Whenever i need to find information on a lens i go straight to your channel first,your reviews are fair, objective, and unbiased. You have helped me avoid purchasing lenses that i would regret buying later. Thank you for all your hard work and i hope you and your family are staying safe and well.
Your lens reviews highlight how far lens technology (especially with bokeh) has come in the last 20 years, even though some modern lenses produce less-then-sharp results, it's still impressive with what used to be the norm with film and early digital photography, makes me wonder what the next 20 years will be like with the 40-50 MP cameras we're seeing.
A manual vintage lens and adapter can be had for around £50 vs £80 for this new lens. I know what I'd choose, the new one is perfectly priced for what it is, I'll certainly be picking one up.
Can't agree there really, if you want good image quality, you have to pay a bit more. People are really demanding horrendous prices these days. Especially the 50mm f1.4 from Nikon still easily goes for 200 Euros over the table.
I am left wondering if micro four thirds uses more of the middle of the lens, removing some of the corner blur lol. Somewhat the case with Sigma primes made for APS-C... not that those have much corner blur to begin with.
Thank you Christopher for keeping those reviews coming!. Is Tamron 70-180 F2.8 on the agenda? It seems to be a good alternative to Sony's rather expensive offering. Hope I'm not the only one who would love to see the review of it
I've had a Meike 35mm f1.7 for a while now and it's been fantastic! Aperture and focus rings are really well dampened and it's really sharp when stopped down a little
Excellent review as always. I think it would be a useful test to compare such a lens on your 32MP M6ii and 24MP M3 to see if it is really true that the images are better on the 24MP sensor. I have heard these comments so often that it is putting me off "upgrading" my M6. I have also read several statements from experienced photographers that no lens would perform less well on a higher density sensor than on a lower density one.
I used to own the 1.7 version of this lens for my Sony a6000 and it was great; as long as you stop down to at least f2.8 or f4 it produced really decent images. Amazing bang for the buck.
I own this lens and find it very good, it has great sharpness and yields very nice photos overall. I don't pixel peep, so the whole image is great. If I were a magazine photographer that would be a different story. I mount this lens it on a Fuji X-E3 (24MP) camera, so maybe what Chris is seeing is due to the 30+MP sensor? Also I am not sure how relevant it is to test corners on a flat image, most corners in photographs are on a different plane than the one in the center. I really like Chris's videos though, they did help me make buying decisions.
there is a new lens that apeared the most lenses in wider angle such as 35 or lower very often got corner sharpness problems, corner chromatic problems , bad f-stop or slow speed the sony 35 f1.4gm lens that came out now dont seems to have that problems for a wide angle lens thats something i wonder if they can do this with a even wide focal lenght such as 20 mm even against light people say it perform relativly well
I've been blown away by the Pergear 35mm f1.6 and became my most used lens for the past 4 months. It's surprisingly sharp and contrasty wide open but flares like crazy. Best 70$ I've spent!
As the owner of all the Meike still lenses, this one feels like the first really decent lens from Meike, being sharp even wide open. Plus it has really nice rendering and bokeh with a lot of character. In the right hands, this lens can sing. As for the results in this video, I have a completely different experience on my Fujifilm bodies (X-T1, X-M1, X-T100, X-T20) and the lens performs a lot better.
The better results on Fuji cameras will be down to the sensor. The Canon 32 Mp sensor requires high resolving lenses. On the M6 II that is an issue. On the 90D it was pretty problematic. A lot of older glass doesn't work well at all. If Christopher had been testing on say an M50 or even one of the current Fujis like the X-S10 I figure the results would have been better. Somewhere in the 24 to 26 Mp range is a good balance for pixel density v lens quality. And still allow big prints if that is your thing.
These lenses usually have field curvature issues. Did you try to focus on the corners to test corner sharpness? It could still be informative and if there is considerably more sharpness, it could be forgiving for non flat subject photography. As always, great review.
Great review man. I'll keep paciently waiting for you to review the TTArtisan ones 😂. Some say those are the best chinese manual lenses, but I have my doubts
The best ones are Venus Optics. But they are quite expensive. For autofocus Viltrox are also good. TTArtisans are rather on average side, the level of said Meike or Pergear.
@@manichaean1888 TTArtisan has some very average lenses, but also some good ones! They procude in all price/performance ranges. And sometimes they come up with some unique designs like the ttartisan 28mm f1.4
@@gb1312 As far as I know there isn't an adapter to allow a Canon mirrorless lens to fit onto a Canon DLSR camera. The issue is the flange distance if you want to Google it.
I recently acquired a TTArtisan 50mm f/1.2 for just £69 in total, and while I haven't been able to test it extensively yet, with the exception of chromatic aberration performance I'm extremely impressed. At that price it seems a phenomenal bargain, and even has a clicky aperture ring! :-D
@@ManaGuard It is hands down best chinese lens ive ever used. You just cant go worng with it. Unless u dont like te looks of it, there can be no other reason not to buy it. And clicks of aperture ring are like absolute music to my ears.
This lens are cheap for you, but in România all lenses are expensive making photografy an hobby for rich kids and very passions people! Take care ! As always, great review
This lens produces very nice photos, but the build is really very cheap, and I don't mean the materials used, I mean the lens is falling apart after three weeks of use indoors in a controlled environment. It is becoming more and more difficult to mount and remove on my cameras, I own a Fujifilm X-E3 and a X-H1, same issue. It fits too tight after a few weeks, not sure what is going on. The DOF scale ring has become loose, it just turns 360 degrees. So yes it is inexpensive and produces great photos but I won't chance mounting it on my cameras as it may bet stuck. Too bad..
Looks like the same frame of their 35mm f1.7 and somehow it still performs decently. Cant wait to see your reviews of the ttartisan 35mm f1.4 and 7artisans 35f1.2 mk2😁
As someone who shoots and edits on their phone I can tell you I would not want that, the quality is gonna be not great if you want to crop in to like the right half of the image for example
Even if you crop by half - which you usually shouldn't have to when you carefully compose, your phone screen resolves 2 MP, even half of the sensor he tested it with is still over 16MP
@@alexaudiovisuals well I do like street-ish so if I was thinking for my use case, for me there’s lots of situations where I wanna be able to crop in a bunch Bc even if I had a camera I couldn’t swap lenses fast enough to get a shot If ur doing less “fast paced” then yeah ig I see no problem
@@ewrzosek There aren't any 35mm FD lenses with this combination or speed and price though. The 35mm F2 is the closest and while it might be a better lens, it's still slower and can costs 2x to 5x what this does. Plus it will result in a bigger package as you will need an adapter. I do agree that for the money a 50mm 1.8/1.4 from Canon, Nikon, Pentax, or Minolta is a better buy, albeit at the expense of FOV.
Seems like spending double the money to get the Viltrox 33mm would be wiser. Its still really affordable, gets you autofocus and better image quality. Or buy the 50mm Canon EF, its a different focal length, but if you're on a budget it gets you a lot more value for money.
You're better getting off the original lens the Chinese ripped off to make this, the Super Takumar 35mm f2 + mount adapter, that lens will get you FAR SUPERIOR corner sharpness, better build quality, and a much more pleasing bokeh wide open, full stop. Also, since it's a vintage lens, you can pick one up in great condition on eBay for half the price of this knockoff junk. Oh, and as for coma smearing and LoCA, this lens is worse than my Canon nFD 50mm f1.4 wide open, which says just how much of a POS this is.
@@igorg265 No, I can pick one up for less than this junk, if I take my time and shop around. And even if you cannot find a reasonably priced Super Takumar 50mm f2 at the moment, then a Canon nFD 50mm f1.4, which is still superior to this thing and is plentiful, can be had sub-$100 USD for a pristine copy
Whenever i need to find information on a lens i go straight to your channel first,your reviews are fair, objective, and unbiased. You have helped me avoid purchasing lenses that i would regret buying later. Thank you for all your hard work and i hope you and your family are staying safe and well.
Agree with you
have always loved your reviews for years. straight, to the point, informative. very well done. perfect length and not too long
Your lens reviews highlight how far lens technology (especially with bokeh) has come in the last 20 years, even though some modern lenses produce less-then-sharp results, it's still impressive with what used to be the norm with film and early digital photography, makes me wonder what the next 20 years will be like with the 40-50 MP cameras we're seeing.
Trying to decide between this and the ttartisian 35 1.4
for a fully manual fast wide / mid prime i tend to turn to vintage lenses on my M50,
But there is no vintage affordable 35mm f1.4. The Canon FD or Zeiss Contax are incredibly demanded.
They are also very big compared to this one.
A manual vintage lens and adapter can be had for around £50 vs £80 for this new lens. I know what I'd choose, the new one is perfectly priced for what it is, I'll certainly be picking one up.
Can't agree there really, if you want good image quality, you have to pay a bit more. People are really demanding horrendous prices these days. Especially the 50mm f1.4 from Nikon still easily goes for 200 Euros over the table.
quick question
1.4 or 1.7
because on this review i found 1.4 quite have much problem on it
I went with 1.7 over 1.4 bases on reviews more sharp and less issues.
@@joelabramson7901 I can't decide which one to choose over the other. Can you ellaborate on some things the 1.7 does better?
I am left wondering if micro four thirds uses more of the middle of the lens, removing some of the corner blur lol. Somewhat the case with Sigma primes made for APS-C... not that those have much corner blur to begin with.
Thank you Christopher for keeping those reviews coming!. Is Tamron 70-180 F2.8 on the agenda? It seems to be a good alternative to Sony's rather expensive offering. Hope I'm not the only one who would love to see the review of it
I've had a Meike 35mm f1.7 for a while now and it's been fantastic! Aperture and focus rings are really well dampened and it's really sharp when stopped down a little
The unsharp corners looked a bit like field curvature issues. Did you try focusing on the corner?
Or maybe lens astigmatism? both very similar
Excellent review as always. I think it would be a useful test to compare such a lens on your 32MP M6ii and 24MP M3 to see if it is really true that the images are better on the 24MP sensor. I have heard these comments so often that it is putting me off "upgrading" my M6. I have also read several statements from experienced photographers that no lens would perform less well on a higher density sensor than on a lower density one.
Very helpful! Do you think it is better than Pergear 35mm 1.6 you also reviewed?
Better this or the 1,7 version?
I have my good old canon 600d.are any of these compatible with it?eg risepray 35mm, meike35mm,7artisans 35mm
I used to own the 1.7 version of this lens for my Sony a6000 and it was great; as long as you stop down to at least f2.8 or f4 it produced really decent images. Amazing bang for the buck.
I own this lens and find it very good, it has great sharpness and yields very nice photos overall. I don't pixel peep, so the whole image is great. If I were a magazine photographer that would be a different story. I mount this lens it on a Fuji X-E3 (24MP) camera, so maybe what Chris is seeing is due to the 30+MP sensor? Also I am not sure how relevant it is to test corners on a flat image, most corners in photographs are on a different plane than the one in the center. I really like Chris's videos though, they did help me make buying decisions.
Howdy Chris, great video. Keep them coming!
Some say meike 35mm 1.7 is sharper than 1.4? How was your experience?
Urgh, I can't remember. Check my reviews
Cheers for the video, any suggestions for a vintage lens you think could compete with this for a similar price?
Have you checked for field curvature? The corners look so soft they might be out of focus :)
there is a new lens that apeared
the most lenses in wider angle such as 35 or lower
very often got corner sharpness problems, corner chromatic problems , bad f-stop or slow speed
the sony 35 f1.4gm lens that came out now dont seems to have that problems
for a wide angle lens thats something i wonder if they can do this with a even wide focal lenght such as 20 mm
even against light people say it perform relativly well
sony 35 f1.4gm costs 15x more than this, what the hell are you even talking about? It's like comparing a loaf of bread to last years cow dung.
Did you photoshop all the photos you showed or all them are raw?
you pronounced the name right, noice : P
You spelled nice wrong :p
My wife for hire!
(making fun of your name and start craft)
:)
so lens seems to shine at f/2 or f/2.8
Does it have any field curvature? I had the Meike 25mm 1.8 lens, and it had a field curvature problem.
Nikon J system? You mean the discontinued 1 inch sensor MILC line "nikon 1" series?
Yup
Please please test Sigma 18-35 with 32.5MP sensor.
I've been blown away by the Pergear 35mm f1.6 and became my most used lens for the past 4 months. It's surprisingly sharp and contrasty wide open but flares like crazy. Best 70$ I've spent!
As the owner of all the Meike still lenses, this one feels like the first really decent lens from Meike, being sharp even wide open. Plus it has really nice rendering and bokeh with a lot of character. In the right hands, this lens can sing.
As for the results in this video, I have a completely different experience on my Fujifilm bodies (X-T1, X-M1, X-T100, X-T20) and the lens performs a lot better.
The better results on Fuji cameras will be down to the sensor. The Canon 32 Mp sensor requires high resolving lenses. On the M6 II that is an issue. On the 90D it was pretty problematic. A lot of older glass doesn't work well at all. If Christopher had been testing on say an M50 or even one of the current Fujis like the X-S10 I figure the results would have been better. Somewhere in the 24 to 26 Mp range is a good balance for pixel density v lens quality. And still allow big prints if that is your thing.
I had the same lens for Fuji XT30 but my camera wont take photo. 😞
You need to go into settings and change to "shoot without lens"
Notifications on for this channel!
Hey nice review as always
Could you please please review the ttartisan 35mm f1.4! Wondering how it compares to this one✌🏾☺️ thanks
I just bought one. I prefer that one for the clicked aperture
Could you review irix 150mm dragonfly macro lens
Maybe one day
Seems to perform similarly to the Neewer 35mm F1.2.
These lenses usually have field curvature issues. Did you try to focus on the corners to test corner sharpness?
It could still be informative and if there is considerably more sharpness, it could be forgiving for non flat subject photography.
As always, great review.
I think I did check for that, yes
Great review man. I'll keep paciently waiting for you to review the TTArtisan ones 😂. Some say those are the best chinese manual lenses, but I have my doubts
The best ones are Venus Optics. But they are quite expensive. For autofocus Viltrox are also good.
TTArtisans are rather on average side, the level of said Meike or Pergear.
@@manichaean1888 wrong. far better then both of these manufacturers
@@manichaean1888 TTArtisan has some very average lenses, but also some good ones! They procude in all price/performance ranges.
And sometimes they come up with some unique designs like the ttartisan 28mm f1.4
is this lens better in quality than canon kit ef-m 15.45mm f3.5-6.3?
They're very, very different lenses so you can't really compare them like for like
@@christopherfrost but just focusing in the final quality without consider the autofocus and estabilization?
Could someone tell me if it works on Rebel or EOS 80D cameras ?
No it won't, it's for mirrorless cameras only
@@philsmith774 so I need an adapter for my EOS camera ?
@@gb1312 As far as I know there isn't an adapter to allow a Canon mirrorless lens to fit onto a Canon DLSR camera. The issue is the flange distance if you want to Google it.
do they make with ef full frame mount?
Yes and it's comes with autofocus
I recently acquired a TTArtisan 50mm f/1.2 for just £69 in total, and while I haven't been able to test it extensively yet, with the exception of chromatic aberration performance I'm extremely impressed. At that price it seems a phenomenal bargain, and even has a clicky aperture ring! :-D
Phenomenal lens! together with ttartisan 35mm f1.4 leaves all chines competition miles behind.
@@ninjastronghold I'm planning to buy that 35mm lens, for you is it better than the Meike 35mm or more or less the same?
@@ManaGuard It is hands down best chinese lens ive ever used. You just cant go worng with it. Unless u dont like te looks of it, there can be no other reason not to buy it. And clicks of aperture ring are like absolute music to my ears.
@@ninjastronghold awesome, thank you!
This lens are cheap for you, but in România all lenses are expensive making photografy an hobby for rich kids and very passions people! Take care ! As always, great review
have you tried vintage lenses? there are some very good ones for cheap
@@messylaura not yet! I will, thanks !
Please share the list
This lens produces very nice photos, but the build is really very cheap, and I don't mean the materials used, I mean the lens is falling apart after three weeks of use indoors in a controlled environment. It is becoming more and more difficult to mount and remove on my cameras, I own a Fujifilm X-E3 and a X-H1, same issue. It fits too tight after a few weeks, not sure what is going on. The DOF scale ring has become loose, it just turns 360 degrees. So yes it is inexpensive and produces great photos but I won't chance mounting it on my cameras as it may bet stuck. Too bad..
Looks like the same frame of their 35mm f1.7 and somehow it still performs decently. Cant wait to see your reviews of the ttartisan 35mm f1.4 and 7artisans 35f1.2 mk2😁
ive used this lense for car photography and i LOVED it!
Yes, the results is amazing for me
So what this lens really is, is a 35mm F2.8 lens.
😅😅
Damn, this coma is something really impressive :D
Tamron17-70 f2.8 pls！！！！！
I feel like those lenses are great for getting beginners into photography esecially when they only view their photos on their little phones anyways
As someone who shoots and edits on their phone I can tell you I would not want that, the quality is gonna be not great if you want to crop in to like the right half of the image for example
Even if you crop by half - which you usually shouldn't have to when you carefully compose, your phone screen resolves 2 MP, even half of the sensor he tested it with is still over 16MP
@@alexaudiovisuals well I do like street-ish so if I was thinking for my use case, for me there’s lots of situations where I wanna be able to crop in a bunch Bc even if I had a camera I couldn’t swap lenses fast enough to get a shot
If ur doing less “fast paced” then yeah ig I see no problem
This could go great on the M50 making it closer to 50mm when shooting video in full HD mode.
Great review!
Finally!!
You would be better of with a Canon FD 50mm 1.8 for 30pounds
Couldn't have said it better myself!
It's different focal length.
@@mattbite So? There are 35mm versions of the Canon nFD lens too
@@ewrzosek There aren't any 35mm FD lenses with this combination or speed and price though. The 35mm F2 is the closest and while it might be a better lens, it's still slower and can costs 2x to 5x what this does. Plus it will result in a bigger package as you will need an adapter.
I do agree that for the money a 50mm 1.8/1.4 from Canon, Nikon, Pentax, or Minolta is a better buy, albeit at the expense of FOV.
i've been using a film camera so.... manual is all i know at this point
Seems like spending double the money to get the Viltrox 33mm would be wiser. Its still really affordable, gets you autofocus and better image quality. Or buy the 50mm Canon EF, its a different focal length, but if you're on a budget it gets you a lot more value for money.
Just another excellent Chinese designed and made by a young Chinese company!
Nice lens on a budget
dreadful performance, you could get a zhonglai 35 1.6 at lower price and way way better img quality
Fiiiiirrrrssssttttt
You're better getting off the original lens the Chinese ripped off to make this, the Super Takumar 35mm f2 + mount adapter, that lens will get you FAR SUPERIOR corner sharpness, better build quality, and a much more pleasing bokeh wide open, full stop.
Also, since it's a vintage lens, you can pick one up in great condition on eBay for half the price of this knockoff junk.
Oh, and as for coma smearing and LoCA, this lens is worse than my Canon nFD 50mm f1.4 wide open, which says just how much of a POS this is.
@@igorg265 No, I can pick one up for less than this junk, if I take my time and shop around. And even if you cannot find a reasonably priced Super Takumar 50mm f2 at the moment, then a Canon nFD 50mm f1.4, which is still superior to this thing and is plentiful, can be had sub-$100 USD for a pristine copy