TTArtisan 27mm f/2.8 AF Fuji X mount (a manual lens shooters) review

This is a review of the TTArtisan 27mm f/2.8 AF in Fuji X Mount. For a long time now I have been a manual only lens user. I spent years shooting Leica film cameras almost exclusively. I have a Fuji X-T1 which is my only digital camera and as due to the higher prices of the Fuji autofocus lenses I was more than happy to just use my various manual lenses I’ve acquired over the years on it. The Fuji works great in this way and there is an adapter for pretty much any mount. Having now moved away from analogue shooting the Fuji is my only camera, it does everything I need it to.

Having had AF lenses in the past for the Fuji X-Pro1 that I once owned I have found that I do sometimes miss the convenience of the more point and shoot experience. I can get close with zone focusing and years of doing so but I do still miss AF. But as I said before Fuji AF lens aren’t particularly financially viable for me at the moment.

Enter the TTArtisan 27mm f/2.8 AF. First thing I noticed was the price, it’s incredibly cheap compared to other AF lenses on the market. That’s a big win for this lens. When it arrived I was pleasantly surprised at how good the build of this lens is too. It feels solid, not too light and flimsy. The focus ring is smooth (although I don’t intend to use it much). When mounted to the camera it couples tightly with no play which is reassuring. The lens comes with a small hood that I put on and left on, it doesn’t stick out a huge amount and has the added benefit of providing a little more protection for the glass. Interestingly the rear lens cap comes with a usb connection which I assume allows the ability to upgrade the firmware of the lens (although I have not done so yet). Being a pancake lens is a big plus for me too as it doesn’t make the camera combo too big which means I can stick the camera in my coat pocket (an advantage I don’t always have when using an older lens + mount adapter).

Now to the most important part, how does the AF perform. Well in my opinion pretty good, I have always used AF with a single small focus point in the centre. So this is how I used the lens. The TTArtisan 27mm f/2.8 AF is quick and comparable with Fuji lens I have used in the past. In good light on fairly static subjects the AF is quick to snap to place and seems to pick what I was hoping for, even at f/2.8. With moving targets again it seemed to perform pretty well, about 75% of the time it would achieve what I wanted. With this in mind I would probably use AF in most use cases except if I knew I had some fast targets to shoot, in which case I would switch back to my old habit of zone focusing. But this also highlights another issue I have with this lens is that it has no zone markings. Being an AF lens the focus ring doesn’t have a direct coupling to the mechanics inside and so the is no physical end to the focusing ring throw. It’s not a deal breaker but would have been a nice to have. Having the aperture ring was also a nice addition, it’s sturdy enough not to be easily knocked out of place and allows quick switching between auto and manual aperture.

The other issue I had occurred when it came to dark subjects without too much contrast at the focus point. There would be a certain amount of searching which for me was a slower process than manually focusing with focus assists. This issue isn’t isolated to this lens alone just something that for me a manual shooter became a shortfall.

But with all of these issues some could be down to the fact I am using a Fuji X-T1, the AF algorithms in Fuji’s have move on a long way and as I don’t have an X-T5 to hand it’s hard to pin down as to the root cause of these issues I experienced.

Image quality from the TTArtisan 27mm f/2.8 AF lens is pretty good, the pictures a have a decent amount of contrast, perfectly usable. I’m not one to pixel peep and test lenses to see how sharp they are etc etc. For me it’s more about the character of the lens (which is subjective of course). I’m more than happy to use a lens that is blurry at edges etc as by learning the perceived short comings of a lens can often be used to your advantage. For this lens the images I got were pretty sharp throughout the frame, no real issues of being blurry etc. Being able to focus in on objects pretty close up was also another advantage I found with this lens (0.35m), meaning that despite the wide angle of the lens I could still get tightly cropped in on subjects. The focal distance didn’t see to make much difference to the AF speed either.

On the whole I was really impressed with the TTArtisan 27mm f/2.8 AF lens, so much so it has remained on my camera as the point and shoot option. It can cope more than appropriately in the majority of situations. And in those situations it can’t I would have a manual lens to switch to. For me it would have been nice to have had a longer focal length option. I mainly shoot 35-85mm range and so I did find it slightly more challenging shooting this width but this isn’t the fault of the lens per se just my shooting preference.

So in conclusion, for me the TTArtisan 27mm f/2.8 AF is a no brainer if you want an affordable AF lens for your Fuji, the images and performance it delivers at this price point are perfectly usable. It also reminded me how easy and fun it can be to shoot AF. It’s a convenience I haven’t had in a long time and am glad to have it back in my arsenal. I really like this lens, enough to leave it on the camera the majority of time. My only hope is that TTArtisan release more focal length versions of this lens as I would almost certainly pick them up. I already have my eye on their 35mm f/1.8.

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