Seven Artisans produces a lot of great And inexpensive lenses this one however Is simply inexpensive and I was debating Whether or not to do this review but I Thought about it and this is a lens that Could come up in a search for someone Who's looking for something that's very Low cost that's manual that's a good Focal length of 24 mm that's pretty fast At f1.4 and so on paper there's a lot to Like about this lens but as soon as you Start using it You start to see some shortcomings and I'm going to cut through a lot of my Normal video because quite honestly After shooting just a few samples with It I could tell that this was an unusual Lens not what I'm used to most people Are used to seeing improvements Year-over-year your iPhone gets just a Little bit better maybe every single Year that a new one comes out it would Be unusual for a company such as Sigma To release a lens that's worse than Lenses that they've released in The Last 5 Years It seems counterintuitive but that seems To be the case here the body is great It's all metal and glass construction Coming in at 3 338 G it's finished to The usual seven Artisans quality and Tolerances that is it doesn't feel like A $100 lens metal rear mount no Electronics no weather ceiling but a
Smooth Focus ring and a smooth De-clicked aperture ring and the size is Not bad either certainly compared to Something like the 23mm f1.4 from Sigma You could almost call this lens Compact And this is an apsc lens so I did what Any normal person would do I took it put It on my Sony a6700 and I went out and Snapped some photos with it and this is One of those lenses that begins to make You second guess your ability to Manually focus at least wide open and at First you might look and think hey it's Not that bad but it seemed like every Single photo that I took with it was Just slightly soft even in the center And that's one of the biggest issues With this lens it's soft wide open not Just in the corners but in the center as Well as in the mid-frame every photo has A little bit of that hazy look to it and If you don't see it here is the sigma 23 Mm next to it both lenses wide open Center of the frame it looks like There's not much of a difference but pay Attention to the trees and the leaves Here huge loss of detail with the seven Artisans lens and you also get some Decent chromatic aberration here in the Center as well the corners are much Worse with a soft image that's also dark Due to vignetting and then you also get Some nice chromatic aberration here as Well and then you add to that the
Obvious Barrel Distortion that is Prominant and while most lenses correct These things if you stop them down to Let's say F4 with this lens it just Barely gets any better you get a boost In contrast levels and a bit more Sharpness in the center but the corners And the mid-frame remain pretty poor in Performance the chromatic aberration is Pretty bad as well it's not absolutely Horrible but it's not as good as most And it affects the frame even when you Aren't dealing with direct sunlight the Flaring performance isn't great as you Get a loss of contrast some ghosting in Addition to the flares that aren't Particularly beautiful to look at and Then let's get to the bouquet which is Just frankly busy it's not smooth it has Chromatic aberration in it it's not Ideal for folks who like bouquet with an F1.4 lens you'd expect more and I guess What I'm trying to say here is that as Nice as this lens is in terms of build The performance just isn't there even at The $100 price point and maybe I'm being A bit more harsh on this lens coming off Of the V Tru 20 mm f2.8 review which was An absolute Steel in value a full-frame Lens with autofocus for about 150 USD But then again I think that's where These companies need to go offer more Value for the money this type of lens Would have been fine maybe four years
Ago but now with other third-party lens Makers stepping up and releasing home Runs for cheap you have have to stay Competitive and seven Artisans is Competitive with other lenses they are Beginning to release autofocus lenses as Well with varying levels of performance But I can tell you all of them are Better than this one and the thing that Makes me concerned is I know that they Know what they are releasing it's not Like they spend all of this money and Time and effort doing R&D for a lens Like this and putting it out without Testing it so even before it gets into Any paying customers hands they know how Well or how not well it performs Ultimately it's a fine lens if you want To buy it cheap and throw it on and Learn manual focus and you don't care Much about perfect Optics but the Problem with this is that there are Simply too many other lenses in this 20 To 25 mm focal length that have either Better Optics or better character or Both so it's near impossible for me to Recommend this lens to anyone maybe this Is a fixable problem I don't know if They priced this at let's say $50 US I Would say yeah go out and go for it uh It's super cheap but with other lenses Coming up in quality that $100 price Point as low as it is I'd still say that There are better options out there even
From Seven Artisans themselves so that Is my review how about that for the First video of 2024 let me know what you Guys think down in the comment section Below if you want to buy this lens for Whatever reason I'll have a link to it Down in the description thank you guys So much for watching stay tuned for more Have a nice day bye-bye