7Artisans 135mm f1.8 Review: A Gorgeous Lens

Last Updated on 06/01/2026 by Chris Gampat

There are very few 135mm lenses that I haven’t liked. Nikon already has the very good 135mm f1.8 Plena and the Viltrox 135mm f1.8. And today, the brand is getting a third: the 7Artisans 135mm f1.8 — with autofocus. The incredible thing about this lens is just how closely it focuses: about 0.68m close, translating to just over two feet away. Plus, it boasts weather resistance and uses all of Nikon’s scene detection. Now here’s the big thing: it’s even comfortable on the Nikon Zf without a grip.

The 7Artisans 135mm f1.8 MAX will come in the Nikon Z mount first with both Sony E and Leica L mount coming later. And it’s launching for only $689. That’s cheaper than the Viltrox offering and much, much cheaper than the Nikon 135mm f1.8 Plena. And in all reality, you won’t be able to tell the differences between most of these lenses if you’re not pixel peeping. Even then, it depends on how it’s all lit.

The Big Picture: 7Artisans 135mm f1.8 Review Conclusions

The 7Artisans 135mm f1.8 is quite an exceptional lens. Not only is it amazingly affordable, but after firmware updates to fix issues, it performs just as well as a Japanese lens in many regards. All the autofocus issues I had previously have been fixed. And when it comes to both sharpness and bokeh, I can’t really complain about it. The lens does what I expect it to: which is to help me make great portraits. Nikon Picture Control Profiles can surely help here too.

Something else worth mentioning, updating the firmware of this lens is simple. You download the firmware to your computer, connect the lens to your computer, drag the firmware file to the lens in finder, and then when the lens reconnects to the computer, the firmware update is done. It’s by far the simplest I’ve seen.

Truly, my only issue is that I wish it had fuller weather resistance. If it had that, then this lens would wil an Editor’s Choice award in an instant.

The 7Artisans 135mm f1.8 lens is getting four out of five stars. At well under $800, it’s very worth considering owning.

• Super affordable at around $700.
• Fast autofocus after firmware
• Weather sealing at the mount, but not throughout the body
• Nice image quality
• Close autofocus capabilities
• Good bokeh
• Very sharp output
• Lightweight enough that you’d want to use it all day
• Fast autofocus for sports performance

Experience

Using this lens with the Nikon Zf is quite a fascinating experience. When you pick it up, it feels really, really solid. In fact, I just picked it up before continuing to write this review, and felt that it was cold to the touch. However, it’s not as cold as the 7Artisans 14mm f4 Tilt Shift lens that’s also currently in my office. And so, I think the exterior is metal but I’m not totally sure about that.

What I am sure of is how it feels. There are lots of controls on it: two function buttons, a giant focusing ring, and another ring towards the back. If you set the control ring to control the aperture, know that there is no click/de-click function on the lens. However, there is a USB port and I assume that you may be able to configure that using some piece of software or an app. But I’m not sure yet.

7Artisans told me that it has a weather sealing ring. And so I know that it’s incorporated, but I don’t know if weather resistance is fully built into the lens throughout.

The autofocus experience, while functional, isn’t like using a Nikon lens. Sometimes I have a few autofocusing mishaps and I have to change the focusing mode that I’m using. But this doesn’t happen all that often. Still, the autofocus is very fast and accurate. Specifically, I’m talking about when the exposure preview settings are off. When the exposure effect preview is activated, the lens can lose focus in 3D tracking mode and with AF-C activated in situations where the scene is underexposed. Realistically speaking though, that shouldn’t be a major problem if you’re using this lens for portraits in a studio setting and you know what you’re doing with lighting.

In the AF-S setting and using a small focusing point, the lens doesn’t suffer from many issues. In fact, a scene that should’ve been exposed at 1/60th and f1.8 didn’t trip up the Nikon Zf and the 7Artisans 135mm f1.8 when it was majorly underexposed to 1/2000th instead. That’s pretty impressive. And if you’re making studio portraits, I really don’t think that you’d use AF-C all that often. Instead, you’d probably just use AF-S and face detection.

Update June 2026

Since we originally got the lens in for review, there have been firmware updates to fix issues with the autofocus. Indeed, there were times when the face detection wasn’t working for headshots and it would cause embarrassing issues that even my Nikon D850 doesn’t have. After two firmware updates, I’m very, very, very elated to say that those are gone.

In fact, I used the 7Artisans 135mm f1.8 for headshots, portraits, and even for sports. How did it do? Well, the autofocus for people majorly improved. It’s able to use Nikon’s face and eye detection really well and accurately within reason.

But what really amazed me is just how good the autofocus is. Even when it comes to focusing on people of color in low light, the 7Artisans 135mm f1.8 did an exception job at sports photography in a situation where the light is getting really really low. For most of the time, I shot with the lens at around f4.5. But then I opened it up to f2.8 and was pleasantly surprised at how well it was able to keep up with moving subjects using scene detection, AF-C, and 3D tracking.

When it got really dark, I opened the lens up to f1.8. And even though it didn’t nail every single image perfectly, it still did an incredible job to where my keeper rate was around 9/10.

Let me clarify this statement even more, my Nikon Zf has a mist filter on the sensor from Kolari Vision. Even with the mist filter, the Zf autofocused well with the 7Artisans 135mm f1.8. And if the mist filter were removed, it probably would’ve had a 10/10 hit rate. That’s comparable to Nikon and Tamron.

Had it started raining, I probably would’ve been mo

Image Quality

In terms of image quality, I’m insanely impressed with what the 7Artisans 135mm f1.8 is capable of doing. But note that we have to do further tests as we’ve had this lens for less than a week so far.

The following images were edited in Capture One.

The following images are straight out of camera.

Just for fun, you should check these out. In the below gallery, the image on the left is from the Nikon 135mm f1.8 Plena using the Nikon Z9, the middle photo is from the Viltrox 135mm f1.8 using the Sony a7r III, and the photo on the right is from the new 7Artisans 135mm f1.8 using the Nikon Zf. Here’s the truth: if you’re not pixel peeping, you can’t tell the differences at all.

They all have nice bokeh, sharpness, etc.

Update June 2026

The 7Artisans 135mm f1.8 is a very sharp lens. And if you’re shooting portraits, you’ll be happy to know that features like skin softening will mean that you’ve got a whole lot less editing to do. Honestly, after years of being locked in my office to edit image after image like a teacher bound to a classroom. of young children, I can’t say that I envy the experience of retouching and smoothing skin out. So the Zf does a good job here.

If I were using a higher megapixel camera, it would be even more valuable and the images would be even sharper. As it is, I’ve got nothing to complain about here.

These images were edited in Capture One using the Phoblographer presets.

Tech Specs

The following table was taken from 7Artisans’ press communications.

Declaration of Journalistic Intent

The Phoblographer is one of the last standing dedicated photography publications that speaks to both art and tech in our articles. We put declarations up front in our reviews to adhere to journalistic standards that several publications abide by. These help you understand a lot more about what we do:

• At the time of publishing this review, 7Artisans is not running direct-sold advertising with the Phoblographer. This doesn’t affect our reviews anyway and it never has in our 15 years of publishing our articles. This article is in no way sponsored.
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