I joined the social media platform BlueSky in November 2024 and I’ve been so inspired by the amazing photographs people share. I started chatting with a photographer from Austria and I wanted to find out how he created the amazing bokeh on his images. He told me he played with Meyer Goerlitz and Artisan lenses.
I looked up the reviews online on the TT Artisan 100mm F2.8 lens and the price on Amazon was too good to be true (£179 – Jan 2025).
The lens was delivered a couple of days later, and I had to wait another day for the M42-RF adapter so I could use the lens on my Canon R3.
The whole point of the lens is to create a wonderful bubble bokeh which requires a bit of light! Scotland is incredibly dark in January and I had to wait another 2 days before I ventured into the park.
In comparison to my other lenses, the TT Artisan 100 mm is tiny which is delightful as I don’t have to carry a heavy camera + lens.
How to use a TT Artisan 100 mm lens with a Canon RF camera?
I had to set up my R3 so that I can press the shutter without a lens attached. You can find lots of videos online about this.
The TT Artisan lens comes with an M42 mount, something I had to read up on. An M42 mount basically means it’s a screw mount and you need to buy an adapter so that you can attach the lens to your camera. The TT Artisan screws into the adapter, the adapter attaches to your camera.
The M42-RF adapter was under £13 on Amazon and it works a treat.
The TT Artisan doesn’t have any autofocus, but it has a focusing ring at the back and an F-Stop ring at the front.
Focusing was relatively easy. I used to have a Leica M10 with a Leica 50mm lens and you have to rock forward and backward to find the focus. The focusing ring works well and even though the camera doesn’t show any electronics, the preview in the view finder was spot on and accurate.
What is this lens meant for?
If you’ve taken photos for a while, you will know about “bokeh” – the blurry area behind the subject that you photographed.
Some lens bokeh is super smooth, and some lenses create what’s affectionately called a “bubble bokeh” – circular bubbles as a backdrop.
This lens definitely lives up to its reputation and produces amazing bubbles.
As this is a manual focus lens, I’d not recommend using this for sports of action photos (wildlife) where you need to make fast focus changes. It’s wonderful for flowers for example.
Sharpness of TT Artisan 100 mm F2.8
This isn’t the sharpest lens I’ve used, however, I didn’t buy it for sharpness, but for bokeh 🙂 Items have a smushy halo – check the snowdrop above – which is actually lovely.
I used Topaz to sharpen a few things and this turns them into sharp images.
Below are a few unsharpened sample images.
Here’s another sample image of a relatively flat surface of a large leaf.
You can download the high-resolution image here and examine it on your own computer.
I will add more photos in due course once the sun’s come out and I can capture some big bubbles 🙂
