Can This Ultra-Cheap f/1.4 Lens Take Worthwhile Images?

TTArtisan makes some very affordable lenses, and at $118, the 17mm f/1.4 is no different. Offering a wide focal length paired with a maximum aperture and available for a wide variety of APS-C mounts, it looks like a potentially useful budget option for a wide range of shooters. If you are interested in such a lens, check out this great video review that takes a look at the 17mm f/1.4 and the sort of performance and image quality you can expect from it in practice.

Coming to you from Christopher Frost, this excellent video review takes a look at the TTArtisan 17mm f/1.4 lens for Fujifilm X, Canon EF-M, Micro Four Thirds, Leica L, and Nikon Z APS-C mount cameras. At $118, this lens is especially affordable, and as such, you should not expect top-of-the-line image quality from it, but that being said, as you will see, it can create quite decent and attractive images in a lot of scenarios. Perhaps the biggest drawback is that it lacks autofocus, but with the manual focus assistance options on most modern mirrorless cameras, that is not as big of a deal anymore as long as you are not photographing fast action. Check out the video above for Frost's full thoughts on the lens. 

Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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4 Comments

The other day there was a great view of a Sony 85 1.8m lens and now we have this fast wide angle lens. If this was AF and could work with Sony's AF system, I'd buy it for youtube content immediately

If you can build a lens like this for $100 I wonder how much more it costs to add AF.

Every TTartisan lens is great, if not fantastic for the price. Performance wise, they are reasonably sharp, have good coatings and are built with quality reminiscent of older film lenses. That's not to say that they don't have a few shortcomings, such as no autofocus, distortion, flaring and lack of weather sealing. They also don't come with lens hoods. If your willing to forgo those luxuries, TTartisan will not disappoint you.