Meike 55mm f1.4 – Checking All the Boxes?

I mentioned before that I do not have very good experience with Meike’s first autofocus lens. When I received this lens, I set myself a low expectation of this lens.

Sometimes, I wonder whether the manufacturers communicate with one another or they coincidentally have the same thoughts at the same time. This is the third portrait lens that are available to photographers in just the first half of 2024. Anyway, I feel there is a sudden strong competition with this focal length in this budget segment.

Intro

Meike 55mm f1.4 was announced in March 2024 and this is Meike’s second autofocus lens. I have reviewed their first X-Mount autofocus lens, the Meike 85mm f1.8, and I have my reservation with it after some testing. The announcement between the two lenses was about 1 year apart.

Before I proceed further, I appreciate the good people from Meike for sending this lens for my review. I thank them for their continuous support.

Design and Build Quality

From the first impression, the lens design seems to take inspiration from the Canon L lens (the red line ring). Secondly, the plastic build quality feels so much better than the Meike 85mm f1.8 when I hold it in my hand. The lens comes in a matte finish, so it is fingerprint-magnet-free. It’s a huge improvement in my opinion.

This 52cm filter-size lens is compact and lightweight. Only 286 grams. Oh yes, it comes with an aperture ring! Hooray! However, the ring is a little stiff compared to other lenses I have tested. At least it is clicky but the experience is not what I expected.

On the bright side, it comes with a lens hood too. As for the lens cap, it is the normal pinch-to-release lens cap but better than the ArtraLab 24mm and 35mm.

Image Quality

With my low expectations, Meike gives me a good surprise. The image quality at f1.4 is pretty good. Decently sharp and has good contrast. Although corner-to-corner sharpness is within passable to a fair standard, in general, it is fine if you do not pixel-peep.

I also think the optic glass of this lens resolves quite well with the new X-Trans CMOS 5 HR 40-megapixels sensor. Another good surprise for me.

Chromatic aberration is decently well-controlled but you still can spot it if you pixel-peep. Vignetting can be observed too but not as heavy as I have expected.

When it comes to sun effect, I think it is just fair. The lines are not clearly defined or sharp. Also, shooting directly facing the sun does come with some flares as well. So please be mindful if you dislike it.

Focusing

It comes with a Stepper Motor (STM) and the focusing speed is fast. The focusing response is pretty good from MFD to infinity. But it is still not as fast as the new generation lenses from Fujifilm like XF23mm f1.4 WR.

However, I do notice that the lens is unable to focus on the subject, even in bright daylight. It seems to have this strange phenomenon, luckily, it happens rarely. I hope they will address the issue here.

One interesting thing to note here, it comes with an AF/MF switch. If you want to switch to manual mode to shoot, you have to switch the mode via the AF/MF switch on the lens and not on the focus mode selector on your camera. I hope they can give the photographer an option to choose where to change the focus mode freely. I hope they can implement it in future firmware updates. Nevertheless, it is not a big deal.

Minimum Focus Distance (MFD)

By now, we all know there is no perfect lens in the market. The lens should have compromise(s) and it is also depending on our acceptance. Well, for Meike 55mm f1.4, the shortcoming is the MFD.

At 61cm, it is not quite on par with today’s portrait lenses but not the worse. Here are some of the MFD of the portrait lenses I have tested before:

XF56mm f1.2 WR – 50cm

XF50mm f2 – 39cm

Yongnuo 50mm f1.8 – 45cm

Sigma 56mm f1.4 – 50cm

TTArtisan 56mm f1.8 – 50cm

Why did I say not the worse? Because we have lenses that are even furthe, the classic XF56mm f1.2 and XF50mm f1. Both at 70cm. So this is something the Meike 55mm is slightly better.

Price Point

This lens comes at a very competitive price point of 199.99 USD. To name a few, TTArtisan 56mm f1.8 is priced at 158 USD and Viltrox 56mm f1.7 is priced at 169 USD in their own respective online stores.

With just 30-40 USD more, I can get aperture ring and a faster lens. So do you think it is a sweet deal?

Others

One good improvement that Meike do it right is having a few USB-C port for firmware upgrades. This is so much friendlier than the 85mm. Now I can have fewer cable management issues.

Also, I think this is also within expectation. This lens does not come with any weather sealing or weather resistance.

Who is this for?

Although it is 1mm shorter than the typical 56mm, this 82.5mm (in full frame equivalent) lens is still a portrait lens. It does not make any difference from the other portrait lens.

With this price tag, I can recommend it to any photographers new to photography or exploring photography genres like portraits. But this lens can be used for street, documentary, and product shoots.

Conclusion

The market is flooded with many third-party portrait lenses, but what makes this lens stand out is the f1.4 fast lens, aperture ring, and price point. Even though the MFD is the only drawback I have with the lens, Meike has done well with the optic quality and the focusing speed.

I feel that Meike makes a good move by penetrating the market differently and gives even more choices to the photographers in the budget segment.

All in all, I do love this lens a lot and I am excited to know that Meike is planning to release 16mm, 23mm, and 33mm. All are f1.4. (At least this is the understanding so far). I am looking forward to their arrival.

So does this lens check all the boxes? In my opinion, not all but it checks on the right boxes.

Thank you for reading.

Disclaimer:
1. All the shots taken here are shot by me.
2. Most of the shots are straight out of the camera with some shots edited via In-Camera Raw Processing.
3. The opinions are based on my experience. If there is any mistake, please kindly drop me a message and I will gladly make the amendment.
4. I reserve ownership of these images, if you wish to use my images, please notify me.

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