Introduction

Leica offers its own 28mm f/1.4 lens for the retail price of $7,495.00 (as of June 2021). The 7Artisans 28mm f/1.4 is from a new lens company in China that makes M mount lenses for bargain prices. I bought one because I love wide-angle lenses with shallow depth of field, and I was excited at the possibility of a good 28/1.4 for $499 retail. How well does the 7Artisans 28/1.4 perform?

Build quality

The 7Artisans 28mm f/1.4 is all-metal and feels very solid. The focus ring feels smooth, although with rather heavy resistance. The aperture ring doesn’t feel as nice as Japanese and German lenses, but it’s pretty good.

My copy had an issue where the front inner lens ring (where the engraved markings are) became slightly unscrewed, allowing the entire lens group to wobble forward and back within its housing. This made the lens unusable but fortunately I was able to tighten the ring myself.

Size and feel

The 7Artisans 28/1.4 is a large and heavy lens. It’s too long and doesn’t balance well on M bodies. The Leica version, while not small, is significantly more compact. In terms of ergonomics, the focus ring is pleasant to use but the aperture ring is pretty far forward due to the size of this lens.

One oddity that hints at the cheap nature of this lens is that the f-stops on the aperture ring are unevenly spaced: the distance from 1.4 to 2 is about triple the distance from 4 to 5.6, for example.

Focus adjustment

My favorite feature of this 7Artisans lens is that the rangefinder coupling of this lens can be user-adjusted with a screwdriver. I have bought multiple M lenses over the years that either front- or back-focused. If I could’ve simply adjusted this myself like on the 7Artisans, I would have been able to avoid a lot of headaches.

Image quality

Distortion: No significant distortion that I’ve noticed.

Vignetting: Unsurprisingly, there’s significant vignetting at f/1.4, but not to the extent that I’ve felt the need to correct for it.

Color shift: None on my Leica M10.

Chromatic aberration: Minimal/none.

Focus shift: None that I noticed.

Bokeh: I personally really like the look that a wide-aperture, wide-angle lens creates. This lens provides a very satisfying amount of background blur, but transition zones look hazy rather than an ideal, smooth blur.

Sharpness: This is not a sharp lens at its maximum aperture. It’s visibly hazy in the center of the field at f/1.4. To make matters worse, my copy has obviously uneven sharpness. The right side of the frame looks passable at f/1.4, but the entire left side of the frame is fuzzy. Even worse, I actually tried a second copy of this lens to see if my first one was just defective, and found the exact same behavior. My second copy might actually be more uneven in sharpness.

Here are 2 test shots at f/1.4. The sharpness here may be OK for some applications but these are also the sharpest sample images I could find. Pictures taken with this lens often look worse.

Here’s another series of test shots to demonstrate the very uneven sharpness:

Test shots aren’t everything, so here’s a real picture I took with this lens:

The good news is that this lens sharpens up significantly even by f/2, and drastically by f/2.8 and beyond. I was able to use it successfully for landscapes:

Summary and recommendations

You may notice that this review lacks sample photos; that’s because I didn’t enjoy shooting with this lens. I don’t recommend it to anyone. The 7Artisans 28/1.4 is the first and likely last Chinese-made M mount lens I will buy. The whole point of this lens is to use it at f/1.4, but it’s too soft to do so and get reliable results. There are also serious problems with quality control. Combine that with the large size and weight, and there’s really no reason to own this lens, no matter how cheap it is. The only good news is that it becomes very sharp when stopped down, but at that point you’re carrying around extra size and weight for an f-stop you’re not going to use.

If you want a fast 28mm lens, my favorite recommendation is actually the Leica Q. It’s an extremely popular camera for good reason. You can find a used one for about $2000, and its 28mm f/1.7 lens is lightyears ahead of the 7Artisans 28/1.4. In addition to a fantastic 28mm lens, you also get a compact camera with image stabilization, autofocus, and macro capability. I also prefer the Leica Q because I’ve always had trouble seeing the 28mm framelines on M cameras.

If you definitely want an M-mount 28mm lens, the clear choice is the new Voigtlander 28mm f/2 Vintage Ultron ASPH (review). While not f/1.4, this lens offers an incredible combination of performance and compactness at a very reasonable price.

Good
Price
User-adjustable rangefinder coupling

Bad
Image quality
Quality control
Size and weight

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Other alternatives

Leica 28/2 Summicron ASPH (review)
This lens is superb but unfortunately it carries no real advantage over the Voigtlander 28/2 ASPH despite costing much more.

Zeiss 28/2.8 Biogon
Leica 28/2.8 Elmarit ASPH
These lenses aren’t bad but they’re more expensive than the Voigtlander 28/2 ASPH despite being one stop slower and having worse performance.

Voigtlander Ultron 28mm f/2 (pre-ASPH)
I’ve never used this lens. Although it offers an f/2 aperture and a very reasonable price, by all accounts it has significantly compromised image quality. In particular, it’s known to have very blurry corners at f/2.

Leica 28mm f/1.4 Summilux ASPH
I hear this lens is a fantastic performer, but I will never own one since it retails for the astronomical price of $7,495.00. Buying a new Leica Q2 would cost less and add more flexibility to your camera bag. But if you must have a 28mm f/1.4 rangefinder lens, this is the lens for you.