Richard Wong had the opportunity to interview Mr. Li the founder of TTArtisan. During the interview he talks about two new AF lenses the TTArtisan AF 35mm f/1.8 and TTArtisan AF 55mm f/1.8 in addition to teasing a future TTArtisan camera. There is a summary of the interview below or you can watch the subtitled interview above:
- TTArtisan is still very small with only 50 employees at this time
- 1/3rd of the company does R&D so about 15 people
- They have experts in optics, assembly, electronics, software, etc…
- Photography is art so TTArtisan tries to establish its own character to set itself apart from others
- TTArtisan differentiates itself from others with image rendering and aesthetic design
- Something TTArtisan should have a consistent design for all its lenses, but they believe it is better to consider the pros and cons of different designs for different series of lenses
- Each series of lenses has its own character.
- Mr. Li would like to improve and update some of TTArtisan’s older products
- TTArtisan wants to release unique lenses like the 100mm f/2.8 bubble bokeh lens
- TTArtisan is doing research into making a camera and we will get more info next year
- It takes about 15 months on average to make a new lens
- If a lens design goes smoothly it could be as quickly as 12 months, but if there is trouble it could take 2 years
- Traditional double gauss or sonar lens designs are pretty quick to design
- If you use more than one aspherical lens element then design and prototyping takes a lot longer
- If it is an AF lens then they need to spend a lot of time testing the compatibility
- TTArtisan tries to make lenses that users request, but a 50mm f/0.95 AF lens isn’t feasible based on their studies
- Mr. Li likes landscapes and street shooting
- Can’t pick a product he is most proud of but will likely have one next year and it is not a lens
- Mr. Li is excited about 360 cameras and VR because he likes VR but it isn’t easy to create content for it
- They will make AF m43 lenses
- TTArtisan already released the TTArtisan AF 27mm f/2.8 for X-mount and in the future, they will release a TTArtisan AF 35mm f/1.8 standard prime and TTArtisan AF 55mm f/1.8 for portraiture.
- TTArtisan will consider a 135mm f/2 equivalent lens
- TTArtisan already has an APS-C 27mm f/2.8 and Full Frame 32mm f/2.8 AF lenses for Z mount and there are more to come
- They will consider joining the L-mount alliance
- Mr Li thinks there aren’t AF fish eye lenses because it is hard to make a good one and manual focus is faster than auto with a fish eye since 1m out is in focus
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