Tonight, after a long day in the office I was extremely hot on getting my hands on the new 7Artisans 25mm f0.95 lens I got yesterday. Two things I wanted to explore how capable is this light monster in classical street photography and how will this lens perform in close portrait situations. How smooth and creamy will the bokeh be of this lens.
First things first. After having been using intense the 7Artisans 35mm and 50mm f0.95 I can confirm the build quality of this lens is fully in line with the high end quality finish of those two other lenses. Wonderful haptic of the used materials, outstanding anodized an polished lens mount. Something I always enjoy on these real mechanical lenses is the smooth damped movement of the aperture and focus ring. This lens has an optical structure of 11 lenses in 9 groups. 3 of these lenses are even made from high end HOYA ultra low dispersion glass. This state of the art optical formulation has it’s weight and that weight you can at some places feel during turning the focusing ring, you are simply moving a lot of heavy glass. The 7Artisans 50mm f0.95 is close to perfect balanced on the Fujifilm X-PRO2 the new 7Artisans 25mm f0.95 is a bit front heavy due to 99.7mm length and weight. You might start smiling but I am fallen in love with the manual 7Artisans. Since some month I did not use my Fujinon FX autofocus lenses!
The two other f0.95 7Artisans lenses, 35mm and 50mm, have proven in my tests their very high IQ even wide open. On those lenses I am using my preferred vented metal lens hoods to prevent stray light from entering the lenses. Using the lens hood has proven to me better color rendering and image contrasts. The new 7Artisans 25mm f0.95 has the same filter diameter of Ø52mm as the 7Artisans 35mm f0.95. I tried the same vented lens hood on the 25mm but as this lens hood is too long and too narrow it creates vignettes at the outer image corners. I have ordered an other lens hood which I will get tomorrow. The pictures taken for my test today are made without a lens hood and I will postpone a final judgement of the optical quality till I used the lens with a lens hood. All I can tell you now, even without lens hood the IQ is already high. Well done again 7Artisans.
Now have a look your self and if you want please leave me your opinion in a comment.
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Hi, looks promising, but curious, clicked aperture ring?
Hi Conrad,
Forgot to mention this. It is like the other two f0.95 Artisans de-clicked. I personal love this very much.
Greetings
Malte
I have the 35mm 0.95 and am pleased with its optical quality and particularly the quality of its construction. I will likely be acquiring the two new f0.95 lenses. Thank you 7artisans for opening up relatively affordable creative possibilities.
How sharp is the 25mm and 50mm wide open? I have the 35mm and am very pleased with the quality and sharpness.
Hi Dave,
Well the 7Artisans Fireflies are of course showing their highest IQ if you stop down the lens to f4. Still I believe the 50mm f0.95 is wide open in the center very sharp.
The 25mm f0.95 is softer but for me it provides still a very usable sharpness for a lot of photography situations.
The difficulty with an opening of f0.95 is the extreme small DOF that gets even smaller the closer you get to the object to image.
I hope I was able to answer your question.
Greetings,
Malte