28mm f/5.6 TTArtisan for Leica M Review 

With a hypnotic voice like yours you could talk about spoons and people would still subscribe..!!!

This is a phenomenal video. Excited to see more lens reviews from you.

Happy new year Max and Jules. There seems to be a feeling of resurgence in the videos you have made this year. Like a renewal of energy. Looking sharp in that suit Max and Jules as usual exposing images like a smooth operator ! Great lens to focus attention on & of great interest to a M user like me. Thank you Max ! By the way the music was a high moment just like the images shown

Great to have you back on UTube , I’ve missed you! Another fine review,as always. The only trouble is seeing your excellent reviews make me wish. I had’nt sold my Leica equipment . ‘Oh well that’s life.

Hi Max and Jules, I am very impressed with the fantastic results you got. I recently purchased the LTM version of this lens for my IIF and now I'm looking forward to using it even more. Thank you for your videos, which are are always such a pleasure to watch.

I believe! Thx-great review. I love everything you do.

Another nice video, thanks for sharing. An interesting lens.

I’ve owned this lens, and it’s a fantastic little performer. Very sharp and heavy for its size. Set it to 2m and forget it. Great street shooter lens.

Very honest review, as always, Max. Good to have more lens choices for the Leicas.

I have one and i use it for street photography in vienna. I just love it. Sharp, easy to use, small and looks beautiful on my camera with the hood.

Gefällt mir, schöne Aufnahmen.❤

Excellent video and review on a lens I am seriously considering adapting to my Sony a7Cii. Your presentation is so calming, unlike a lot of jazzed up videos. Bravo!!

Thanks for sharing, I’ve been wanting a 28mm lens and maybe this is the one.

Bought it, love it and can confirm everything you reported. Using on an M246 Monochrom and it is a brilliant match.

You convinced me. Just ordered one. Like you say, I have a 35 mm that I use a lot and 28 mm is close enough that I don't want to spend a lot on one right now (plus I have a Q2m), and I don't have any modern rendering M lenses. Looking forward to getting the little guy.

Beautiful lens, beautiful photos 😊

Excellent video ….! On the strength of your and another review - I have ordered this lens for use with my 10 year old Sony A6000 with Metabones Leica M to E Mount adapter (equivalent to 42 mm focal length). Looking forward to using this lens for a few projects in mind. Many thanks! 👍🏽 PS …. This will focus to Infinity out-of-the-box! Mine did as the reviewer’s lens! However, if you intend to use it on, for example, Leica rangefinder cameras with focus-coupling - then you will need to ‘calibrate’ the Infinity Setting by using the Focus Chart and Screwdriver provided - please read the TTArtisan instructions. PPS …. If you’re into Infrared photography (my setup is: Sony A7 II @ 720nm and Canon EOS-M @ 830nm) - on these cameras, there’s very little noticeable (if any) ‘hotspot’ with this TTArtisan 28mm f5.6 lens, that can be simply corrected via photoshop. This observation was totally unexpected! A good bonus for getting this ‘gem of a lens’ - a nod to ‘back in the day’ Leica days, with saving a good deal of money saving!

It is definitely one of those lenses that screams, just get one! I bought one to try on a Fuji X Pro3 and it has become the standard lens of choice (40mm equiv), it gets more use than Fuji's own 27mm f2.8, which to be honest is optically better. It has a rendering that compliments the film simulations very well in my opinion and even the flare issue becomes a creative choice. Its not for low light, although I get interesting results in low light by just letting the ISO fly on auto, but what is really interesting is using zone focusing with the Fuji's OVF. You get the frame lines and can see outside them, it becomes a silent street weapon, no focus hunting, just dial it in and point and shoot. I also like the way it seamlessly transitions between in and out of focus, your subject won't pop, but it is just a slow decay from sharp to sort of ghost like rendering of backgrounds. I find it quite unique.

Hello Max, I found this lens fun to use with zone focusing aka pre-focus. There is a week point - a flare when light source is in the frame and even outside the frame when e.g. shooting in the sun direction. In such case the supplied hood is handy. Still recommend to keep sun well away of the composition for pleasing and sharp images.

Danke Max. I have no interest in the Leica M mount and thus this lens, but seeing as you made the effort to wear a suit and tie, I made the effort to watch it anyway ;-) I don't think I've ever seen a review of anything where the host was dressed so well.

Great review. You hit all the points accurately as I had it but parted ways with it. Pretty good piece of achievement for the money, although nowhere near in image quality to the Summaron. I think they straight up stole the design and they tried to make a lens that looks but doesn’t perform like the real thing. IMO it’s not a Leica on a Budget like some of their other offerings that do rival or come closer to some of the Leica lenses. My main gripe was the insane easy flaring. It flares even with a hood. It is a hefty lens and a bit limiting with the F5.6 aperture. I much prefer something like the new Voigtlander 28mm f2.8 which is even lighter and very close to the Elmarit when it comes to image quality

Dear Sir Many thanks for your professional review about the TTartisan lens. As before, your calm and warm vocal tone combine with friendly attitude help to engrave your words deeper in the listener’s mind. But I think one important point, which I believe most of your audience was waiting for, has not been addressed in your review! After all this lens and similar lenses are made to be used on Leica bodies. How does it expect to be meant or judged except the quality of this lens is deemed to be comparable to its Leica counterpart? For decades, Leica has been teaching us that the quality comes with high price tag. Is it a permanent claim or it can be altered as the time passed and the technology advanced? If today’s technology permits to manufacture the quality products with lower cost than the previous eras, why is it not the case for Leica? Is the quality degree of this lens comparable to the Leica level? If yes, how is possible for a Chinease newcomer in lens industries to design and fabricate such lens with approx 1/10 price of its Leica sample but with almost the same quality? From now on, shall we buy the Leica lenses just because they carry Leica logo on them not TTArtisan? If not, what are the differences between the two? Tell us some strong fact that the Leica lenses still worth their stratospheric price. Best regards

Great video! Im thinking of getting it for my canon 7 rangefinder and buy an adapter for my fujifilm, this lens seems like a lot of fun.

Very nice.

Max & Jules, nice work, as usual. Did you try this lens on a. digital M camera? Dud you ever try Leica’s Summaron-M 28 mm f/5.6 re-issue lens? If so, how does this lens compare to it? Can you get away without the lens hood?

Nice video as always! Though I can't help wondering why TTArtisans handicap a new optical design with f5.6. Canon made 28mm f3.5 and 2.8 LTM lenses in the 50s-60s that were just as small and light. Surely modern glass technology could achieve that with the same retro form factor.

I had one until i touched a 28 summaron. Then i had to take the plunge. Its not a bad lens at all

Looks like fun. I wish they did an LTM 35mm though. I just had my Canon 7 overhauled and it would pair really well with that.

Just bought this lens. As someone who shoots this type of lens almost exclusively using hyperfocal, beware - the DOF scale on the lens is completely wrong. If you are shooting at f11, use the markings for f8. I could not understand why all my shots were soft until I figured this out. Seems like they just copied the markings from a Leica lens without calibrating to their own focus ring.

Many thanks for a review that actually shows what this lens can do on an M body! My only concern is I no longer have a digital M, and wondered about the need to calibrate, which is a challenge with film. But for the price, it can't hurt to give it a spin, right? ;-)

Max & Jules I have a question about the term Rendering It seem that it’s different from sharpness, and colour reproduction, I feel your are speaking about a quality of lens that is more subjective. You cover the mechanical aspects of the lens, I would like for you and Jules do something on a comparison on the idea of Rendering between a vintage lens and say the Artisan lens. Also I miss the books r reviews Thanks

Hello! What are better alternatives for 28mm on Leica? Best regards!

Amazing lens design, not really much missing from leica

With the widest aperture at f5.6, where does the lens' "sweet spot" fall? f11?

Sadly it looks like the thread mount version is no longer available. It is removed from amazon, "sold out" on their shopify page and "no longer available" on aliexpress. It would have been a nice pocketable companion for a Leica Standard with hyperfocal.

My friend had the black paint one. It brasses too quickly, it's cheap paint and the paint chips get into the camera. Besides that the lens is fine.

Max ich liebe dich. Danke dafür

Hi. What is your personal camera?❤

This lens is so disappointing, do not buy it. It's a waste of money. Let me explain it more. I bought this lens once and when I used my mobile flash light to check the lens I saw many little spots and dusts inside the lens, so I returned the lens and asked them to replace it with another brand new lens. In the second brand new lens, I could still find many spots, so this time i totally returned it and got a full refund. China knows how to mass produce a thing without troubling themselves to do quality check!!! I'm going to buy a vintage lens instead.