The TTArtisan 56mm f1.8 is my most anticipated lens since it is in the land of rumors. Why? Because TTArtisan is good at keeping very competitive pricing for their autofocus lenses without sacrificing much on the image quality. And this lens could be one that can give XF50mm f2 a run for its money.
Intro
Both TTArtisan 27mm f2.8 and TTArtisan 35mm f1.8 are announced in 2022 and 2023 respectively. And today in 2024, it is TTArtisan’s first autofocus lens announcement and the third autofocus lens in the company’s portfolio.
I have been testing this gem for close to a month now and it is probably one of the longest times I have spent time testing.
Right: Fuji X-T5 . TTArtisan 56mm f1.8 @ 56mm . f1.8 . 1/8000″ . ISO 125 . Nostalgic Negative
To be honest, it has been a long time since I am so excited about testing a lens.
Before I proceed further, I would like to thank TTArtisan for sending this lens to me. I appreciate and am thankful for their support. Having said that, the review is truly my own opinion and TTArtisan has no influence on it.
Design and Build Quality
First off, the TTArtisan 56mm f1.8 shares a lot of similarities with the TTArtisan 35mm f1.8. It has the same design language, the same good metal built quality, and the same filter size (@ 52mm) too.
Right: Fuji X-T5 . TTArtisan 56mm f1.8 @ 56mm . f1.8 . 1/200″ . ISO 125 . Nostalgic Negative
Since it’s the same design language, this also means that it only comes with a manual focus ring and lacks one of my favorite elements of a lens: an aperture ring. The manual focus ring comes with a smooth rotating experience and doesn’t feel any small “friction” for precision control.
Right: Fuji X-T5 . TTArtisan 56mm f1.8 @ 56mm . f1.8 . 1/80″ . ISO 2500 . Nostalgic Negative
It weighs 237 grams, 258 grams with it’s square hood and 275 grams with it’s squarehood and docking lens cap. Yes, it does come with a square hood! Sweet gesture!
Image Quality
I feel that the image quality set a higher benchmark for what we usually expect for this price point (later on this). At wide-open, it is not the sharpest, a little soft (depending on the photographer’s preference), and does not have the best contrast, but it is very usable. Or at least, it exceeds my expectations in this department.
Vignetting is there but not as heavy as I thought it could be compared with the TTArtisan 35mm f1.8. Chromatic aberration is barely noticeable in my eyes. That’s to say, you still can see it if you pixel peep. Nevertheless, I think the engineers in the TTArtisan do well in engineering this.
Right: Fuji X-T5 . TTArtisan 56mm f1.8 @ 56mm . f1.8 . 1/80″ . ISO 200 . Nostalgic Negative
As for sun star effect, it is okay but it does come with some characteristic flares. Please be mindful if you do not like the characteristics of lens flares.
At f1.8, I do not expect to have a great separation between the subject with background/foreground but decent enough to blur the unwanted subject. Bokeh balls are fine as I do not see any onion or cat eye like bokeh. I seldom talk about bokeh but this one seems to be very pleasing to my eyes so I thought I should share it with every reader.
Right: Fuji X-T5 . TTArtisan 56mm f1.8 @ 56mm . f1.8 . 1/80″ . ISO 125 . Nostalgic Negative
Focusing
It comes with a Stepper Motor (STM) which performs pretty snappy in most situations. I do experience some back-focusing or off-focus shots. But that happens very rarely and it might happen due to my error.
Right: Fuji X-T5 . TTArtisan 56mm f1.8 @ 56mm . f1.8 . 1/80″ . ISO 125 . Nostalgic Negative
The focusing speed between MFD and infinity is considerably fast under good lightning conditions but it isn’t really slow or struggling under low light conditions either. I could say it is not disappointing.
When comes to lens breathing, it is pretty far. While it does not affect me but I think it might likely impacts videographers.
Minimum Focus Distance (MFD)
The MFD is 50cm and I think it isn’t as close as other mid-range lenses like the XF50mm f2 (at 39cm) and Yongnuo 50mm f1.8 (at 45cm). But the MFD is the same as the XF56mm f1.2 WR.
Right: Fuji X-T5 . TTArtisan 56mm f1.8 @ 56mm . f1.8 . 1/80″ . ISO 1000 . Nostalgic Negative
Price Point
TTArtisan is famous for its affordability and strikes a perfect balance between price and image quality. This 56mm f1.8 is the same too. At 158 USD, this is probably one of the cheapest autofocus portrait lens one can ask for.
Right: Fuji X-T5 . TTArtisan 56mm f1.8 @ 56mm . f2 . 1/80″ . ISO 800 . Nostalgic Negative
Others
Similar to TTArtisan’s other autofocus lenses, this 56mm comes with a dock for future firmware updates and it does function as a rear lens cap as well.
Right: Fuji X-T5 . TTArtisan 56mm f1.8 @ 56mm . f4 . 1/300″ . ISO 125 . Nostalgic Negative
Also, this lens does not come with any form of weather and dust resistance.
Who is this for?
TTArtisan 56mm f1.8 is obviously targeting a certain genre of photographers and that is portrait photographers. To be more specific, beginners or photographers who are unsure if they want to shoot portraits with this focal length but do not want to break their piggy banks. And it can be a good gift to your photography friends.
Right: Fuji X-T5 . TTArtisan 56mm f1.8 @ 56mm . f1.8 . 1/1100″ . ISO 125 . Nostalgic Negative
But I would like to extend this lens to other street photographers, journalists, documentary and travel photographers.
If you are using the XF50mm f2, I will suggest keeping what you have and continuing to use it. A small difference in the aperture value does not make a huge difference in the shooting experience and the end results.
Conclusion
TTArtisan 56mm f1.8 is by far one of my favorite budget autofocus lenses I have tested thus far. It is lightweight, has decent image quality and acceptable autofocus speed. Plus with this attractive price point, I can’t find any reason not to own it.
Right: Fuji X-T5 . TTArtisan 56mm f1.8 @ 56mm . f1.8 . 1/850″ . ISO 125 . Nostalgic Negative
If you are fine without the aperture ring and lack of weather resistance, I highly recommend owning this lens first if you are interested in looking for a portrait lens.
TTArtisan has released two f1.8 lenses to complement each other. I wonder if will there be a “23mm f1.8” or similar focal length lens to complete the Trinity lenses in the affordable price range?
Oh yes. According to TTArtisan, this lens will be made available from 19 April 2024, 6pm (UTC/GMT +8).
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.
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