The 7Artisans 24mm and 50mm f/1.8 Autofocus Lenses Are Surprisingly Hard to Dismiss

7Artisans has built its reputation on cheap manual focus glass, so releasing autofocus lenses puts the company in direct comparison with brands that have been doing this for years. The bar for autofocus in 2024 is high, and whether a budget brand can clear it is a real question.

Coming to you from Chris Tellez, this candid video walks through his extended experience with the 7Artisans 24mm f/1.8 and 7Artisans 50mm f/1.8 autofocus lenses for Sony E-mount. Tellez didn't come away with a straightforward recommendation in either direction, which is actually what makes this worth watching. Both lenses are metal-bodied, surprisingly solid for the price, and sized comparably to first-party f/1.8 primes from Nikon. There's no weather-sealing, but the build feels more substantial than you'd expect.

The autofocus story here is complicated, and Tellez is upfront about it. His first shoot with the lenses, at an outdoor run club event with people moving toward and away from the camera, didn't go well. The tracking was inconsistent, the 24mm was noticeably worse than the 50mm, and the images wide open were softer than he'd have liked. He told 7Artisans directly that he wasn't going to publish a review in that state. Their response was straightforward: had he updated the firmware? He hadn't. Both lenses have a USB-C port built in, so the update took almost no effort. 7Artisans also told him to hold onto the lenses and review them whenever he felt they were ready, even if that took a year. That's not a typical response from a gear company.

After the firmware update, the 24mm specifically changed the picture. Tellez brought the lenses to a wedding, shot mostly video, and found that the rendering quality turned heads. Multiple viewers watching his recent videos noticed the look of the footage and asked what lens he was using, not knowing it was budget glass from a brand known for manual focus only. The lenses have a de-clicked aperture ring, an AF/MF switch, and the 24mm adds a function button. Wide open, you'll see chromatic aberration and some color fringing. The practical shooting range is roughly f/2.8 to f/8. The 24mm also flares noticeably, though Tellez considers that a feature rather than a problem.

Check out the video above for the full breakdown from Tellez, including his thoughts on who these lenses actually make sense for and how they stack up against the next step up in budget glass.