Two for the Show
BY: MARKE GILBERT
When tasked with comparing the 28mm Summaron f/5.6 and the TT Artisan 28mm f/5.6, I decided to approach it as exactly that, an objective comparison rather than a review, as these lenses do not necessarily dovetail well into my photographic style—I am generally a near wide open shooter, and I generally shoot details rather than scenes. However, in using the lenses for a month, inevitably subjectivity creeps in, and I have tried to apply it where best.
The 28mm Summaron was introduced in the mid 1950’s, fitting cleanly into Leica’s raison d'être — small, light and unobtrusive. Despite being produced only in screw mount, in the 65+ years since it appeared, the Summaron remained a popular lens for street and travel, achieving borderline cult status for its unique signature, and clean copies became highly sought after.
This popularity did not go unnoticed and made the Summaron a perfect candidate for an updated rebirth as the debut lens of Leica’s Classic Range series in 2016. The current edition of the 28mm Summaron stays true to the optical design of the original, adding an M mount, updated coatings, 6-bit coding and some minor mechanical improvements.
TT Artisan was established in 2019, and has hit the ground running, introducing lenses in a head spinning variety of lens mounts, sensor formats, and focal lengths, ranging from an 11mm APS-C fisheye to an exotic full frame 90mm f/1.25.
Rumors began to appear in the late summer of 2021 of an impending 28mm f/5.6 M mount lens from TT Artisan based on the 28mm Summaron, and these proved true with its announcement in November of 2021. Speculation was that it would be a copy of the Summaron, and initial photos of the TT Artisan lens revealed an obvious cosmetic reference to the Summaron, however the TT Artisan boasts a completely different optical design.
IN THE HAND - TACTILITY & ERGONOMICS Both lenses are f/5.6 and share a minimum focus distance of 1m, as well as full aperture click stops and an infinity lock. Both are supplied with rectangular clamp-on hoods and are chrome-on-brass construction. Both are rangefinder coupled, although most users (myself included) will likely be using hyperfocal or zone focusing.
Both lenses are essentially identical in ergonomic function, with similar feeling aperture and focus rings as well as a vintage inspired infinity lock, which can be polarizing, with both fans and detractors. Both lenses share a DOF scale on the front plate of the lens parallel to the face of the camera body as opposed to on the barrel of the lens—while I can see the necessity of this design to maintain the compact dimensions of the lens, in practice I found it to be slightly annoying, as one is required to tilt the camera up to view it. Granted, experience with the position of the infinity lock as it relates to the focal distance and a good idea of DOF largely mitigates the inconvenience, but it is still worth consideration. In appearance, both lenses could easily be mistaken for the other at without a close look.
On the camera, the lenses operate identically, and both are among the smallest M mount optics, (when mounted without hood) making the camera nimble and coat-pocketable. Large hands may find the operation to be cramped, but I experienced no difficulties.
The TT Artisan lens in the hand feels solid and remarkably well built, with a reassuring heft from the chromed brass construction. The chrome is nicely finished, however the front plate of the lens mount is a more polished finish, and appears a bit mis-matched against the rest of the lens. The aperture ring clicks at full stop detents, and will hold position at intermediate positions although not surely. The focus ring is nicely damped and smooth from infinity to minimum with no sense of stacking or binding.
Of note, the infinity lock on the TT Artisan could best be described as…coy, flirtatious even. Is it locked? Who knows? It will never reveal the secret. In the locked position, occasionally it would feel locked in solid, but the majority of the time it could be brushed out of locked position quite easily and unintentionally.
The TT Artisan 28mm also comes with an adjustable mount to fine tune focus calibration, a useful feature, but one perhaps more suited to long and/or fast lenses, where shallow DOF would easily reveal inaccuracies—at 28mm, f/5.6, and 1m the DOF already can cover a multitude of sins.