Manual Lenses for Nostalgic Imagery - TTArtisan 75mm F1.5 (May 2025 Issue)

I will be approaching this article from two angles, firstly for creating nostalgic imagery but just as importantly how it fits into our Fujifilm X-Mount ecosystems. As far as I can tell this is a fairly faithful recreation of the famous Zeiss Biotar 75mm F1.5 - a rare and expensive lens for which a good copy could easily cost 10x the retail price of the TTArtisan. I don’t really like “homages” especially ones this similar to the original, preferring the manufacturers to reimagine or modernise designs (the way they have done in previous articles) but as Meyer Optik’s reimagined Biotar 75mm F.15 II comes in at a hefty $1,400 USD (with nowhere near enough information on it out there to justify a cost so large might I add) and the original Zeiss has been out of production for almost sixty years, I think I can give TTArtisan a pass on this count. This is my first time getting hands on with a 75mm Biotar (despite being very familiar with the 58mm both Zeiss Jena and Helios 44-2 copies) leaving me in the same boat as many of you reading this. I was excited when TTArtisan released their version of the Trilopan, but at 100mm that felt too long for APSC, the Biotar however at 75mm was just short enough for me to consider it useable. I’m familiar with the 100/105mm focal range on Full-Frame and it’s actually a very nice length to use despite having fallen out of favour. It is also a focal length fairly neglected on Fuji’s X-Mount with only Viltrox’s F1.2 Pro being of note.

I will start this off with the most glaring negative, this is not an X-mount lens. This lens is almost a one-to-one recreation of the old M42 thread mount Biotar and is offered in the same M42 thread mount. this means you will need an extra adapter to fit this to your Fujifilm, adding weight and size to an already large and heavy lens. For those using GFX or shooting M42 film cameras alongside your X cameras this may be a positive aspect giving you extra usability across platforms - but for us sole X-Mount users this is a big detractor. In contrast, it highlights just how convenient and beneficial being able to get vintage style lenses in our native mount is. In terms of build, fit & finish it is not up to par with what we have looked at in previous months despite being one of the more expensive lenses that TTArtisan manufacture. Sure, it has a full metal build and even has engraved markings but the focusing is not consistent, there’s a lot of external screws - two allan head that you need to adjust to line the lens up properly, and another two on the focus ring. TTArtisan has opted for a clicked aperture rather than the preset version that you would have seen on the original, making its secondary aperture ring a cosmetic addition (and detracting from its usability on film cameras). It also comes with metal screw cap which I find far more irritating than a good plastic snap cap. None of the other lenses we have looked at in this series are weather sealed but this one I would be worried about ingress over time. Excuses could be made that this is how the original lens was but not to sound like a broken record - modernise! if you can improve, improve. It’s the soul that I want faithful but the execution contemporary.

There is pretty much only one reason anyone wants a Biotar now, when they released in the thirties the six element in four groups (front and rear groups being double-gaussian) design was complicated compared to simple triplets of the time and even the comparatively slow F2.8 Tessar’s (which were pretty much a Zeiss triplet design containing four elements, the rear a double gaussian grouping), basically it means that for the time they were able to make a fairly short telephoto lens with a fast F1.5 aperture intended to keep shutter speeds high for indoor sports photography. Due to its optical formula the Biotar became famous not for that but for portraiture, giving beautiful falloff and what is now referred to as the swirly bokeh effect. It was a way to get a “large format look” with a smaller 35mm film stock, but now people love Biotar’s for that swirly bokeh. this does come as expected with a plethora of drawbacks, first being the in-focus area of the image is limited to about 30% (centre frame) of the focal plane. This is however I find better than the field curvature that the Nonikkor 35mm experiences as with the TTArtisan everything outside of the centre frame is de-focused, whereas on the Nonikkor you can get things popping in and out of focus.

Outside of portraiture and getting that crazy swirl from specular highlights, this lens is not something I can recommend. Any background outside of specular highlight becomes almost nauseating to view and any modern lens will be infinitely more versatile. Yes, it can produce tack sharp images centre frame at F2.8-4 but that isn’t enough for me to say this is anything but a one trick pony. Whilst using this lens. it certainly proves the issues you face adapting even brand-new issue free optics, yet it also reinforces why I once enjoyed adapting vintage. There is no substitute for the rendering of the Biotar formula - love it or hate it. That all being said if someone were to modernise the 58mm formula and offer it as a native X-Mount then my bokeh dreams would come true. Until then this 75mm F1.5 from TTArtisan is a sure-fire way to get some swirly bokeh on your Fujifilm.

The swirl is not something that happens all the time either, in my use with the X-T5 I found optimum swirl occurs when the lens is focused at around 2-4 meters, tilted upwards slightly with specular highlight (sun shining through trees) if there is a path between foliage this pronounces it even more-so. Focusing closer and this lens will wipe out the background and turn everything into a fairly smooth blur. I was afraid the 0.75m close focus would be a hinderance but at the 105mm equivalent field of view this actually translates to being able to get fairly close. I have emphasised the negative points of this lens through this article mainly because it is so easy to see why one would want a copy. I don’t need to sell you on the swirl, it’s crazy in the best way and as an art lens or a creative toy it is spectacular. I just do not want people to buy into an almost $300 dollar lens thinking it is more than that. To some that price point may make this purchase a no brainer and without a 100mm STF (Smooth Transition Focus) to call our own I would argue it does indeed fill an otherwise vacant gap in the lineup, its rendering is so absurd and crazy that your use case (and mine) is probably minimal. When you factor in the need to adapt, it may well be more economic to buy a good copy of a vintage Russian (58mm) Helio’s 44 for a third of the cost. If you have a GFX, “Full Frame” mirrorless body from another system or an M42 film camera I will go out on a limb and say this becomes a far more enticing prospect, a must buy even.

Thank you to TTArtisan for providing the lens for this project, and if anyone is interested in learning more about the specifications or wanting to purchase your own copy then you can head over to their website - ttartisan.com