Following on from my previous blog post about my experience using the samyang 500mm f8 lens that I had picked up for just £40, I developed the upgrade itch, I wanted more but I did not want to pay 20x more than I paid for the samyang.
Enter the TTArtisan 500mm F6.3, a manual focus telephoto prime with ED elements that promised much better image quality for only £235 shipped direct from the manufacturer.
The lens arrived well packaged with an included screw in lens hood and tripod collar mount. The lens hood is solid metal and while sturdy is a little short and feels like its main use is to protect the large front element from damage rather than be overly functional for shading the lens from indirect light sources.
The tripod collar comes with a warning lable stating that it should not be used as a handle, I can see why as it is clamped on and if you slightly loosen the securing screw it slides straight off the body, not ideal. It does come machined so as to fit directly onto a tripod arca swiss head however the tolerances are not right and of the two different heads that I tried it was too small to be properly clamped by either and could slide freely back and forth. I have since bolted a separate plate onto the bottom of it as can be seen in the provided image of the lens.
The lens body itself is solid metal and built like a tank and you can feel it as the whole assembly weighs around 1.6kg, for comparison the Fujifilm 100-400 weighs around 1.3Kg.
Its aperture and focus rings are also metal with no rubber or plastic coating. They are extremely stiff, the faster you try to turn them the harder it gets, It takes probably 3 seconds to get from one end of the focus scale to the other. However they are both very smooth and the resistance works to its advantage when doing small fine tune focus adjustments which are required at this focal length due to the focal plane being so thin. The aperture ring is de-clicked but again due to how stiff it is I have never found it being moved out of position inadvertently.
Using and handling of this lens are very much in line with what I experienced with the samyang 500mm, unless you have a camera with IBIS then a tripod or something to rest the lens on liek the edge of a bird hide is really needed. It is fully possible to shoot hand held at 1/250 and above but without something to support the lens focusing is accurately is harder and the hit rate for sharp images is lowered due to movement.
So far I have mostly used it mounted to tripod and the experience and results have been beyond my expectations. With focus peaking enabled hitting focus is relatively easy on stationary subjects, however it a bit more of a challenge on moving ones and personally I enjoy the challenge as I feel much more enaged with the hobby and satisfied with the results working this way rather than just pointing and clicking with a large AutoFocus cannon.
On correctly focused images the sharpness is more than adequate and far beyond what I was expecting for a sub £300 lens. Peak sharpness seems to be at f8, with f6.3 being softer(but still very usable) and diffraction kicking in from f11 onwards. Bokeh is fairly smooth and not distracting and while contrast isnt the highest in raw files with a bit of editing the colours and contrast pop and providing pleasing natural results.
I am not really sure what else there is to say, the results speak for themselves. Personally I am very happy with my purchase and would not hesitate to recomend it to others interested in trying super telephoto photography on a budget.
Attempting Art 
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