Meike releases 50mm F1.7 full-frame budget lens for Canon EOS-R, Nikon Z cameras

why 109? 99 will be really nice price...

Jan 22, 2019permalink

Ah, the old "put an adapter on the base of the lens to fit other cameras" trick Sigma has been criticized for (yet the industry has used for decades!) ;)

Jan 22, 2019*permalink

nandbytes

Sigma lenses were designed for DSLRs and the adapter is larger empty tube unlike this lens which was designed for mirrorless mounts and can you can't just stick a tube to an e-mount lens for canon RF since it has a slightly longer flange distance.

Jan 22, 2019permalink

io_bg

The flange differences between mirrorless mounts are miniscule compared to those between mirrorless and DSLR mounts.

Jan 22, 2019permalink

Still adapted, as the Sony version was the original.

Jan 22, 2019permalink

sportyaccordy

You don't know that they didn't change the optics for sensor glass thickness or other factors. And yes Sigma's ART port overs seem like a lazy stopgap in the context of the freedom enabled by these new mounts. At least for wide angle stuff.

Jan 22, 2019permalink

@sportyaccordy

"You don't know that they didn't change the optics for sensor glass thickness or other factors."

These are cheap Chinese lenses. Not even name brands change the optics for different mounts.

"And yes Sigma's ART port overs seem like a lazy stopgap in the context of the freedom enabled by these new mounts. "

Sigma redesigned the electronics inside to work fully natively on Sony.

Jan 22, 2019permalink

nandbytes

Not really AF is still not as good as native lenses especially for video. They are bodged up DSLR lenses.

Jan 22, 2019permalink

The difference is in the AF motors. Mirorrless generally use linear, while modern DSLR use ring type. Linear is much faster, more precise, and silent. Just the limitation of the construction of the lens, not the mount it's used on. Even Canikon and Samyang/Rokinon use linear motors on some of their DSLR lenses.

Jan 22, 2019permalink

@sportyaccordy - For an inexpensive Chinese lens like this, it is highly unlikely that they made *any* optical changes. All these lenses most likely come off the exact same assembly line, using the same parts, with the only difference being the base of the lens where the lens mount attaches.

Jan 22, 2019permalink

nitroman

I think this is good news as the Canon mirrorless lenses are insanely overpriced !

Jan 22, 2019permalink

badi

well... kind of...
But if you buy the R (at least for now) you are not really tight on a budget.

Also chances are that you buy the EF adapter with it .... and the 50/1.8 STM is a much better lens than this, with decent AF as well, and lighter (probably around the same size as this with the EF to R adapter added. And for only 15$ more :)

Jan 22, 2019permalink

Irakly Shanidze

What is exactly "nanotechnology multilayer coating"? How is it different from, say, Carl Zeiss T* coating, which was developed way before the word "nanotechnology" became the thing?

Jan 22, 2019permalink

nandbytes

I doubt the Zeiss' T* coating has remained the same for all these years. I imagine it's been improved upon over the years. They simply want to maintain the naming convention since it sells ;-)

Jan 22, 2019permalink

Irakly Shanidze

You'd be surprised. This is one of the technologies that at this point does not need to be improved upon. Zeiss has been tweaking it since the 1970's, and now the coating is effective, durable and appears to be technologically perfected. In fact, given the definition of "nano", T* fully conforms to it by virtue of the thickness of its layers of magnesium fluoride being 1/4 of a wavelength each layer is controlling. That's bloody nano-thin :)

Jan 22, 2019*permalink

Critical Thinker

Just marketing buzzwords. Only the lowest of plebs fall for it.

Jan 23, 2019permalink

Irakly Shanidze

LOL, the lowest of plebs choose beer over nanotechnology, wrong target audience :D

Jan 23, 2019permalink

Critical Thinker

Good goyim

Jan 24, 2019permalink

Sample images look very soft, even in centre of frame. Looks to have heavy vignetting in the sky. Maybe that's what some people want, but it seems to me they've produced a cheap very low quality optic, and then decided to market it as a "portrait" lens as an excuse for its softness.

.... and I thought the main advantage of the short-flange, wide-throat Z mount was to enable Nikon and others to produce *sharper* lenses.

Jan 22, 2019permalink

Photographer124

...and you can tell this from 759 pixel image?

Jan 22, 2019permalink

Yeah, nothing like judging quality of a lens on >=24MP bodies using three 0.4MP sample images. ;-) I can't even tell if the bokeh are decent, although it looks like maybe they have a bright ring artifact...?

Jan 22, 2019permalink

Photographer124 - Yes I can. An image that is sharp at higher resolution should still look much sharper at these low resolutions than is apparent in these samples. Heavy vignetting in the sky is also apparent.

And if the lens really is sharper, why is the manufacturer afraid to release the full resulution originals?

By all means waste your money if you wish to, but don't say you weren't warned.

Jan 22, 2019*permalink

PLShutterbug

“I thought the main advantage ... to enable ... *sharper* lenses.”

It was. The key word is “enable,” which doesn’t mean “require.” Nikon chose to do that in their new 50/1.8; these folks have gone cheap and soft. Horses for courses.

Jan 22, 2019permalink

PLShutterbug - I agree, if the object of the exercise is to produce soft images with incredibly high levels of chromatic aberration, and focus that shifts all over the place as the aperture is changed, the Mieke is perfect, and dirt cheap.

Smearing vaseline on a filter would probably have a similar effect and be even cheaper, but honestly, I do understand why people like to play with lenses like this ;-)

I'd just hate anyone to think that they could get sharp, aberration-free shots from a lens like this. If you want quality, unfortunately you have to pay for it.

Jan 23, 2019*permalink

The available now Amazon link above is to the Sony version for $109.99 ($10 more than B&H). However, Amazon has the Nikon Z and Canon RF versions for $139.99. They also look a bit odd, flaring out at the back to meet the larger mount diameters; the photo above is the Sony version. I think the sloped-to-larger-diameter rears are going to be the norm for those mounts, because 3rd-party makers will certainly target all the FF mirrorless bodies....

Jan 22, 2019permalink

Gannon Burgett

Thanks for catching that. The photo has been updated with the EOS R/Nikon Z version. Cheers!

Jan 22, 2019permalink

I'm guessing the one in the pic is the Canon version, as the rear section looks a bit thinner than the Sony. Wonder what the Nikon one looks like. The same pic is used on Meike's own site for both Canon and Nikon. -___-

Jan 22, 2019permalink

Gannon Burgett: Still have the wrong pricing -- apparently it's only the Sony version at $109.99, the others at $139.99. I suspect they're trying to recover new tooling costs and pricing will probably end-up the same for all three.

Jan 22, 2019permalink

Yup, prices on these kinds of lenses tend to drop and stabilize a few months after release.

Jan 22, 2019permalink

Gannon Burgett

@ProfHankD: Double-check the pricing. Refresh or maybe try a new browser. I updated the pricing alongside the images. There's a chance you still have the cached version of the article on-hand?

Jan 22, 2019permalink

Gannon Burgett: Ok now. Perhaps I caught the page in the middle of the update? Then again, prices will no doubt change again soon enough anyway. ;-)

Jan 22, 2019permalink

lunic

Can't understand why recent Chinese lenses usually come with aperture ring that unevenly spaced aperture values.

Jan 22, 2019permalink

I don't know whether that applies to other Chinese lenses, but in this one I'd guess that it's a lot cheaper to do it that way, than to incorporate better engineering and have the aperture stops evenly spaced. Looks cheap and nasty.

Of course the aperture values would normally be set using the camera controls, rather than this "surplus" aperture ring.

Jan 22, 2019permalink

If they have click stops, really doesn't matter much. If not, you're looking at the lens, anyway.

Jan 22, 2019permalink

HarryLally

On the home page it says "50mm camera". New one on me.

Jan 22, 2019permalink

GiancoLX

A full frame 50mm lens "designed for portrait photography", what an interesting idea.. too bad it's a bit too wide for anything but full figure portrait. Or the portrait designation means "forget the sharpness, we have a great bokeh"?

Jan 22, 2019permalink

riveredger

$3000 camera with $100 lens ...

Jan 22, 2019permalink

CarpentersEye

The difference between wisdom and folly depends on whether you call that too little for the lens or too much for the body.

Jan 22, 2019*permalink

onlyfreeman

I call it, "I have no money left for a better lens".

Jan 22, 2019permalink

agree, that cameras are very overpriced, after buy them people will stay without money and then buy this lens.

Jan 22, 2019permalink

There's no point in putting a cheap nasty lens on a good camera, unless of course you seek cheap nasty image quality.

Jan 22, 2019permalink

why nasty? did you taste this lens? Mane years I also thought, for example, lenses by Lawa are nasty, after used it, I found, they are better then many others, and some of them are even near best on market...

Jan 23, 2019permalink

kobakokh - Yes I tasted it, and then spat it out. It tasted awful.

Jan 23, 2019permalink