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The TTArtisan 23mm f1.8 is an affordable APS-C autofocus and fully electronically controlled lens currently available for the Fujifilm X mount.
Hopefully, it will soon make its way over to the Nikon Z and Sony E mount systems like TTArtisan’s other AF lenses. I’ll update you when I find out more.
TTArtisan 23mm f1.8 AF – Pergear / Amazon / B&H
Specs
Minimum Focus Distance: 23.6″ / 60 cm
Elements: 11/9, 1 High Index 2 Extra Low Dispersion
Iris: 9
Filter Threads: Ø52mm
Weight: 210g
Pros: Lightweight, all-metal design, autofocus works well, classic rendering, great flare control, great chromatic aberration control, nice balance of character and IQ; it’s not clinical. Micro-contrast is decent, but nothing incredible.
Cons: Minor vignetting that’s always there but much better by f4, very minor distortion in the portrait range, but poor edge and corner performance when closer to the minimum focus distances, which also introduces bad pincushion distortion. It seems like it’s sharpest at portrait distances, but the edges never get as sharp at the center or at any aperture.
Notes: This is a pretty solid everyday lens. It has a bit more of the non-aspherical type of classic rendering with some field curvature and swirl, but it also has a few ED elements, giving this lens a nice balance between character and IQ. The performance hits that sweet spot for me, and I really like this lens. If I tried to make a small, lightweight, cheap lens, this is pretty much what I would aim for.
It does have slightly softer corners and edges and some distortion and vignetting, but for casual street or lifestyle photography, this doesn’t inhibit great photos and I love that classic bokeh with the nice swirl.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this lens from Pergear about a week before this review was published.
First Impressions
On paper, the TTARtisan 23mm f1.8 looks like a really fun lens, and I’ve had a great time with other TTArtisan lenses in the past, which I now consider a brand I can trust to deliver quality.
I’m just going to say that this lens is awesome. I wasn’t expecting the AF to be as good as it is, and I wasn’t expecting it to perform as well as it does (Granted, I’m using an X-T3, which is a bit slower). This is all considering the price and the size, of course. It’s a good 23mm f1.8 lens for under $150. I expected this lens to cost something like $200, which I would still consider a fair price.
Performance And Usability
It’s a fun lens to use and fits nicely between Fujifim’s offering of the 23mm f1.4 and a 23mm f2.
I’ve always felt the Fujifilm 23mm f1.4 lens (both old and new) was a little too big for daily use, and the Fujifilm 23mm f2, although fun, is more of a utility lens than a character lens. So, Fujifilm missed the sweet spot here with their 23mm lineup, and I don’t know why.
The TTArtisan 23mm f1.8 strikes a nice balance between the two and is exactly what I wanted for my Fujifilm cameras. We’ve never had something this balanced, with nice build quality and AF performance from Fujifilm or any third party, at this crazy good price, and I think that’s pretty exciting.
And again, just bear in mind that I’m mildly gushing over this lens because of the price and how well it performs at that price. And the character and style pretty much perfectly match how I like to shoot. Your situation might be different.
Third-Party Disadvantage
One of the disadvantages of these third-party companies is they actually have to design lenses better than the Fujifilm, Nikon, or Sony lenses because they can’t hide imperfections behind built-in lens profile corrections. Some of the Fujifilm f2 lenses have terrible distortion or vignetting once you remove the profile corrections.
To get around this, it appears TTArtisan made the lens just a little bigger than maybe what Fujifilm would have done, and this helped clean up some of the issues, but not completely. So we’ll look at that.
For the image above, I used a slow shutter with a flash. I really like the 23mm focal length for this indoor style of flash photography. It’s such a useful focal length.
Build Quality
Aside from the lens hood and the glass elements, it uses an all-metal construction. It’s a lighter 5052 aluminum, so this can cause it to feel a little plastic, but it’s not. It’s designed this way to make it lightweight.
We have 11 elements in 9 groups with two Extra Low Dispersion elements, which should help reduce chromatic aberrations. It uses a 9-bladed aperture and an autofocus stepping motor, weighing only 210 grams.
There is also 1 high-index element. These allow designers to get the lenses a little smaller because of the sharper angles they can create.
Externally, we have a nice metal rear lens mount.
There are no real complaints here other than there is no aperture ring. So, you will have to control your aperture through the camera’s controls.
Image Quality
As a general overview, Image quality is pretty decent. It’s decently sharp in the center and gets a little softer along the edges when shot wide-open, and it seems it stays a little softer compared to the center, even when stopped down.
It seems sharper when shooting closer subjects in the portrait range compared to at infinity.
I wouldn’t really get too excited about this lens if you’re a pixel-peeping landscape photographer because it’s not crazy sharp at these infinity distances, but it’s sharp enough for general day-to-day shooting. My only complaint here is when stopped down to f8; it doesn’t hold the same level of sharpness we get in the center.
Even though there are 11 elements, the rendering is a bit more on the classic side of things with how the depth of field works, the focus falloff, and that slight swirling bokeh.
I like the rendering. It is a well-corrected (but not clinical), classic style rendering in medium-sized lightweight lenses.
Wide open, there is some noticeable vignetting, but it’s nothing too extreme to worry about. I never see any CA, and distortion isn’t much of an issue unless you’re shooting at very close distances.
Sharpness Charts
Center sharpness overall is pretty good throughout the aperture range. You can see a little bit of diffraction at f11, and it’s only slightly softer at f1.8 and f2 but still totally usable.
This lens does have some field curvature, so when you shoot a flat wall at 6-8 feet away, like I’m doing here, you’re not going to get sharp edges or corners. I did not focus on the edges in this sample, but that would have likely cleared things up a little.
Eges perform a lot better than the extreme corners. While the edges aren’t perfect like a high-end Canon or Fujifilm lens, the performance was still decent, although the edges are softer than the center, even when stopped down. It will be noticeable if you’re shooting landscape photography.
There is a slight drop off of sharpness at the mid-frame at f1.8 compared to the center.
Vignetting
There is a little bit of vignetting at f1.8 to about f4. It clears some at f5 but persists slightly through the aperture range.
Remember, this lens, unlike native brand lenses, doesn’t have a built-in lens profile correction. So you will have to manually remove vignetting or load a profile in Lightroom if you don’t want the vignetting. I personally like mild vignetting, so this doesn’t really bother me.
You will notice it often at f1.8 and f2, but you will notice it less at f4 and above in real-world shooting conditions. Your lighting and focus position will also affect the vignetting. You’ll generally get worse vignetting on this lens at infinity focus and worse vignetting when shooting toward a strong light source.
Distortion
There is some very mild barrel distortion at a distance of about 5 feet. I don’t think you would ever notice this with real-world photography outside of architecture work.
When shooting closer to the minimum focus range, the lens gives us more of a pincushion distortion and some fairly nasty stretching in the edges and corners, even at f5, as seen in this sample.
I will guess that this distortion variation is likely a side effect of the High Index element.
Flaring
Flaring is not an issue unless you’re really shooting into a challenging situation.
Even when shining an LED light directly into the lens, it stays well controlled, and we don’t see a huge reduction in contrast.
Autofocus
The Autofocus system is built around a stepping motor, which is essentially silent.
On my Fujifilm X-T3, I’ve had no issues with Autofocus from the lens. Usually, it’s the camera that misbehaves. However, the lens does come with a mounting plate or lens cap that does allow for firmware updates. If TTArtisan finds improvements, they can roll them out to the lens. But I’ve had no issues.
Art & Character
As a general overview, this is not a super epic character lens, but it’s also not super clinical either. This is why I like it. It kind of reminds me a little of the old Fujifilm X100F style lens before they changed it, but it’s better.
Bokeh Style & Rendering
Bokeh has a nice swirl but never gets too buzzy or messy.
Below, you can see some of the texture on the building and with some of the plants. It’s a little busy, but it’s not bad at all, and the chatter isn’t too annoying or distracting like I’ve seen with some lenses. Some people still might not like this, but I don’t mind it because it’s what contributes to that classic style of rendering.
In this sample above, you can also see how well the Chromatic Aberrations are controlled with that light post in the back on the right.
Bottom Line
Should you buy this lens? I have a lot of lenses; I can usually find something about every lens I have that I like (well, almost), lean into the strength, and get good results. However, this lens is pretty good overall. It’s a pretty solid option for a 23mm f1.8 AF lens. While having a 60cm minimum focus distance, it does introduce a lot of stretching and distortion at these close distances, so keep that in mind if you need this lens for a lot of up-close photography.
I started shooting with this lens on my Fujifilm X-T3, and it totally revitalized the system and really made me miss the Fujifilm experience. It’s a lens that I’ve always felt was missing from the Fujifilm line-up, and this little lens by TTArtisan is actually good enough and priced competitively enough to fill this gap. I never fell in love with the older Fujifilm 23mm f1.4 (even though it’s very nice), or the Fujifilm 23mm f2 (even though it’s super handy), but the TTArtisan 23mm f1.8, I don’t know, it just hits the spot for me.
It’s not a perfect clinical architecture-style lens, and it’s not a super extreme character lens, either. It’s just a very well-balanced, everyday run-and-gun type of lens that can do a little bit of everything well.
TTArtisan 23mm f1.8 AF Sample Images
Sample images are all shot with the Fujifilm X-T3, colored with the Color Core Lightroom Presets or Ono B&W Lightroom Presets. Most of the night shots use the Tiffen Pro-Mist 1/4 diffusion filter.
I’m also often using a Godox Lux Junior Retro flash, which you can see at Amazon. I recommend it if you’re looking for something simple. I use that flash a lot.
