I don't have the same level of experience as you with overseas orders. I have ordered TTArtisans a few times, but that was when tariffs were minimal or suspended. This shipment on the other hand was charged the full 38% for a Chinese product even though it was shipped from Japan. Reading through the paper work, I didn't see anything improperly coded.
endergemini wrote:
For what it's worth I have bought a LOT of stuff from Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and various European countries since the tariffs were implemented and DHL has been the most inconsistent with how they handle tariffs/duties. I have been billed a week prior to my delivery date, the day of my delivery date, and months after my delivery date. They have been pretty good about not holding things up in customs though.
FedEx almost always bills me the night before or morning of the delivery date and has like a 30% chance of them having some sort of clearance delay in customs. They in particular have not liked shipments from HK and have even called me to ask what was in my package and for example when it was a lens, to describe the lens in detail along with its measurements.
A lot of these companies can vary the pricing of your tariffs/duties based on what the sender used as the harmonized codes for customs as well as if they decide another code should be added or not, along with their broker fees. Always double check the customs form because I have had hundreds of dollars added to an import bill only to be waived after some calls/emails and weeks of time.
Unfortunately for me my TRIBUTE will be waiting a little longer to be sent as they are going to include a replacement screw of the one I lost for the LAILENS while adjusting it. They told me these are custom screws and they have to get them from the manufacturer so again I would recommend due diligence if you have to adjust. A large flat clean and clear working space far away from carpet and not pulling the screw entirely out. These screws have got to be around 1/4 of a mm......Show more →
I think currently lenses are 10% baseline and China origin is +25% with sometimes another 2-3% added on and/or brokerage fees on top of that. Good info to have regarding your bill as I wasn't sure how Shoten was shipping these. I'm expecting my bill to be a bit higher having another $~1500USD Chinese lens in that order as well. If that happens I might be looking at a ~$1K bill, yikes
Most retail sellers in Japan will be pretty straightforward and honest when submitting the paperwork so they will usually list the true invoice value as well as country of manufacture. Some proxy shipping sites will still allow undervaluing an item but most of the major/reputable ones have stopped doing so to avoid issues if a package goes missing and insurance/reimbursement comes into the equation.
Hong Kong sellers will sometimes get creative in what they put for info. For example: You might buy a $3000+ dollar lens and the paperwork will say "old used lens, country of origin DE, value $1500HKD" even if you never asked/discussed this with them.
The truly shady thing that really only happened during height of the tariffs was getting double dinged with stacked tariffs of shipping country + country of manufacture or tariff of item + tariff on the materials of the item (aluminum or brass). I had to fight both of these during that time.
When I reviewed the shipping manifest, everything was correctly listed including country of origin and value. Something I hadn't dealt with before, but will consider when making future purchases.
My lens arrived today. I'm impressed with the overall packaging and presentation. Worth the wait. Fit and finish is quite good, although I feel the aperture ring could be better dampened. Took a couple quick shots in the back yard. One at f1.1 and one at f8. Looking forward to actually getting out and seeing how it works.
Lens arrived this afternoon. Minimum focus distance is 0.5 m, and you can get even closer with a helicoid adapter like the Voigtlander VM-E. (version I)
Nice to see that they are now arriving for the international customers
Also nice to see how the outer box looks like, not sure when they are going to be sent to us who received the lenses without outer boxes last month. Anyway, it makes sense that they should first prioritize shipments to the customers who hadn't received the lenses yet.
Looking forward to more samples and impressions from all of you I've tried to shoot a couple of more times with my lens but the weather was always dreadful in the last 1 months or so when I've had time to shoot and I don't get into the mood for taking photos when the weather is all cloudy and gloomy. Even when I take some shots in those conditions I don't feel like they are worth posting. Waiting for better weather conditions...
Daisy the Irish Doodle taken at f1.4 at near minimum focusing distance. There is quite a jump between f1.1 and f1.4 with regards to minimizing glow and increase in sharpness. Image was handheld. Daisy is one of my better test subjects given the texture in her hair.
A response from the company asking whether or not their new 35/3.5 lens is the same as the DJ-Optical currently up on Shoten and AliExpress as well as whether the KP and TRIBUTE are the same:
"The TRIBUTE 50/1.1 and KP 50/1.1 do not share the exact same optical formula; the difference lies in just two glass elements. This (their new 35/3.5) does not share the same optical design as the DJ-Optical 35mm f/3.5 sold on AliExpress and Shoten."
Should hopefully have my TRIBUTE soon; the samples look exciting and I'm interested to see what the difference in those two glass elements really means for overall output.
Here are some from my latest outings with the lens on my A7CII. I also tried the lens with LM-EA9 on one of the outings and AF worked reasonably well with the adapter. Not as fast with nailing the focus with that adapter as some of my other 50mm rangefinder lenses but entirely usable. Now we are having a few national holidays again but it's been raining most of the time. Looks like we might get some sunshine from next Tuesday.
Here are a couple test shots testing the lens wide open and stopped down a stop at near minimum focus distance. You can see quite a difference between the two in terms of contrast although the lens is sharp at f1.1 (see eye detail). In both images the focus point was the right eye of the figurine. Images were handheld and shot on a Sony A7R5. Out of curiosity, I also processed the f1.1 image with Cobalt's K25b formula. It cuts way down on the glow and I think might be a good paring for this lens.
Juha Kannisto wrote:
Here are some from my latest outings with the lens on my A7CII.
Really loving that pic of the boats gathered at the dock. The glow on the boats, the empty dock, the gentle movement of the water, and the dramatic blur of the branches in the foreground are really coming together in a timeless feeling way to me. You could tell me this was a high quality shot from decades ago or yesterday and I'd believe either.
First time this week I felt like getting out of the house for a photo walk and guess what happens? It starts raining less than five minutes after getting out of the car. So grabbed a late lunch and visited a couple small shops instead.
I was never planning on using the lens on my Zf, because as reported here (and following 4 comments):
I've had the Tribute on my camera for the last week or so, finally got a chance to work on some images. The sunrise/sunset images were taken at f8. The sunrise image is a stitched panorama. The antique store was shot at f1.1. Processed in C1.
Some observations: The lens is quite sharp in the center and begins to fall off as you move off-center. Some folks have noted that there is a bit of field curvature. I haven't done a lens test to confirm how much. There is a good amount of barrel distortion. In C1, +35 is a good starting point if that is something that matters to you.
This past week I took the Tribute out for a lunch walk in downtown Reno following one of my normal routes. Here is a sampling of the shots I took. All images were taken at f1.1. Images were processed in C1 with the film setting at high contrast and the leveled, cropped, and straightened if needed. There is a vignetting that shows up in the vertically oriented shots in the upper left corner. That would be the camera strap as I wasn't paying attention. The first batch is color, the second batch will be B&W.
