Introduction

The 7Artisans 35mm 1.4 IF came as a bit of a surprise as it features an internal focus design. Something, which is still rarely seen among M-mount lenses and a novelty for 7Artisans. But does this also translate to superior optical qualities? Let us find out in this review!
This lens will be reviewed on the 42mp Sony A7rII and the 24mp Leica M10.

Sample Images

Most of the sample images in this review can be found in full resolution here.

Specifications / Version History

With 7Artisans and TTArtisan both coming out with new lenses fast these days and both already offering a 35mm 1.4 things may be a bit confusing for some of you, therefore I will try to give you a little overview here first:

• • 7Artisans 35mm 1.4 E-mount
    
    300g, 10/9 design, MFD 0.4 m, 11 aperture blades, unit focus

• • TTArtisan 35mm 1.4 M-mount
    
    415g, 8/7 design, MFD 0.7 m, 10 aperture blades, unit focus

• • 7Artisans 35mm 1.4 M-mount (reviewed here)
    
    380g, 10/9 design, MFD 0.7 m, 10 apeture blades, internal focus

So while this new M-mount version looks similar to the previous E-mount version the optical designs are indeed completely different. These are the full specs of this new M-mount lens:

• • Diameter: 59 mm
  • Field of view: 61.5° (diagonally)
  • Length: 69 mm (+ adapter)
  • Weight: 380g (without hood and caps + adapter)
  • Filter Diameter: 49 mm
  • Number of Aperture Blades: 10 (straight)
  • Elements/Groups: 10/9
  • Close Focusing Distance: 0.70 m
  • Maximum Magnification: 1:18.4 (measured)
  • Mount: Leica-M

You may also have a look at the official page.

You can usually find the 7Artisans 35mm 1.4 M on amazon.com/amazon.de, B&H or ebay.com/ebay.de for about $429 (affiliate links)

Disclosure

The 7Artisans 35mm 1.4 M IF was kindly provided free of charge by 7Artisans for reviewing purpose for a duration of 4 weeks.

Handling / Build Quality

The 7Artisans 28mm 1.4 was manufactured by DJ-Optical, as is the case for most of the TTArtisan lenses. This 7Artisans 35mm 1.4 M has no DJ-Optical branding, so I guess it comes from another manufacturer, which makes it more worthwhile to look at potential differences.
The focus ring has a really nice, high yet even resistance and travels ~100° from the minimum focus distance (0.7 m) to infinity. The retail version will also ship with a small rubber focus tab that can be glued to the focus ring.

The aperture ring has full-stop click-stops which is very useful if you count the clicks to know how much you stop the lens down. It travels about 100° from f/1.4 to f/22.
At f/1.4 there is no real distinct click-stop, the ring just hits the end of the scale.

Most parts seem to be made from metal and the markings on focus ring and aperture ring are engraved and filled with paint whereas the branding on the front ring seems to be printed or a glued on sticker.

The lens hood is of the retractable type which is something I find really useful as it takes up no space in the bag and therefore you won’t be leaving it at home.
It would have been great if it was matte on the inside instead of shiny though.

There is a small rim on the bayonet, I heard some people like to use this area to paint a 6-bit-coding so it does not wear off when attaching or unattaching the lens, this should also be possible here.

Even with lens hood retracted the 7Artisans 35mm 1.4 M is a comparably long lens though, this becomes obvious when comparing it to the Voigtlander VM 35mm 1.2 III and the Voigtlander VM 35mm 1.7.

The lens is also part of 7Artisans’ new “WEN”-series. This series has been designed specifically for the demands of street photography. The Chinese character ‘文’ (WEN) on the lens hood stands for ‘人文摄影’ (social documentary photography or street photography). Compared to previous 7Artisans lenses it comes with a more stylized box and a leather case.

Vignetting

light falloff

Wide open there is strong light falloff of roughly 3.3 EV, stopped down to f/2.0 this improves to 2.5 EV, stopped down to f/2.8 it is 1.8 EV and still 1.6 EV at f/8.0. These values are high but comparable to the competition in this class. You can either correct this in Lightroom or directly in camera. There is no Lightroom profile yet.

It is recommended to have a look at this article first to get an idea how this brightness graph works.

color cast

I did not notice any field relevant color cast.

optical vignetting

Very fast lenses often show optical vignetting. Without going too much into technical details optical vignetting leads to the truncation of light circles towards the borders of the frame.
In the center of the frame almost every lens will render a perfect circle, but only lenses with very low optical vignetting will keep this shape in the corners.
So in the following comparison we move from the center (left) to the extreme corner (right) and see how the shape of the light circle changes.

I included the Voigtlander VM 35mm 1.2 III for comparison here. The optical vignetting of both lenses is very comparable, but you can see onion ring structures (caused by aspherical elements) in the Voigtlander lens which the 7Artisans 35mm 1.4 M IF does not show.

I did not shoot these lenses side by side. The circles would be bigger on the f/1.2 lens in the center when focused at the same distance and cropped to the same size.
Performance in this subject is highly dependant on the focus distance and the distance to the light source, so it is possible to get other results at other distances.

Sharpness

infinity (42mp Sony A7rII)

With fast yet small wide angle lenses it is really important that the lens is optimized for the filter stack of the camera it is supposed to be used with. Many similar lenses showed increased field curvature when used on a Sony camera and the 7Artisans 35mm 1.4 M is no exception, therefore stopping down to f/4.0 or f/5.6 is advisable to get good image quality in center and midframe at the same time.
The extreme corners unfortunately never look really great and I would recommend to use f/11 for architecture or landscape applications.

As I am sure many will ask: performance is slightly better than that of the TTArtisan 35mm 1.4 here, but both would not be my first choice for landscape shooting.

infinity (24mp Leica M10)

Some M-mount wide angle lenses show significantly different (better) performance when used on a camera with a thinner sensor stack like the Leica M10.
And indeed we see some improvements here: I would rate the lens showing about one stop better performance on the Leica M10, meaning f/2.8 on the Leica looks as good as f/4.0 on the Sony camera.
While the corners look a bit better also on a Leica camera the performance never reaches excellent levels in that part of the frame.

portrait distance 1.0 m

For portraiture it isn’t so important how flat the field is, it is more interesting to see what the sharpness is like when focused at different parts of the frame to take field curvature out of the equation.

We will be looking at 100% crops from the 24mp Sony A7III and the Leica M10. Both cameras do not have an anti aliasing filter in front of the sensor. Focus distance was roughly 1.0 m.

Sony A7III <—> Leica M10

The 7Artisans 35mm 1.4 M holds up quite well at portrait distance, better so than the Voigtlander VM 35mm 1.2 III actually.

In the outer midframe we see again better performance on a camera with thinner filterstack. It should also be noted that the lens is easier to focus on the Sony camera (higher magnification, better viewfinder), so small focus errors are more likely on the Leica camera.

close (0.70 m, 1:18.4)

The fast unit focus lenses I have reviewed so far (like e.g. the Voigtlander 40mm 1.2 E or 50mm 1.2 E) showed a severe amount of spherical aberration (glow) at closer distance when used at wider apertures.
Now the 7Artisans 35mm 1.4 M is an internal focus design, therefore I expected better performance here and this is indeed the case.The lens looks good from wide open without any of that softness, have a look at the TTArtisan 35mm 1.4 for comparison.

So if the wide open performance at closer distances of the other fast 35mm M-mount lenses was not sufficient for your intended applications, this lens may be worth a look!

Flare resistance

As always evaluating flare is a complex matter since you can get any lens to look bad if you push it hard enough and a slight change of scenario will affect results a lot.

With the sun just outside the frame you can easily catch some veiling flare, but contrast stays on a reasonably high level.

Stopped down it is also possible to catch some minor ghosts:

All in all, quite a good performance for a small, fast and cheap 35mm lens.

Coma

Fast yet compact 35mm lenses are not exactly famous for great coma correction at wider apertures and the 7Artisans 35mm 1.4 M is no exception here. Coma starts to look okay from f/2.8, but as we have already seen in the sharpness section the corners never look exactly great.

Distortion

The 7Artisans 35mm 1.4 M shows barrel distortion with a slightly wavy sub frequency. You can mostly correct the distortion by dialing in +6 in Lightroom or Photoshop but for a perfect correction a lens specific profile would be necessary.

Bokeh

For most interested in this lens the bokeh rendering will be a very important aspect, as the maximum aperture makes it a great choice for taking environmental portraits. Therefore we will have a look at the bokeh rendering at different distances.

Close distance

At closer distances very smooth, as is usually the case. The good sharpness and contrast at these distances leads to very pleasing images in my opinion.

Mid distance

At these distances with very structured backgrounds the bokeh can already look a bit obstrusive towards the corners. Field curvature and optical vignetting can sometimes even lead to a bit of swirl effect.

This effect is also present when the lens is being used on the Leica M10.

Long distance

The strong optical vignetting in combination with filter stack induced field curvature leads to not so nice corner bokeh at these distances. This effect is slightly stronger when the lens is being used on a Sony camera with its thick filter stack. Something we have seen with many small rangefinder lenses in the past.
For a more in depth look at these effects see my “Voigtlander VM 35mm 1.2 III” review.

Most of the small 35mm lenses have some issues with bokeh at longer focus distances. The 7Artisans 35mm 1.4 M looks very similar to the TTArtisan 35mm 1.4 M here.

Sunstars

The sunstars are well defined between f/2.8 to f/22. If you want to know more about sunstar rendering of different lenses have a look at this article.

Chromatic aberration

lateral

As we have seen in the sharpness infinity and coma sections the corners never look really great so it is somewhat hard to judge lateral CA. As the correction makes no difference the lens might actually be well corrected for them, but the corners simply do not look good.

longitudinal

Near the minimum focus distance the 7Artisans 35mm 1.4 M shows a small amout of longitudinal chromatic aberration wide open. To get rid of the magenta and green fringing you have to stop down to f/2.8 (see Focus Shift section).

Sony E-mount user

The 7Artisans 35mm 1.4 M can be considered a bit of a milestone for 7Artisans, as it is their first lens with an internal focus design. This also leads to visibly better performance at wider apertures near the minimum focus distance, but unfortunately the same can not be said about infinity, where the corner resolution never reaches good levels.
The lens is specifically aimed at streetphotographers, so it may be debatable whether great performance at infinity is something important to that target audience, yet we have seen that other lenses manage to combine compelling rendering with good across frame sharpness, so this should not be an excuse.
Nevertheless we should also talk about the bokeh rendering here. At close to mid distances it looks undistracting and compelling to me and the contrast is pretty good from wide open, so the lens seems to follow the Leica design criteria a bit here. At longer focus distances things aren’t that undistracting anymore, we can sometimes notice field curvature, the effects of optical vignetting and double edged structures and this is true when the lens is used on either, a Sony or a Leica, camera.

I find it a bit hard to wholeheartedly recommend this lens to Sony users, but if you like the rendering or you want to use it at close distances often (e.g. in combination with a helicoid adapter) I also have a hard time coming up with a better lens at this size and price point that offers the same specifications.

M-mount user

Leica users are often very weight and size conscious people and the 7Artisans 35mm 1.4 M – being pretty much the same size and weight as the Zeiss ZM 35mm 1.4 – might already be too big and/or heavy for some of those.

To me personally the Voigtlander VM 35mm 1.2 III and VM 35mm 1.7 are overall a bit more appealing, but they also come at a higher price and if you want to use your 35mm lens wide open near the minimum focus distance a lot the 7Artisans 35mm 1.4 M might be worth a closer look.

You can usually find the 7Artisans 35mm 1.4 M on amazon.com/amazon.de, B&H or ebay.com/ebay.de for about $429 (affiliate links)

Sample Images

Most of the sample images in this review can be found in full resolution here.

Further Reading

• Sony FE lenses: Our comprehensive and independent guide
• Sony FE lenses: Our guide to portrait lenses from 85 to 135mm
• Review: Sony FE 85mm 1.4 GM
• Review: Voigtländer 50mm 1.2 Nokton E

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BastianK

My name is Bastian and I am your expert here when it comes to ultra wide angle lenses, super fast portrait lenses (ranging from a 50mm f/0.95 to a 200mm f/1.8) and I also have reviewed way too many 35mm lenses. Don't ask me anything about macro or wildlife shooting though.

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