AstrHori 50mm f1.4 Tilt – Tilting Around My World

The good people of AstrHori send me their 50mm f1.4 Tilt lens for review. I thank them for their kind support. It does help our Fuji community to have one more opportunity to learn about this lens.

AstrHori was founded in 2018 and it is one of the few manufacturers who is producing accessories and lenses for full-frame mount and also GFX GF mount. But this is not the story for today.

Before proceeding further, I would like to clarify that the lens has tilt capability only and is not what the packaging or the box suggests, i.e., TS (Tilt Shift). One interesting fact about this lens is that it is a full-frame lens but it is available in X-mount.

Intro

We have limited options when it comes to tilt lens (and tilt-shift lens is literally non-existence for the native mount). As far as I am aware, there are not many manufacturers producing tilt lenses. The first one is from TTArtisan 50mm f1.4 tilt and then followed by AstrHori 50mm f.14 tilt.

AstrHori 50mm f1.4 tilt comes with various mounts such as RF mount, Z mount, E mount but it also comes in M43 and of course the X mount.

Design and Build Quality

The first thing you will notice about this lens is that it has a very unique lens design. This is unlike any other normal lens and also the tilt-shift lens you see in the market. Rather, it resembles much like the Lensbaby.

It weighs 340 grams, I can feel it is quite dense and solid metal built when holding it in my hand. I can say it has very impressive built quality.

It has two mechanisms to perform the tilt effect. There is a lock near the rear lens mount where we have to rotate clockwise to unlock and allow the ball to rotate freely. After adjusting the ball to the desired position, lock it back and start shooting. Sounds easy in principle, but we need to spend some time getting familiar with its mechanism. There is also a zero-return line where we can return the lens to this position for normal mode.

When comes to the aperture ring, this 75mm (full frame equivalent) lens is smooth and clickless. Like other clickless aperture ring lenses, I miss the clicky one as it gives me a sense of satisfaction when changing the aperture value. But the texture on the aperture ring is comfortable to hold.

Oh yes, it comes with a nice 46mm filter size. Very good size for filter lovers. And for the lens cap, it’s a screw-on cap. Not the most convenient but it’s nostalgic!

Image Quality

Since this is the tilt lens, I will discuss the image quality in two different modes, normal mode, and tilt mode.

When comes to normal mode, the wide-open shots are usable but lacking of contrast. However, some softness, chromatic aberration, and glowing effects can be observed if shots are taken between 3 meters and the infinity focal range. Mild vignetting can be observed across all focal ranges at wide open. Of course, the image quality will improve when you choose an aperture value from f2.8 onwards.

As for tilt mode, the result is very shallow, soft, and lack of contrast at wide-open and that is beyond my level of usability. In my opinion, aperture f4 or f5.6 achieve more usable results. Similar to the normal mode, softness, and chromatic aberration have the same characteristics at the same focal range.

As for the sun star, it achieves a pretty good result.

Focusing

The texture on the manual focus ring is the same as the aperture ring but it feels denier than the aperture ring when you rotate it. Having said that, it gives me a better-focusing control and also helps me to identify which ring am I. Also, it provides about 170° rotation from Minimum Focus Distance to Infinity.

Minimum Focus Distance (MFD)

Similar to most same focal length lenses, it comes with a 50cm MFD. Nothing to complain about because at least it is not more than 50cm.

For shots taken at MFD and wide-open, it still has some softness and chromatic aberration, but maintains a good amount of sharpness and contrast.

Price Point

At 259 USD (199 USD on eBay), it belongs to the mid-tier price range one among the other manual lenses but given that it comes with 2 “types” of shooting experiences. I think it is still worth it.

Others

Like most modern manual lenses, you will get an off-focus shot at the infinity mark. With the help of focus-peaking, you can easily identify the right infinity shot.

Who is this for?

Definitely, it is a good recommendation for photographers who want to try and explore shift lenses. And not forgetting that this 75mm (in full-frame equivalent) lens can be used for many other genres as well, especially portraits.

Conclusion

The tilt lens is niche but it comes in handy if you need one. Although it comes with a learning curve to use and understand how this shift lens works, I am sure you will be fine after getting hold of it.

And also, it is hard to come by to have a capable wide-open manual lens.

Thank you for reading.

Disclaimer:
1. All the shots taken here are shot by me.
2. Most of the shots are straight out of the camera with some shots edited via In-Camera Raw Processing and Capture One 2023.
3. The opinions are based on my experience. If there is any mistake, please kindly drop me a message and I will gladly make the amendment.
4. I reserve ownership of these images, if you wish to use my images, please notify me.

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