7Artisans 50mm f/1.4 Tilt Shift lens review

More and more affordable tilt / tilt-shift lenses are hitting the market these days and this one, at only $226, has to be the best value of all! Can it possibly be any good though, at that price point?

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[sbsheep]

The shift function is also useful for taking pictures of reflective objects without the camera or photographer being in the frame.

[MattTrevett]

Wowie. Definitely one of those lenses that you need to remember the sweet spot for aperture. Some of the professional lenses are good wide open, but the budget ones I've gotta cheat sheet to quickly remember the optimal settings. I do like 7artisan's willingness to make creative lenses on a budget even if the image quality isn't always 100%.

[okaro]

Tilt and shift lenses always have a much larger image circle than normal lenses so they will work at leat to sobe extent on larger sensors also.

[michaelq]

1:22 nooo, what software did you use to stitch that? look what happened on the left

[Julius_S]

I think you would find that many of us doing architectural imagery for work prefer 35mm and 50mm over ultra wide, even 85mm and longer for exteriors, and shift still helps at these focal lengths. There is of course a need for very wide (and expensive) shift lenses due to frequently-encountered interior space constraints, but if we could photograph through walls and use a longer focal length, many would in most circumstances. We frequently move furniture away from walls just to get a tripod further back and use longer focal lengths.

[Leoine]

I recommend a tilt shift adapter and some cheap old manual medium format 645 lenses from Pentax, Mamiya, etc. You pay once for the tilt shift mechanism, then can change focal lengths. Also some incredibly high quality medium format lenses for about this price.

[Akakagelife]

Its on sale right now on Amazon for 192.00. I wasn't sure with incorrect information out there, but your review cleared that up! Gonna pick one up and give it a go. Thanks.

[blazerbarrel]

Great review . Great lens for the price, function, and performance !

[ezradja]

Must have lens for product/still life/jewelry photography.

[swistedfilms]

Not bad for a bargain tilt/shift! If you just think of it as an f/4 then you've got a sharp lens with the only trade-off being that you have to use a tripod in dark situations for a longer exposure. And if you're going to be using this in daylight all the time then this is a great budget option!

[skyscraperfan]

2:02 If you tilt a lot, close and far areas are in focus while the the area in between is out of focus.

[mducraft]

What is the difference between this one and the TTArtisan one? Which one do you recoment, from what I have seen The TTArtisan sounds a little better.

[parranoic]

If they made a wider version I would buy it

[ChrisThe]

It's marked as aps-c because you need a larger image circle to make use of tilt and shift. If you go to the extreme ends when using a FF sensor you'll get vignetting

[Daniel_Borisov]

I would have never thought you'd like Korn. They remain one of my favourite bands even though I don't listen to metal much these days but I used to a decade ago lol. Which album is that? 🙂

[harukinzaphod]

This is an f/2.8 lens. Because you need a big chunk of glass for a shift lens they thought, let's put in big aperture. I think if you consider this an f/2.8 that works best at f/5.6 you have a bargain lens. As a shift lens, it is far too long. I use a 28mm f/3.5 shift lens that's probably 40 years old. I love it. Now if 7Artisans bought out a 24mm f/2 or f/2.8 full-frame lens, I would be interested.

[danteedee]

Another great review! The Korn album on your shelf surprised me.

[nathkaplan]

Thank you for a very comprehensive review.

[PacoM.]

Awesome review. Would be interesting to see how it stacks up against the TTArtisan 50mm f1.4 tilt lens.

[matthewburga]

I'd love to see a review of the Brightin Star 55mm 1.8.
It seems to be great value.