Tag: ultrawide lens

One fine day, Meike contacted me to ask if I was interested in reviewing this lens. Of course I do and I told them I was going on a trip in a week. And 2 days before my flight, it arrived at my doorstep.

Intro

I have reviewed the Meike 10mm f2 just less than 6 months ago. My verdict on that lens is that it has very usable wide-open image quality but the size and weight are the 2 drawbacks I have. Meike 12mm f2 addressed the 2 drawbacks but does it have the same usable wide-open image quality?

Let’s step back a little. This lens was announced in June 2022 and that makes this lens a year and a half years old now. Is this a real concern? Probably. Because this lens was made available before the release of the X-H2 and X-T5. The most common thing about these 2 cameras is that they house the X-Trans CMOS sensor 5 HR 40 megapixels sensor. (I am not worried too much about the X-Trans 4 sensor 26 megapixels sensor and I am pretty sure they just work fine with this lens.) So another question to me is, can the lens able to resolve the new sensor?

Just for info, it comes with an E-mount and M43 mount too.

Before I begin, thank you Meike for contacting me and sending this lens over. I appreciate their tremendous support in making this review a reality.

Design and Build Quality

The Meike 12mm f2 has the same metal built quality as other Meike manual lenses I have tested thus far. But what strikes me is how compact the lens is and it is great to hold in hands. Although it is only 227 grams, I can feel the well-balanced weight of the lens, especially when I mounted it on the X-T5.

This lens shares many similarities with most of its siblings except for the Meike 10mm f2. The aperture ring is de-click which can be easily rotated by accident. Rotating the aperture ring is smooth with very little or gentle friction against your rotation direction. I think this might benefit the videographers.

Both the aperture ring and the manual focus ring are smooth and also give different levels of friction feedback.

It comes with a 62mm filter thread. Pretty acceptable filter size for its size.

Image Quality

This lens gives an 18mm (in full frame equivalent) field of view which is indeed considerably wide. I could say the image quality at wide-open is similar to the Meike 10mm f2, and the results are very usable. Contrast and sharpness are good at the center and not so much at the corners.

The chromatic aberration (CA) is considerably well-controlled but I do observe some mild CA if I blow up the shot. As for vignetting, it is broadly there. In my opinion, it seems to be heavier than the Meike 10mm f2 but it can get better when you step down the aperture value to f5.6.

The sun-star result is pretty sharp, but not that tad sharp. Please be aware that the flare can be introduced if you are trying to get the sun-star shots and direct facing any light-emitting object in your framing.

Barrel distortion seems to be pretty well-controlled. At least I did not notice any curve around the edge of the corners but typical ultrawide distortion is there. So try not to put any human at the corners when you are shooting at your waist level.

Focusing

The manual focus ring has a different level of rotation friction as compared to the aperture ring. It gives a more dampening feedback, and I like it. As for the focus throw, it depends on the photographers’ preferences, some prefer to have a shorter focus throw while some do otherwise.

Well, the focus throw of this lens is approximately 110°. It takes me a while to rotate from one end to the other. Depending on how we see it, this might benefit the videographers and help the photographers nail the shot precisely.

Minimum Focus Distance (MFD)

This lens is capable of shooting as close as 20cm, which is pretty far for an ultrawide lens. You will get quite a lot of details apart from your subject. Nevertheless, it is a lens meant to be for landscape or other similar genres.

But the image quality seems not to be at its best. At wide-open, you will get to see not-so-good sharp results at the corners. Vignetting seems to be slightly stronger as well.

Price Point

It was priced at 189 USD and now it is running a discount to 159.99 USD on Meike’s website. This is quite a good price point. For a note: Meike 10mm f2 is selling at 349.99 USD. There are not much of manual ultrawide lenses in the market. TTArtisan 17mm f1.4 is the only one that I am aware of (at this point of writing) and it is selling at 118 USD. For about a 40 USD difference, I think it is worth getting the Meike 12mm simply because it gives a 5mm wider field of view.

Others

Surprisingly, this lens comes with metal petal lens hood. This definitely gives a good gesture as not many manual lens manufacturers provides one. The look of the lens hood seems to be pretty fragile but when you hold it, you will know it is actually quite well made.

Like most manual lenses, the actual “infinity” is not at the end of the manual focus ring. It is somewhere where the “infinity” symbol is. One of the readers also informed me that it can be manually calibrated. I did not try it but I think it is possible.

Also, this lens has this phenomenon that color temperature changes between cool to warm) according to the aperture value set. If you are shooting in raw, not too much of a concern but if you are shooting purely in jpeg, maybe this is something you should take note of.

Who is this for?

This lens literally says it is meant for landscape, cityscape, astrography, and architecture genres but this is not limited to any other genres that I do not mention over here. The creativity with this lens is yours.

I can’t say much for professional photographers but I also not saying this lens is not suitable for professional photographers to commission their works. But this lens is very suitable for budget-oriented photographers looking for a decent alternative to Fujifilm’s ultrawide lens offering.

One small detail here. You might notice that the f2 is pretty much the farthest away from the other aperture values. I am not sure why is that so. Maybe it can benefit us somehow? If you know, please share it with me.

Conclusion

There is only one manufacturer ever made such a fast and compact lens beside Meike and that is Rokinon 12mm f2 and it has been in the market for years. I believe some manufacturers will catch up some days if this focal length and aperture value makes a hit.

Although not the best, this lens optic does resolve fairly with the new X-Trans 5 HR sensor. At least I did not observe extreme softness in the image quality like I do in other lenses. Sharpness and contrast are there when I nail the shot totally.

This lens is very good for beginners or photographers who hardly use such an ultrawide lens. Firstly, it is not expensive to own one. Secondly, it is compact and easily kept in the bag or inside the dry cabinet.

In my opinion, it is very clear-cut for me to choose this lens over the Meike 10mm f2. Both have very comparable great image quality but the 12mm f2 wins on the size and the cost. (I know I have repeated many times but this lens is this worthy.)

I do not mind sacrificing a 2mm (3mm full frame equivalent) lesser field of view and size does matter, especially when bringing it on a holiday trip overseas. I would rather bring a smaller alternative lens to lighten my shoulder (yes, 227 grams versus 550 grams and every gram counts in order not to injure my shoulder).

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 and Capture One.
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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