I also think lenses like this mark a new era in affordable, quality manual focus lenses with native mirrorless camera lens mounts. A great era we live in.

One difference that I found is Meike controls lens flare better, which is not necessarily saying much. If you like flare, both of these lenses are for you. The 7artisans lens produces lots of flare whenever there is a bright light source nearby. It’s almost a bit over-the-top, and if you don’t like lens flare, be sure to buy a hood for this lens (something that I did after a couple weeks of use). I like lens flare sometimes, but it was much too much with this 7artisans lens. As promised here's a follow-up comparison shots between 7artisans 25mm f1.8, Sony FE28mm f2.0, Sony PZ 18-105 f4.0. focusing ring and aperture ring too close together, easy to move aperture ring unintentionally while focusing, the problem is negated with a sugru focusing tab What I can see from mechanical design and composition - TTArtisan lens are manufactures in a very different way, so yes most likely it is very different factory than 7Artisans lens. Though it's just my personal observation from disassembly of dozen lens models. Thank you @ChangshaNotes for sharing interesting details about founders split, that makes sense, and looks like that was a beneficial decision. Maybe I am a hard reviewer. Just being honest. I didn't just judge wide open. I posted just as many shots stopped down. And I just follow-up with with a stop down comparison all the way to F16. One of the main issue I have is the corners don't get much better until F8, which makes F2-F7 not very useful.Micro contrast is great, and the color and render depth is amazing but the vignetting and barrel distortion are bad. Corner and edge performance is abysmal. Cons: Bad edge and corner performance, bad distortion, bad quality control, bad assembly quality, focus element drifts out of focus The focus ring has a throw of about 100° which makes it a little difficult to get precision focus, but this is fairly common for a manual 35mm lens.

The color and contrast render very nicely. When compared to Fujifilm’s 23mm f1.4 and Fujifilm 27mm, it’s very hard to distinguish which lens has more tonal details. The 7Artisans is sharper so it throws the mind off slightly. The aperture ring is a little too easy to move and it’s very close to the focus ring so I find myself often nudging it by accident. You’re really getting what you pay for with this lens, but the optical formula is fantastic if you don’t mind some vignetting, distortion, and corner softness. In the right situations, it can produce some really nice images as long as you work within the limitations. You can see that the corners are a real mess, the center is sharp and the color is fine. With a little work in LR the image color and contrast is pretty decent with minimal chromatic aberration. The 7Artisans 25mm f1.8 lens is a 37.5mm equivalent on an APS-C body and a 50mm equivalent with micro four-thirds. It’s available for Sony APS-C, Fujifilm, Micro Four Thirds, and Canon M mount.

The 7artisans 25mm f1.8

I really prefer it not be as crisp as a software corrected AF lens. My primary use is going to result in images where sharpness is not critical because of the image effects involved. Still, having it easily fit into my bag, and knowing it's there for a "regular shoot" such as a concert or other event is a nice option. I took this picture this afternoon, shot in raw with only the Provia STD preset done in Lightroom Classic CC 7.3 release, camera raw 10.3. I did convert to DNG on import. There are some that would argue this is a bad idea, but it’s MY workflow. The week I spent with the lens has been fun. Let’s get something clear, this lens has some shortcomings that some people might not be happy with.

To help with focusing, I use a DIY Sugru to mold a focusing tab on the focusing ring, it helps me quite a bit. I used to cooperate on 7Artisans lens review, but lost communications with them more than year ago. When TTArtisans appeared on the market, they impressed me mechanically and optically by showing higher machining quality and rendering performance. So the extra 8cm of DoF at a 1 m focus (a headshot) or 44cm at 2 metres focus (Head and body) comes at a cost:So for me - unless the 8cm gain in Dof with a headshot is a dealbreaker - my advice is get out your old film camera kit and have a go with the old technology before you pay up for a new lens ------- unless the vignetting, field edge distortion and "toy camera" look is what you want - but then, just add an online filter in post-processing and have a much more controlled version of the same. There is quite a bit of vignetting and distortion. Vignetting never really clears up and is the worst at f1.8.

Even though the lenses are sharp, the real problem is getting shots to stay in focus from the element drifting as the internal pressure equalizes when that focus element moves around. A compact lens for micro 4/3 and APS-C cameras. These are lenses for the budget conscience shooter and most likely not considered a pro-grade lens by most photographers. That’s the basic run down of this lens. My opinion hasn’t changed since my original post on lens. I really like this silly lens. It’s not a great performer, it doesn’t feel particularly well-built, and I seriously doubt the f-stop markings are accurate. Your lens, just like the camera you carry should be more about how you feel when you are shooting with them. That’s it. I am happy as I can be shooting with my Fujifilm X-E1 and this weird little lens. Do you just need an old 50mm F1.7 or 1.8 then? No, the 50-56mm equivalent view of the 7-artisans or a legacy 28mm gives a more neutral geometry to pictures - one more advantage to your creative range. It can be used on full-frame cameras like the Sony A7r III, but it will only have a circle of projection large enough to cover the APS-C portion of the sensor and you would need to put the camera in Super 35mm crop mode.

I'm not going to do any sort of lab style testing, since that isn't relevant to the purposes for which I bought this lens. Today I thought I'd take it for a walk in one of our town's pleasant parks just to try it out. I'll post some images from that lens made a few hours ago. None of my pictures are earth shatteringly precious or even very interesting. In addition I had trouble finding focus using the outer focus ring on the lens - probably because my 74 year old eyesight isn't really top notch anymore nor am I used to, as I once was, manual focusing. However, IMHO, I find the lens quite acceptable and a little gem for the price.