The low-budget lenses seem to be coming through thick and fast right now in the lead-up to Christmas. The latest is the TTArtisan 50mm f/1.4 Tilt lens for full-frame mirrorless cameras. This manual focus lens is available for Canon RF, Nikon Z, Sony E, Leica L and the APS-C format Fuji X mount cameras.
The tilt feature of the usual tilt-shift lens is what allows you to adjust your plane of focus. This can be very handy for keeping off-axis subjects in focus but it’s also used quite commonly for creating that miniature effect with landscapes and city shots. And that’s what this lens provides with a nice, bright and shallow f/1.4 aperture depth of field.
TTArtisan says that the lens has been optimised for video shooters, providing standard MOD 0.8 gears on both the focus and aperture rings. This allows the lens to slot right into a typical gimbal, shoulder rig, or other setup using industry standard follow focus systems. Despite the gear on the aperture ring, though, it’s a clicked aperture, not a smooth rotation, so some motors with sensors to detect the end of travel may be caught out by that one. And I am curious how easy it’ll be to adjust focus gears to an off-axis lens barrel!
| Focal length | 50mm |
| Format | Full-Frame |
| Mount | Sony E, Leica L, Canon RF, Nikon Z, Fuji X |
| Focus type | Manual focus |
| Angle of view | 45 degrees |
| Tilt Angle | 8 degrees |
| Max aperture | f/1.4 |
| Min aperture | f/16 |
| Min focus distance | ~50cm |
| Optics | 7 elements in 6 groups |
| Aperture blades | 12 |
| Filter diameter | 62mm |
| Dimensions | 70 x 68mm |
| Weight | ~452g |
As well as up to 8 degrees of tilt, you also get 360 degrees of rotation on the lens, allowing you to adjust that plane of focus to pretty much any direction you wish. And if you don’t want to use the tilt feature at all, you can just use it as a standard 50mm f/1.4 manual focus lens. This is only a tilt lens, though, there’s no shift feature on this one.
It’s available in five different mounts, four of which are full-frame systems, including Canon RF, Nikon Z, Sony E and Leica L mounts, with the last being Fuji’s APS-C format X Mount, where it’ll offer a field of view more like a 75mm lens on full-frame – this should make it ideal for portraits when you don’t want to shift the plane of focus around. But when you do want to shift the plane of focus, the sample images show that it creates that iconic tilt-shift miniature look.
The TTArtisan 50mm f/1.4 Tilt lens is available to buy now for Sony E, Leica L, Nikon Z, Canon RF and Fuji X mounts for $229 and ships mid-late December.
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