7artisans 35mm F/1.4 Review
A little while ago, I was sent the 7 Artisans 35 millimeter f/1.4 by 7 Artisans, around the same time as a few other lenses they have made recently. This particular lens stands out among their more recent releases as a photography-centric, manual focus, wide aperture lens. This is the family of lenses they originally started making, focusing on more affordable manual focus options, but this particular model represents a nice step up.
One reason I never purchased one of the earlier 7 Artisans 35 millimeters was the design, which felt counterintuitive and not very user-friendly. However, this model has improved significantly in that regard. It features a mostly metal build and is manual focus only. Being designed for full-frame Sony E Mount, the rear lens mount is quite large, leaving no room for electrical contacts or a USB-C port, which is commonly found on many third-party lenses for firmware updates.
It is a well-built lens; however, I do have a couple of concerns regarding its performance. The first concern is the accuracy of the focus scale. I am accustomed to zone focusing, and on this lens, we have zone focusing marks starting from f/1.4 up to f/4, f/8, and f/16. Typically, I would try to focus around the f/8 mark. With this lens at f/8, you can focus from 2 meters up to infinity. I attempted to take a few shots using this lens, but I found that the images came out entirely soft, with surfaces and objects from close to the camera to infinity in frame, and unfortunately, nothing appeared to be in focus.
However, when I focused more accurately on some other shots, I managed to achieve critical focus at f/8. This indicates that while it is possible to nail focus, the zone focusing marks may be slightly unreliable. I have mainly tested this at f/8 due to recent lighting conditions, so I have not yet tested it at f/16.
My next concern may be part of the reason for the focus issues: the looseness of the focusing ring. When turning the focusing ring, it feels quite loose, allowing you to set it to a certain distance, but a light touch can easily shift it. This is not entirely unusual for many older film SLR lenses, which often exhibit similar behavior, but those typically have more reliable focus marks.
The aperture ring allows for adjustments from f/1.4 up to f/16, and it also features the option to click or declick the aperture ring. This can be useful if you prefer a smooth transition or if you are shooting video and want to control exposure or change depth of field while recording.
Compared to other prime lenses I have used from 7 Artisans, including their 50 millimeter and 85 millimeter lenses, which were both autofocus, I must say I prefer the design and build of this lens significantly more. I would love to see a 35mm lens, perhaps with an f/1.8 or f/2.8 aperture, in this compact build style from 7 Artisans. If they could combine this manual focus, compact design philosophy with the updated autofocus functionality found in their 1.8 primes, such as the 50mm and 85mm, it would be an exciting direction for 7 Artisans to pursue.
At the moment, this lens is interesting, but when compared to other 35mm manual focus lenses, such as those from Thipoc, it does not quite hold its own in that category. While it has a nice design, the image quality is somewhat lackluster.
