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A 135mm f/1.8 full frame autofocus lens for $690 undercuts every rival on the market by a wide margin, and until recently, a lens this fast at this focal length simply didn't exist at this price. For portrait and event shooters chasing that tight, wildly out-of-focus look, the math suddenly changes.
Christopher Frost runs the new 7Artisans 135mm f/1.8 through an independent test on his 61-megapixel Sony a7CR, and the results land where you'd expect for the money. The lens comes in L-mount, Sony E-mount, and Nikon Z-mount. It's a big, metal, seriously tough optic, weighing just over a kilogram, which is lighter than Viltrox's competing model but heavier than Samyang's version. Frost points out a metallic mount with a USB-C port for firmware updates, basic weather sealing, and a smudge-proof front element. Nothing rattles when you turn it upside down, and the manual focus ring turns smoothly and responds well to the motor.
The controls are mostly good, with a couple of quirks Frost flags. The aperture ring clicks at every third of a stop, but it's easy to knock it out of A mode down to f/16 by accident, and there's no switch to lock it. Two customizable buttons and an autofocus-manual switch round out the body. The bigger issue is autofocus accuracy, which misfocused about 15 percent of the time on his a7CR in single-shot mode. Continuous mode sped things up considerably but didn't fix the accuracy, so his advice is to fire a few frames and check your shots in critical situations. He also notes a firmware update could plausibly tidy this up later.
Image quality is where the price starts to look like a genuine bargain. Wide open at f/1.8, the center shows very good sharpness and contrast, tightening to perfect by f/2.8. Frost's copy was slightly decentered, so one set of corners stayed a touch ghostly while the other side impressed, a reminder that many lenses leave the factory with some misalignment baked in. Distortion is negligible, vignetting is surprisingly light, and the 68 cm minimum focus distance gives strong magnification for a portrait lens. Close-up work is hazy wide open but snaps sharp by f/4. Bokeh runs smooth overall, though bright specular highlights can show outlining and busy substructure.
Understanding what a lens like this fits helps set expectations before you spend. A 135mm f/1.8 sits tighter than the familiar 85mm, which changes how you work a scene: you back up, you shoot compressed, and you isolate a face against a background that melts into color. That focal length rewards deliberate shooting, headshots, ceremony moments from a distance, tight candids, rather than run-and-gun coverage where a miss costs you the shot. The decentering point Frost raises applies across the whole lens market, not just budget glass, and it's the reason serious buyers test a new copy against a flat target before committing. Pair a lens like this with a 24- or 33-megapixel body rather than a 61-megapixel one, and the accuracy and sharpness demands ease off considerably, which is exactly the crowd this optic serves best.
Frost's verdict is measured. The pricier competitors deliver more consistent critical sharpness and faster, more reliable autofocus, but this lens still produces spectacular images at a price that makes it an easy recommendation for anyone on a budget. Watch the accuracy, check your frames, and a properly centered copy could outperform even the copy he tested.
Watch Frost's full breakdown in the video above to see the corner tests, the bokeh samples, and how it holds up on APS-C.
English (US) ·