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The 7Artisans 25mm f1.8 is a small and fast lens designed and manufactured in China for mirrorless cameras. It’s built with an all-metal lens barrel and has poor quality control and construction. Optically, the lens is tuned for a somewhat old-school, retro image quality where corner and edge sharpness are sacrificed for improved micro-contrast and color. This little lens is kind of a mess, and I’m struggling to decide if it’s even worth it. But then, the images it renders are so nice.
Lens Stats
Focal Length: 25mm equivalent to 37.5mm
Aperture Blade: 12 circular aperture blades
Elements: 7 elements in 5 groups
Coatings: Multi-Coated
Focus: Manual
CPU Contacts: No
Construction: Aluminum with copper bayonet
Pros: Very sharp in the center, good contrast and color, metal construction, fast, small, cheap, nice bokeh
Cons: Bad edge and corner performance, bad distortion, bad quality control, bad assembly quality, focus element drifts out of focus
- 7Artisans 25mm f1.8 Fujifilm X-Mount – Amazon
- 7Artisans 25mm f1.8 Sony APS-C E-Mount – Amazon
- 7ARtisans 25mm f1.8 Canon M-Mount – Amazon
- 7Artisans 25mm f1.8 Micro Four Thirds – Amazon
See all APS-C lenses for Fujifilm
See all lenses for Sony
See all micro-four-thirds lenses for Panasonic and Olympus.
All sample photos are shot using the Fujifilm X-Pro2.
7Artisans 25mm f1.8 Review | First Impressions
When I first unboxed this lens, I laughed. Honestly, I really did. Not because it’s cheap, but it definitely doesn’t feel cheap with the all-metal lens barrel and nice weight. I laughed because whoever assembled the lens had a field day with the contact cement. There are little spots of something, I’m assuming, like cement on the inside of the lens, and when you open the aperture and look inside, you can see the cement all along the edges of the lens. Maybe it was someone’s first day on the job, or someone was sick that day; at any rate, it’s pretty bad.
But whatever, none of those things will affect image quality, and for an under $100 lens, I’m ok with that.
There was also some dust in the lens when I got it and after only a few more days a lot more appeared. I’ve had the lens for two weeks and it already acts like I’ve had it for ten years.
In terms of image quality, I actually like it. It’s a lot like using those old 35mm lenses adapted to a full-frame camera before they really had computers, advanced ED, and aspherical elements to get those corners under control. The corners and edges are worthless with this lens, so it will function better as a micro four-thirds lens unless you don’t mind soft corners. I don’t.
Micro contrast is great, and the color and render depth is amazing, but the vignetting and barrel distortion are bad. Corner and edge performance is abysmal.
The lens feels nice in terms of build quality, but don’t let that fool you. After only a few days of using the lens, the aperture display ring (with the aperture tick on it), came loose and could spin freely. It feels like it’s on threads because I could just twist it and tighten it back up, but now it’s no longer properly aligned, so I have to eyeball the aperture.
So that’s that. I feel like it’s a little cheaper than a Rokinon / Samyang lens because their lenses last at least a few months before falling apart.
Speaking of Rokinon / Samyang, known for having very random performances between copies, I assume this lens is the same. Considering the interior of my lens was a speckled mess, it is likely no quality control, which means a lot of really crap lenses get sent out.
In terms of performance, I feel like I got a decent one.
Build Quality
The 7Artisans 25mm f1.8 lens is a 37.5mm equivalent on an APS-C body and a 50mm equivalent with micro four-thirds. It’s available for Sony APS-C, Fujifilm, Micro Four Thirds, and Canon M mount.
It can be used on full-frame cameras like the Sony A7r III, but it will only have a circle of projection large enough to cover the APS-C portion of the sensor, and you would need to put the camera in Super 35mm crop mode.
The lens barrel is built from an all-aluminum construction with a copper bayonet.
The focus ring has a throw of about 100°, which makes it a bit difficult to achieve precision focus, but this is fairly common for a manual 35mm lens.
The 12 aperture blades create some nice circular bokeh, especially when wide open. The aperture is a de-click aperture, which was a mistake.
Personal Experiences
The aperture number ring will come loose after time, but it can be tightened back up, and it doesn’t really affect the lens performance unless it doesn’t tighten back up with the aperture numbers properly aligned, which is what happened to me. However, just aim the aperture numbers to the top, and everything will be fine.
The lens cap gets stuck often on the front threads, but a nice UV filter could fix this.
The aperture ring is a little too easy to move, and it’s very close to the focus ring, so I find myself often nudging it by accident.
There is also an issue with the focus not staying where you set it. When adjusting focus, an element moves inside the lens, which creates a pressure difference or vacuum on one side of that element. This causes a small pull or suction on that element as the pressure equalizes and the lens slightly drifts back out of focus. This makes precision focus on the fly very difficult and it’s super annoying.
Sharpness
Center sharpness is very good; it’s actually sharper than both the Fujinon 27mm f2.8 and the Fujinon 23mm f1.4 lenses, but the sharpness of the corners and edges is very poor.
Even though the lenses are sharp, the real problem is getting shots to stay in focus from the element drifting as the internal pressure equalizes when that focus element moves around.
This is my prototype lens test chart; it will be evolving.
Sharpness 7Artisans vs Fujifilm 27mm f2.8 vs Fujifilm 23mm f1.4
Center f5.6
The 7Artisans is noticeably sharper than the 27 and the 23mm Fujifilm lenses in the center.
Corner f5.6
In the corners, the 7Artisans lens completely falls apart.
Diffraction & The Sweet Spot
Wide open, the 7Artisans 25mm f1.8 still has some very nice center sharpness. At f5.6 the lens is at its sharpest, even at f8 the lens still performs very well. By f16, things soften up.
Contrast / Color / Rendering
The color and contrast render very nicely. When compared to Fujifilm’s 23mm f1.4 and Fujifilm 27mm, it’s very hard to distinguish which lens has more tonal details. The 7Artisans is sharper, so it slightly throws the mind off.
When looking at these, you have to step way back to the point where you can’t tell which is sharper. At that point, the Fujinon 23mm f1.4 would appear to have slightly more contrast than the other two, but it’s really a toss-up. They’re all very good, and it’s safe to say that 7Artisans 25mm has excellent micro contrast.
Color is also very nice and natural with the 7Artisans. There are no strange shifts or tints like with many third-party lenses.
Straight out of camera RAW samples – shot with the Fujifilm X-Pro2
Distortion / Vignetting
There is quite a bit of vignetting and distortion. Vignetting never really clears up and is the worst at f1.8.
Compared to the Fujinon lenses, the 23mm f1.4 lens blows them both away here, but compared to the 27mm f2.8 lens, the 7Artisans lens is about the same. However, with the Fujinon lenses, a built-in lens profile will correct most of these problems with the RAW profile, so you’ll never actually see it like you will with the 7artisans lens. The same is true with Sony lenses when used in Sony cameras.
Chromatic Aberrations
Chromatic aberrations are very well controlled, even at f1.8. When stopping down, the image becomes even cleaner.
Bokeh
All around, bokeh looks really nice with this lens. The 12-bladed aperture makes some very nice circular bokeh even when stopped down. There are also no onion rings or soap bubble effects.
There is a cat’s eye effect along the edges and corners, and when you look at the bottom left corners, you can see the inconsistencies of the cementing of the elements, showing in the shape of the bokeh, which appears as these little notches.
7Artisans 25mm f1.8 Review | Bottom Line
If you’re looking for a fun lens you can beat up, the 7Artisans 25mm f1.8 is fun. It’s a nice lens to mess around with or learn manual focus, especially if you’re looking to shoot black-and-white photography casually.
However, when the rubber meets the road, this lens basically just sucks. It’s poorly built, poorly designed, has virtually no quality control, corners are bad, distortion and vignetting are bad, and while the lens is sharp, the focus drifts, so a lot of shots end up slightly out of focus.
Sure, the contrast and color are great, but honestly, unless you really just want something you can experiment with, that $70 dollars would be better spent going towards a Fujinon 27mm f2.8, which can sometimes be found for around $200 on eBay.
You’re really getting what you pay for with this lens, but the optical formula is fantastic if you don’t mind some vignetting, distortion, and corner softness. In the right situations, it can produce some really nice images if you work within the limitations.
It’s just too bad a lens like this wasn’t built by a company that knows what they’re doing because, with the incredible center sharpness and contrast, it would have been a really nice one.
Ok, now that I said all that and scared you away, it’s really hard to find a cheap lens that’s this wide. Most retro lenses that are 25mm or in that range just outright suck, and anything by Fujifilm, Sony, or even Rokinon is four times as much money. This leaves the 7Artisans 25mm lens as the only option for a cheap lens that functions as a 35mm on an APS-C camera.
When I first started collecting lenses, I would sometimes buy cheap versions of a certain focal length to see if I’m comfortable shooting it before spending the money on something more expensive, and this lens is great for filling that void.
This lens will be a lot of fun for micro-four-thirds shooters. The crop factor will eliminate most of the issues with the corners and edges, leaving you with a crazy sharp lens with nice contrast if you can keep it in focus.
7Artisans 25mm f1.8 Sample Photos
Shot with the Fujifilm X-Pro2. Most images were shot with an aperture of around f4 to f5.6.
40 comments
Very fair review, and my experiences with this lens are similar to yours, minus the gunk in the lens. The extreme corners are indeed awful on APS-C, at least for Fuji and Sony. I have one for EOS-M and Micro 4/3, and they fare better due to the greater crop factor – especially M43. The sharpness is truly astonishing, though… all 3 I’ve used have been consistent performers in that regard. Coupled with contrasty rendering, it’s a total winner for less than a hundred bucks.
Thanks Judd, It’s got some really nice center performance that is hard to ignore. I would love to use this for M43 since there aren’t that many great priced lenses that perform well for M43. I haven’t been shooting with Canon lately and totally forgot they crop their APS-C to 1.6x. That would eliminate some of those corner issues indeed.
Nice review 🙂
Thanks Jonas! BTW I love your instagram feed, amazing stuff. And I hope you don’t mind that had to borrow your product shot style with the black matte board for awhile. My reflective board is just too scratched and it’s such a pain to shoot on. There is actually this cool fabric art board at Aaron Brothers I might try next.
Thank you man. I don’t mind at all. – You did a great review, and the packshots fit right in. 🙂
Great review and I’ve had this lens with me for a while now and I love the size to begin with. It costed me 750 HK dollars including a filter and a metal lens hood. The size of the lens is perfect for my X-Pro 2 and images are just fantastic, even compare to my 23 F2 and 23F1.4 at the centre. Now I am thinking about selling my 23 F1.4 since the weight is a problem for me. This lens also reminded me of the ZF lens that I used to shoot with my old Nikon set.
Furthermore, my lens also did not come with the issues that are mentioned in your review and when I first open the box to examine what 750 HKD looks like, I was very surprise with the built. I just wish they could come up with other focal length in the near future keeping the size of the lens in mind.
They just came out with a 35mm f2.
Hey man greetings from philippines! Such a great, detailed and honest review so far that Ive found about this lense! Iam actually goin now to try some of these glasses and I hope the 1 that i get is better build quality than those mentioned above. You are such a great artist! thanks for this review.:)
Thanks Eleazar, Check out the 7Artisans 35mm f2 as well. It’s a nice lens for the price, a lot better than the 25mm in terms of build and design. Optically it’s also a lot better on APS-C cameras as well.
Thank you very much, great review!
Thanks Alberto!
Any other option in the 25mm range for Sony aps-c?
Great photos!!!!!
There is the Meike, Jaray and 7Artisans, I think they all might be the same lens though.
At one point there was a 28 Kamlan, not sure where it went, I only see it for the EOS M mount. The Rokinon 21mm f1.4 is actually really nice and on sale right now, but it’s much bigger and more expensive. I have it but haven’t reviewed it.
SLR Magic has one but it’s a video lens and expensive and I don’t fully trust SLR Magic lenses at that price yet. Their lenses are a mess, getting a lot better though as they get more experience.
Kipon has the IBERIT 24mm. Probably the best build of all these lenses except maybe Rokinon, they have legit designers working for them now. I haven’t tried the 24 yet. The Kipon is a completely new and improved lens over the Handevision, but it’s a full frame lens so you pay a full frame lens price. I’ll likely grab all their lenses for review this summer since they’ve been updated.
Opteka has a 28mm f2.8 pancake, but I donno if I would bother with that.
I might be a little behind on what’s out. It’s been a few months since I’ve done a serious update so there could be a few other lenses I don’t know about yet.
There is a revision of this Fujian 25mm f1.8 based lens being sold even cheaper [about $50usd] with a larger concave front element that has far far superior sharpness. This revised 25mm f1.8 mildly softens at the far corners at f1.8, rather than puking the corners as the older 7artisans 25mm does..A lot easier to hit focus with less wander; so it seems like it a lot of work was done inside too. Being sold as unbranded or Fujian Cheecar for anyone curious, ebay and other usual suspects. Very happy with this RevB lens, acts a lot more modern, in a good way than any other cheap chinese lens I’ve seen.
It still has issues with blowout at certain angles, so a lens hood is necessary.
There is a revision of this Fujian 25mm f1.8 based lens being sold even cheaper [about $50usd] with a larger concave front element that has far far superior sharpness. This revised 25mm f1.8 mildly softens at the far corners at f1.8, rather than puking the corners as the older 7artisans 25mm does..A lot easier to hit focus with less wander; so it seems like it a lot of work was done inside too. Being sold as unbranded or Fujian Cheecar for anyone curious, ebay and other usual suspects. Very happy with this RevB lens, acts a lot more modern, in a good way than any other cheap chinese lens I’ve seen.
It still has issues with blowout at certain angles, so a lens hood is necessary.
I just picked one of these up. There’s one definite change and one possible change from what I read about earlier versions. The lens now comes with a plastic lens cap rather than a metal one, so there’s chance of the lens cap scratching the coating on the front element anymore. And, as far as I can tell studying the image through 5x focus magnify, for now the focus on my lens isn’t drifting.
Oh – and t-stop and f-stop only seem very distantly related…
But, honestly, I think it’s a great lens, especially for video. It gives a very nice film-like and 3D feel.
Awesome review!
I think I did an impulse buy on this lens…got one used for $45 just because I liked the colors and the contrast it produced at such a low cost. but after looking more at the images, they are just not sharp at all…almost has a vintage & modern lens look mashed into one. definitely an “artistic” lens but nothing I would want to use exclusively for any particular thing.
Thanks for the feedback Erick. Watch out for that drifting focus element. Some lenses don’t have that but mine did and that could be making your images slightly out of focus. But in general, there is a huge quality range coming out of these lenses. It seems 7Artisans doesn’t have precision gear when manufacturing these things.
looks like mine doesn’t have that focus drift issue but I did notice on mine is that the aperture ring is pretty much useless to dial in perfectly…the widest aperture (1.8) opens up at about 2.8 or so and just stops there. so im basically at 1.8 but my aperture ring may either say anything from 2.8, 2 or 1.8! haha i don’t mind though. I did notice also that its not the sharpest lens by any means, even when you nail focus, your thinking to yourself that its still not sharp. oh well…cant beat the price though and a good soft lens has its moments anyway
I sold the lens again, just to grindy when focusing and IQ not to my taste.
Look forward to your PerGear review. With even less glass inside, micro contrast must be quite good.
It will be interesting for sure if it’s really 5 elements and with this build it might last a little longer. The Meike builds fall apart and this Artisans has the focus drift issue. Did you see my post on the Brightin Star? I think it’s a nice alternative to the 7artisans 55, finally.
No, I didn’t see that one. Will have a look. I bought the Fujinon 60mm though, for use as a portrait lens, and it works out quite well. I like my Meike 35mm f1.7, still in one piece 🙂
Oh yeah, that Fuji 60 is a little gem that never gets any attention. I use it for all the product shots I do on this site. I’ll take it out every now and then too.
The 25/1.8 7artisans has 7 elements in 5 groups. At least mine does.
Thanks Tony! I fixed it! I wrote 6 groups. :/
Read your review and bought the lens. Enjoy it very much, attached is a sample I took at F5.6 ISO 1000 and processed in C1. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f55776fd895d073240a12cfca4f52b632a744526fa77b1046970ed7eb640d2a7.jpg
That looks so good. 🙂 Now I’m hungry.
Hi Alik, do you know if the optics of 7Artisans is the same as Meike 25mm f1.8? It seems to me that Meike 25 is optically a different lens but both of them have the same elements count (7 elements in 5 groups). Thanks a lot for your answer
I’m not sure on that, but they might be. There is a difference in the aperture. 12 blades vs 9 so it will render different bokeh when not wide open.
Great review! I would like to know how would you compare it to the Meike 25 1.8. Have you ever tried it? Best
I haven’t tried it yet. I have tried 7artisans. I’m in the USA right now so one of my plans, before I go back to Japan, is to stock up on a bunch of the new Chinese lenses for review.
There is a new Pergear 25mm f1.8 I want to try.
Thanks for answering. I will check the Pergear as well!
Alik have you tried the Pergear 50mm 1.8? It’s only about $70 but I can’t find many reviews for it
It’s in my Amazon cart right now. Just haven’t pulled the trigger yet.
You say it’s a crap lens but you’ve got some fantastic shots…
Thanks man, the image is great. The primary reason I say the lens is bad is the build quality. My focus element drifts so focus is always random and other people reported on this at release too. It’s possible they have fixed the build since then. I have a Pergear 25mm f1.8 now which has been great. Different optical formula though. Still working on the review.
Look forward to the review! I’ll prob go for the Meike 35 f1.7 on your recommendation; the Fuji 35 1.4 is too much lens for my use case so I’m selling it but I need something of that focal length on hand for stationary video. I just got distracted and started looking at all your Meike/7Artisan reviews and subbed. Since I have and love the Fuji 18, the Fuji 23 is a touch too close but these cheaper Chinese 25’s sound like more affordable fun.
So far everyones been loving that Meike. It’s still probably better than the Pergear 35mm. But they are close.
Yeah, great review. I’ll just put the camera aside until the Voigtlander Nokton 25mm f/0.95 goes on sale again for $70.
Thanks for the review