In spite of its humble origins, the 7artisans 18mm f5.6 got the “Asoke” test the other day. Over the years I’ve shot a zillion ultrawides on this busy metropolitan intersection, which reveals any quirks and flaws a lens may have. So how did the $80 ultrawide do?

Well, it definitely shows some quirks. The nice thing is that none of them are distractingly terrible the way the internal distortion was on the Sigma 17mm f/4. Yes, this one has both mild pincushion and mild internal (in the opposite direction!), it’s not good at all in the corners, and it’s tough to grasp the focusing characteristic for a deep field.

BUT . . . it’s not that bad at any of it. For its price and its weight, and for someone who only occasionally uses an ultrawide in non-critical images, it’s an eminently decent tool to have in the bag, good in the center of the image, and rendering nice colors. And it’s not the worst ultrawide I’ve tried on that intersection. Voigtlander 15mm f4.5 VM I and Nikon 20mm f2.8 AF-D come to mind.

Out with the Canon gear in extreme heat yesterday afternoon, the R7 revealed a couple of annoying idiosyncrasies again. The noise signature for such pixel density is not bad, far better than that of the 90D; but maybe what I’m seeing on distant shots (in additon to the “air”) is the effect of diffraction. Diffraction on that sensor starts at somewhere around f/5 or so.

It couldn’t be a worse time to ditch it, with the R7II on the way, but I may have to in favor of an R5, which I got along well with first time around. Part of it depends on the results I get with the R setup on the next segment.

The other thing is that, truth be told, I don’t tolerate southeast Asia’s heat as well as I did when I was ten or twenty years younger. Those unshaded, 96F days that felt only a little uncomfortable years ago have the potential to be deadly now. That and poor air quality have been a limiting factor in my less-frequent critter chasing in recent months. And it’s obvious that the birds don’t like it, either.

The good part is that as my attention shifts a bit more toward the indoors or cooler climes, I’m finding plenty of open doors and intersting subject matter. There’s a spark of motivation to get something new in print, so let’s see where it goes . . .

SL2/7artisans 18mm f5.6 . . .