an issue at all. As we are looking at Test charts let’s check out chromatic aberration next.
Chromatic aberration
Chromatic Aberration is there but it’s kept under control to a large part as you can see in the video above, in all the test chart images there is only very slight amounts of it to be found.
It’s only really apparent in the slightly out of focus areas of the image that have high contrast differences but as I say it’s no real issue at all with this lens.
TT Artisan 75mm F2 Review Conclusion
Overall I have to say the TTArtisan 75mm F2 lens is incredibly well priced, it’s light, compact and gives great results. In short this lens is perfect for anyone looking to get into portrait photography and I really like the look it gives.
For value for money this lens has to be one of the best portrait lenses out there right now it’s as simple as that. So if you are thinking about getting it then I for one think you will really enjoy using it.
So it’s a massive thumbs up for me and I would highly recommend it
Thanks again for reading this review and please do check out these other reviews you might find interesting also…
See you out there,
Kieran.
TTArtisan 75mm F2 Review : Mind blowing at a crazy price.
Hello and welcome to my in depth TTArtisan 75mm F2 review, this 75mm Auto Focus full frame lens is currently available in both the Nikon Z mount and Sony E mount.
4.7
Pros
- Cheap
- Lightweight
- Sharp
- Full of Character
Cons
- Not the sharpest lens
- Lens Hood is fidly