So I went on the Canterbury pilgrimage a few months back…

Yeah, you heard that right? I went on the Canterbury pilgrimage. This is an interesting thing for me because I’ve never really done a long-distance hike like this before.

I wasn’t even sure I was capable of completing it to be quote honest about it. Well, we jumped in with both fett so to speak and went headlong into this trip ill prepared. The first thing we decided to do was limit our equipment to what we could carry in our respective backpacks. This eliminated a literal mountain of gear that we had deemed needed but optional. It also made the journey much nicer. We finally decided on a couple of changes of clothes, I took a small amount of camera gear in a dry bag (since it rains in the UK alot) and a water bottle. We would pick up snacks along the way and add that to our loadout as we needed it.

This also generated another benifiit with our travel, the airport processing got ALOT simpler this way. We literally didnt check anything so we just went through the TSA check point and carried our packs right to the gate and they were not really encumbering as we had literal backpacks so our hands were free to do things like buy coffee or get out credit cards… it made traveling so much less stressful to be quite honest that I might be adjusting my future travel to operate in this mode. You never lose your luggage as you walk onto the plane with it and it fits into the over head space without issue…every time. This was glorious for me as I worry about the luggage making it to the same place as me or even worse, not arriving at all…

Well, once on the ground in England we checked into our hotel and went for some food, what we found is that the food in the UK is … different… from what we are accustomed to here in the US. We had to adjust to this as it seemed that they have a very specific diet and do not vary from it for any reason. We joked about how for a country that conquered most of planet earth at one point for spices, they dont use them!

Well, we spent the next couple of days being tourists in London for the sake of brevity then we embarked on the mission to Winchester to start the pilgrimage. Once in Winchester, we found the cathedral where we attended the service the next morning and also got our blessing from the preist at the same time.

So first things first, hiking this trail is actually really fun. It could be monotonous for someone who isn’t comfortable with their own thoughts for hours at a time, but it was fine to me. I didn’t even listen to music on this trip, I was just …there…

We ate at so many restaurants and pubs that I am not even going to get into that. Suffice it to say that we enjoyed them all. Since we didn’t take gear that allowed us to cook we really didn’t have a choice. Which is kinda cool since I love to go out to eat. Lol.

As for hiking gear, here is my load-out for this trip, I had a full change of clothes plus extra socks, I also took my phone charging gear, a Katadyn water filter as I was not sure if I would have ready access to clean water. Sometimes you don’t have that access to be honest and I wished I had taken another water bottle. I took a single Nalgene quart water bottle, a ziplock bag of snacks from the grocery store, a rain coat and my dry bag with my camera gear in it.

I picked up a set of trekking poles in Winchester that I almost wore out by the end. My backpack is a Mystery Ranch Pitch 40 which is actually geared toward rock climbing but worked just fine for this trip. I am going to take a moment here to point out that a really well engineered backpack makes all the difference in the world. I was carrying about 25 to 30 pounds from day to day and my back was NEVER sore or painful from the pack. Not once. I can absolutely with certainty recommend Mystery Ranch backpacks after this trip. They work. I never really understood how to properly use a backpack, but after using this one, I figured it out and got it dialed in. It is not really designed for this kind of trek, but rather it is engineered for route climbing and carrying rope and chalk and harnesses and such instead. I just used it anyway…

Below are links to the YouTube videos where I documented some of the trip. We cover lots of ground in those videos so be prepared to keep up and not wander off during the video as you might not understand what is happening when you come back. Pause it instead and then hit play when you come back from the kitchen…

Well, we strike out and head for the next town and I must say at this point that the English countryside is absolutely gorgeous! We couldn’t get over how everywhere we looked that it looked like a postcard! We walked by beautiful fields, streams and all these little communities with some of the nicest people we have ever met!

One of the many churches we explored on our pilgrimage to Canterbury.

Over the course of the next two weeks we would explore numerous old churches as well as eat is many of the most quaint pubs you have ever seen! The bulk of the trek though is through the country with some parts being out in farmland for hours at a time on trail. You really need to make sure you take enough water when you leave too as there are times when water just isn’t available. I ran out on one long day and had debilitating leg cramps later that night because of dehydration. It is a thing ya’ll, don’t scoff at this part, drink electrolytes and water, it matters.

PSA out of the way, let’s talk about the camera gear I decided to take with me on this trip. For this trip I decided to travel light so I took my Leica CL and two prime lenses. The 17mm f1.4 and the 35mm f0.95 prime lens. Turned out I wished I had taken the 35mm f1.4 as it is smaller and lighter than the 0.95 aperture lens and would have saved me some weight. I don’t know if I even once opened up to f0.95 on this trip, even at night. I just didn’t need it so it was wasteful to bring it.

When you would cross from one field to another or maybe pass from the forest to the fields, you would come to one of these gates in a variety of forms, all of them would work in a pretty similar fashion, but none the less, it would be there. This is a simple cattle gate but in the United Kingdom, it is called a kissing gate for some reason.

This is a modern steel kissing gate and they are all over these trail systems in England.

This hike was a two fold event, first it was a way to explore England in a more intimate way than seeing the usual tourist sites and then hopping on a plane for the states. This way we get to talk to the locals and see parts of the country that other visitors will never see, eat food that they will never taste, and just enjoy the country like a traveler should. The second part or probably what should be considered the first part is the pilgrimage part of the trip. A pilgrimage is a trek to a significant location for the purpose of reflection and to be able to spend time with the Lord. I had ample time for this too, you get to be with your own thoughts a lot if you keep your cell phone put away and this gave me a lot of time to reflect. I am glad I did this as it allowed me to just disconnect from life for a while and to be able to just enjoy where I was at the time without having to think about what I was going to do the next day or what ever.

This was so important to me that I didnt even post much about the trip while on it. I used the map function most of the time (there is a website where you can get the route and it overlays on google maps). This was wonderful for someone who has grown VERY accustomed to using their phone alot.

Here is a perfect example of what I am talking about. This bridge is pre-war era construction. The reason I know this is because the whole thing is riveted together. Any other modern form of metal joining would be significantly cheaper than rivets. Arc welding wasn’t really common place till after world war 2 so rivets were used everywhere till then. If I had been a typical traveler heading to the next destination, I most likely would not have noticed this.

In closing, I am going to wrap this with the following quote that I made up just for this blog, but it does seem fitting to me. “If you dont stop to look at the flowers along the way, you wasted part of your trip”

I am really one of those people that likes the journey as much as the destination and this was the perfect blend for me. Daily goal oriented activity with lots to do and see along the way…

Until next time, get your camera out and go take a picture with it.

TTArtisan 35mm f0.95 APSC Manual Lens Review

Ok, yall. This has been in the works for a few weeks now and I am finally ready to publish it.

The short answer… it is totally worth the money if you like manual glass.

The long answer… read on.

Handheld at f0.95 at night shutter speed is 1/80 second. The image is nice and sharp.

Shot at f8 with the focus trap method.

This little lens is a wonder of modern engineering with how they kept the size so small and also kept the optics so clear at the same time. I unboxed this lens and noticed immediately the packaging is top tier, reminiscent of the iPhone styling but in a nice grey/cloth texture for the cover with the lens nomenclature clearly on the top of the box. If the box is a clue to the lens quality then this is going to be a real winner! (Spoiler: It is)

It is no secret that I like to shoot 50mm on my full frame cameras like my Leica SL2 and the 35mm is about as close as it gets on APSC, so I shoot a lot with 35mm on my Leica CL when I am out just shooting street for me. So when TTArtisan reached out to me and asked if I would like to take a look at this beast, I quickly agreed and they sent me a lens.

Now for the whole disclosure part: They(TTArtisan) did give me the lens for free. They also told me that they had no “rules” they wanted me to follow or anything at all to be honest. They just said that if they liked my review that they would like to have permission to share it on their social media. Which I also though was a great idea. So I am free to say what ever I want as I come to this review. With all that said, let’s get started.

I deliberately wanted to shoot with it for a few weeks before rendering judgement as this will allow the “honeymoon” phase of getting something new to wear off a little and I can be more objective in the review for you guys. I have shot a variety of subject matter with it and have come away loving this lens immensely. It only has a couple of things that I dont like all that much and they really are not deal breakers.

Shot at f0.95 in the dark… hand held and manually focused on the bottles.

What do I like about this lens?

Well for starters… THE APERTURE GOES TO f0.95!!! You just have to love some fast glass and this little guy has it, and then some! At one point I stopped down to f4 for a photo that needed some depth of field and realized I had stopped down 4 1/3 stops to do this! That is lunacy! I am just blown away that they can pack that much aperture into such a small package. Speaking of aperture, the aperture blades are nice and round but when stopped down it still produces some glorious sun stars!

The light stars are pretty epic in my book. (I love light stars though)

Stopped down to f16 & 12 second exposure, for this extreme example.

The double bladed one on the left is because there are two bulbs in the street light.

The physical appearance of the lens is really nice. It has a 52mm filter thread. The text is Leica styled with deep, clean engraved characters throughout (yes, the text, all of it, is engraved into the lens pretty deep, it will not wear off…ever) and painted really well for ease of reading. The external controls are easy to find and use. The focus throw is just right, there is a good amount of dampening in the focus barrel and it is smooth. The aperture detents are not like the other two lenses I have from them. My other two lenses are smaller than this one (the 35mm f1.4 and the 17mm f1.4) so there might not be room for a very strong aperture detent system in them, but on this little guy, the detents are perfect. They even have a nice little click as they slip from one detent to the next. I was so happy to see this issue I have with the other lenses, to be resolved in the new lens. This lens contains zero electronics of any kind so the semi-conductor shortage shouldn’t affect your ability to get your hands on one of these little guys. This is also part of the reason it is so small, there isn’t need to make room for a focus motor or any other electronics.

The lens cap is one of their signature solid metal threaded lens cap that screws on to the filter threads, this is good as it protects the lens glass AND the filter threads at the same time. Even so, I do not prefer them and the only real reason is the time to deploy the camera is much longer as it takes some time to remove the lens cap. On top of that, I can never seem to get them to go back on easily, it takes me a couple of tries every time to get the cap back on. Is there a trick to this I am not aware of? Leave me a comment if you have a trick on the lens cap, I need it!

Now, if I was worth two pennies, I would just remove the lens cap before I start shooting and then reinstall it when done…and this is exactly what I do most of the time. We have gotten spoiled to the quick deploy “pinch” style caps, so can I really call this a detractor? The level of protection these caps brings is unmatched by anything made of plastic so there is that to consider…

Shot at f0.95 in the daytime. This car was moving… Shutter speed is 1/400 sec.

The next thing that I noticed is how nice the images are coming out of this lens. The guys over at TTArtisan have really done their homework here as most super fast glass is in one of two categories…crazy expensive or not great image quality wide open. These guys seem to have broken through that glass ceiling (see what I did there? LOL) and have brought us a super fast lens, with really nice image quality, for really, really reasonable money. I dare say that these little lenses they sell are under priced and once they figure it out, the price will go up, so you better get your copy now.

So is there anything I DONT like about this lens?

The grip area on the aperture ring and the focus ring are not knurled (which is what I would have preferred) but instead is a mill cut series of notches. Now, I come from a machine shop background and understand the reasoning for this past the aesthetic look of the lens. These are easier to make, faster to make, more consistent when run at speed, and are less abusive on the machine to make as well. Knurling is one of the highest strain operations on an engine lathe/turning center and if not flooded with copious amounts of coolant or oil, the little tools that make the diamonds will clog up and destroy the part quite easily. By milling the shallow notches it was a simple mill op repeated a number of times, as the part is indexed a few degrees between cuts. This makes manufacturing VERY fast and produces beautiful results…that just don’t feel as good to me. Because I am accustomed to the rough texture of the knurled rings and these are not like that. That is not to say that they don’t work, quite the opposite, they work really well actually, but may post a problem with gloves into the winter. But now I am splitting hairs, so let’s look at some photos!

f0.95 basically in the dark with the shutter speed at 1/400sec.

Some notes about shooting with this lens. It is easy to use for street photos and the such when stopped down. It is not as easy when wide open… The reason is because all large aperture lenses have super shallow depth of field when shot wide open, well f0.95 is so wide open that you have to take a few shots as the subject will move in and out of focus pretty easily. Don’t just shoot one and call it done, it is probably out of focus… lol. I laughed here, but it probably is out of focus… It is the nature of fast glass with manual focus. I am not bothered by this, but some people are, so if you need tack sharp on the first try, then maybe you should buy the native autofocus glass for your brand of camera.

With the previous said, it seems that the more you practice doing it, the easier it gets to get sharp photos. I guess practice does matter… lol. Another thing to remember is that since the lens has no electronics, there is no meta data nor is there anything to help meter, other than the newer mirrorless machines can meter off the sensor, and the only mode of operation on the camera is manual mode. I can get away with automatic ISO as the camera meters off of the sensor in my Leica CL so it doesn’t need the lens to know the metering, but you might need to keep this in mind on your camera. The lens also comes in a plethora of mounting solutions so it should be able to be installed on pretty much any APSC camera out there, just check their website HERE for more info about it.

So there you have it, another wonderful little lens from the fine folks over at TTArtisan and I am not surprised to be honest, they have come on the scene and are taking over the 3rd party lens market by storm. Hope you have a wonderful day and get your camera out and go take some photos with it!