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Josh Garber photo
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766 Review
37 Karma

Review on πŸ“· Meike 35mm F1.7 Manual Focus Prime Lens for Sony E-Mount Mirrorless Cameras (APS-C): NEX 3, 3N, 5, 5T, 5R, 6, 7, A6600, A6400, A5000, A5100, A6000, A6100, A6300, A6500, A3000 by Josh Garber

Revainrating 4 out of 5

Good lens for the price.

This lens really impresses me for its price. The packaging is surprisingly high quality, indistinguishable from any Sony or Canon lenses I've bought. The build quality of the lens is very good, the body is almost entirely metal, there is no play and play in the focus and aperture rings, they are well dampened. The glass is immaculate and I didn't even see a speck of dust inside the lens. The picture quality of the A6000 is excellent. At f1.7, the sharpness in the center is very good, maybe a bit soft, but very usable. Sharpness across the entire image only falls off a bit towards the edges, but edge sharpness is still good, much better than my Sony PZ1650 kit lens. Reducing the aperture to 2.8 gives excellent sharpness that is on par with all my other lenses (kit lenses and old manual Canon FD lenses that I use with an adapter, I don't have high end lenses). Distortion and chromatic aberration are virtually non-existent! Overall I am very impressed with the image quality of this lens. Now for the cons: There are a few things I don't like that brought my rating down to four stars: The lens is HEAVY. Even if it's quite small. He tilts the camera forward as it rests on the table. This makes the controls look a bit unbalanced. The focus ring rotates almost half a turn from end to end, which some people like as it makes it easier to focus precisely, but it takes me too long to quickly change focus from end to end. near a distant object. The lens is very tight on the mount and I have to use a little force to get it off. I'm concerned that this will cause the mount or body to wear out over time. The aperture ring has the opposite problem to the focus ring, it has a short travel and jumps from f/8 to f./22 very quickly at smaller apertures, no markings in between. I usually shoot wide open or close so it's not that big of a deal for me, but for people shooting anything over f/8 it can be annoying. All in all I highly recommend this lens, I wanted an old Canon FD mount lens, a 35mm f2.0 manual focus lens that would cost a lot more and judging by my other FD lenses , would not it be better. For those looking at vintage lenses or just interested in a cheap, fast, manual focus lens, I don't think you can do better than this lens!

Pros
  • Brilliantly made
Cons
  • disappears