This $99 lens shocked me real good, TTArtisan 23mm f1.4 - RED35 Review 

Cheers mate for your comment! Glad you enjoyed the vid!

Cheers Caitlin, yes indeed it is, but one has to be comfortable with manual focusing on digital cameras.

Jimmy grew up using nikormat I bought in 1973 while stationed in Japan. More familiar with manual focus than autofocus!😛

Cheers mate, glad you liked the video!

thanks mate. Man, hope you feel better now. I know the feeling being sick and not been able to go out. I've been like that on and off for the past two years... not just me but people around me plus the covid thing... anyway, thanks for dropping by.

@@Red35Photography oh the pleasure is mine!

LOL, thanks Carmen! Sigma 30mm is a good and compact lens (and AF!!). This is just for a bit of fun and if one wants that 'vintage' look. Cheap and cheerful!

@@Red35Photography I agree - but from 2.8 it performs perfectly it seems. I was lucky in finding the Sigma at MPB for under £80 as new and with original packaging . It was my Christmas present from one of my daughters and I made sure that it did not brake the bank ha ha. Sure, I would have loved one of the new Olympus lenses, like the 20mm 1.4 to replace the R2 kit lens; which by the way is pretty decent bit of glass if you understand it’s limitations . Brexit and Covid have combined to make new glass more expensive and the offerings out of China are not to be sniffed at. I think it was Dirty Harry who said - a man should know his limitations lol - that applies to women as well, as it does to photographers . Paying loads for new gear does not automatically make you better at your craft, but, can sometimes help . If I had seen your review before Christmas I might of been tempted to look more closely at the black option . However, I suspect that I would have ended up with the sigma because of its condition and besides the autofocus aspect , it came with a lens hood . One of the odd things with sigma lens hoods is that they need a gentle twist to fully lock. Once on, there is no risk of loosing the delicate little ring required to be removed from the Olympus 25 1.8 ( lovely lens by the way). Putting all those aspects together and it makes a very compelling argument for the sigma DN art lens. Perhaps you might try a copy yourself and see what you think. At the end of the day I wanted something a little shaper than the kit lens and small enough to be kept on the body for general walkabout . It fits nicely in the Billingham digital bag and would not be difficult to carry the zoom if I thought I might need it. The photos with the camera are way better than just the iPhone , but some of my best shots were taken on the phone because it is always with me and waterproof . One day I might be able to afford i7 laptop that would allow me to process images faster than I can on my i5 laptop. As I quoted above - one should know their limitations ha ha . Thanks once again Jummy

Awesome mate, enjoy your lens, I certainly am having some fun with it.

Hi, do you notice something weird with the focus plane? Andrew of Andrew & Denae channel shows in his review that even when the background is blurred, the edges of the photo shows the background being in focus. It looks odd and can be bad for some subjects. I was wondering if it was a flaw with his copy of the lens or is it just how the lens is?

Certainly, yet it all depends on the distance between the camera and the hosts.

Yongnuo is pretty good. If you want macro, I have no experience with the 40mm 2.8 so can't comment, but 7Artisan is ok, but with a lot of flare. I have one here and testing it.

Think I will get this one though. Keep ticking Iver till I can save up

Hey Ramon, yes the 17mm is sharper, but the 23mm has more compression and great for subject separations if you like. Both are great lenses and for the price, you can't argue with either. Of course, native lenses are still more convenient and better (optically), but they are at least double if not triple the price.

@@Red35Photography Thanks for the answer! It's an interesting focal length. Great video as always. I think these lenses are great for not professional photographers and is hard to find useful information (specially for MFT). I bought the 17mm and I'm very happy with the performance.

LOL hahah

Yes, you need to manually enable it for any manual lens without electrical connection. I usually customise one button to switch on and off peaking. I also set one button for magnify too if I want to get critical focus.

@@Red35Photography thanks a lot, Jimmy.👍

Yes this lens will work with any M43 cameras, but it's manual focus so you will need to adjust some settings in camera first.

@@Red35Photography Awesome, thanks.

That depends, I love 23mm 1.4, but 25mm f2 is pretty decent too, both have characters and pretty sharp. I am testing 25mm f2 and 50mm f2 now, videos will come in coming weeks.

Sorry mate... lol

hahaha may be, I love vintage lenses too, especially old Russian lenses, dirt cheap (even cheaper 10 years ago!) and got some old school looks, cool for black and white.

Yes you were :)

hahah Lomo is going for the 1900 look and re-issuing Russian lenses. This is more like the mocked Zeiss lenses in the past. Well, it's not bad price considering a secondhand vintage Zeiss is going for around the same money and this is slightly more modern in terms of coating.

Meyer optic Domiplan and Lydith do actually have this same look

@@milkyway6080 Yes, but I was talking about normal lenses found in ordinary camera stores back in the 70's. They were dominated by Pentax, Canon and Olympus, with some high end Nikon. Zeiss and other German brands had already disappeared from stores by the late 60's There was still a few Rolleis around, but by the 70's the only TLR's that we saw selling new were Mamiya. Leica had stalled by then, and all the Leica I saw was used gear. I don't remember ever seeing a Meyer lens back then at all. Lenses in shops tended to look like Canon FD, Nikkors, Olympus, and Pentax.

I love Zeiss Jena!