7Artisans 75mm F1.4 (Canon RF)

Owners mostly praise the build and the look: an all-metal barrel with well-weighted rings, very soft background blur and pleasant compression, at a price well below any brand-name portrait lens. One uses it mainly for street photography because it is about half the size of a typical 85mm, and another finds it decently sharp in the centre wide open once focus is nailed, with impressive results when stopped down.

The common reservations are colour fringing wide open, softer results at f/1.4 than expensive lenses, and focusing that takes patience and peaking or magnification. Owners also point out that the aperture clicks only in whole stops, there are no contacts or EXIF, no hood is included, and backlit scenes can show ghosting or odd flare effects.