TTArtisan vs. Viltrox: Who Makes the Better Tiny Autofocus Lens?

Viltrox's 28mm "Chip" showed that an autofocus lens barely thicker than a body cap could make a full frame camera feel close to pocketable, and now TTArtisan has a $99 lens that follows the same design almost line for line. With matching prices, nearly identical dimensions, and the same sliding front cover, the TTArtisan 24mm f/3.8 Mini AF has to earn its place through image quality and handling, since it can't stand out on looks.

Arthur R put the TTArtisan 24mm f/3.8 Mini AF and the Viltrox AF 28mm f/4.5 Chip on a Sony a7 IV and shot them side by side, straight out of camera. In the hand, the Viltrox is the nicer object. Its plastics feel a step up, it carries a little more density in a smaller package, and its front cover slides with a smoothness the TTArtisan doesn't match. The TTArtisan has one practical advantage on the back: its rear element doesn't stick out past the body, so you can set it down mount-first on a table without the glass touching the surface. Both have a USB-C port for firmware updates, and once either one is on a camera, Arthur R couldn't feel any difference between them.

Optically, the two lenses take slightly different approaches. The TTArtisan is wider and lets in about half a stop more light, but like the Viltrox, its aperture is fixed. You can't stop down to f/8 or f/11 for sunstars or deeper landscape focus, so what you see at f/3.8 is what you get. On full frame, the TTArtisan renders with strong contrast and solid color, with only a sliver of softness in the extreme corners that a small crop removes. Chromatic aberration is rare, distortion is a mild mustache pattern you probably won't bother correcting, and vignetting is noticeably lighter than on the Viltrox. Flare is where the personalities split: the Viltrox throws dramatic streaks, while the TTArtisan produces softer flare elements that can look good but still cost contrast when you point it straight at the sun.

Lenses like these are landing at a time when small cameras are having a moment. The Fujifilm X100 series and the Ricoh GR III have built devoted followings, and demand for the X100VI pushed it onto backorder lists well after launch. Much of that appeal comes from a fixed, moderately wide lens on a compact body that you take everywhere because it doesn't feel like a commitment. A $99 pancake on a body you already own gets you a lot of that experience without buying a second camera. A fixed aperture also simplifies shooting in a way street shooters have long relied on. You stop thinking about depth of field and let shutter speed and ISO handle exposure. At f/3.8 on a wide lens, most of a street scene lands in acceptable focus anyway, so the aperture you'd likely pick for that kind of work is already the one you have.

Autofocus on the TTArtisan is silent and relatively quick, and Arthur R found it more responsive and less clumsy than the Viltrox's. There's a fair amount of focus breathing, which doesn't matter for stills. For video, it holds up as long as your subject isn't walking toward or away from the camera too much. The bigger twist comes on APS-C. On a crop sensor, the 24mm gives you a field of view of roughly 36mm in full frame terms, very close to the 35mm look so many street shooters choose for everyday work. Paired with a small APS-C body, the whole setup gets very small, though at f/3.8 you won't get much background separation.

Which of the two lenses Arthur R would buy is in the video above.