Here is a quick hands-on review of the new 7artisans Photoelectric 75mm f/1.25 lens for Leica M-mount (price: $449):
- Soft when wide open
- Manual focusing is a challenge wide open – the depth of field of a 75mm full-frame lens at f/1.25 is about 0.4 ft at 10 ft.
- Nice box and presentation
- The lens comes with instructions and a screwdriver for focus adjustment.
- Big and heavy lens (Noctilux territory)
- All-metal body
- 13 diaphragm blades (!)
- Clicked aperture
- Not evenly spread aperture values on the aperture ring
- No focusing tab
- No six-bit coding
- No lens hood included
- Smooth focusing ring
- Excellent price/performance ratio ($449 for f/1.25)
- Narrow depth of field scale – difficult to focus when shooting wide open
Update: 7artisans lenses are available for sale at the PhotoRumors Online Store with free international shipping.
Conclusion: stopped down, the 7artisans Photoelectric 75mm f/1.25 lens performs well in almost all every test I did. If you are not a budget, the 7artisans is a good option. If you like to shoot wide open, I believe the Voigtlander Nokton 75mm f/1.5 Aspherical lens is a better overall choice (the Voigtlander lens is also almost twice as expensive).
Lens and packaging pictures plus size comparison with other Leica lenses:
The viewfinder blockage on a Leica M10:
Some noticeable vignetting is present up to f/2 and is completely gone at f/2.8:
f/0.95
f/1.4
f/2
f/2.8
I no longer provide sharpness comparison for Leica M lenses because manual focusing is prone to errors. Some lens flare and chromatic aberrations are present but nothing out of the ordinary. Barrel distortion is not visible.
Here is a quick specification comparison between the $449 7artisans Photoelectric 75mm f/1.25 (left) and the $12,795 Leica Noctilux-M 75mm f/1.25 lenses (right) for Leica M-mount:
7artisans Photoelectric 75mm f/1.25 lens MTF chart and design based on Zeiss Sonnar:
Additional pictures of the 7artisans Photoelectric 75mm f/1.25 lens:
I believe the main purpose of this lens is portraits, so here are a few sample photos taken with the Leica M10 (JPG SOOC – straight out of the camera):
A few bokeh examples:
More sample photos can be found at flickr – shot with the Leica M10 (JPG SOOC – straight out of the camera, no correction or post-processing applied):
The 7artisans Photoelectric 75mm f/1.25 lens for Leica M-mount is now in stock at B&H Photo. Additional coverage of the lens can be found here.
