Sometimes it’s a bit tough to decide which of these cheap lenses is the one to buy. A lot of times it just comes down to build quality, but sometimes there are subtle differences in the image quality that can make one lens more compelling than another.
For some time now I’ve been looking for a nice upgrade to the 7Artisans 25mm f1.8, a lens that had some pretty cool rendering, and was one of my most popular lens reviews, but was plagued with mechanical issues.
It wouldn’t happen to everyone, but my copy of that lens had inner element pressure issues. When I tried to focus, the focus element would suck back to its previous position due to the pressure change. It was incredibly annoying and I wasn’t the only person with this problem. It was still super fun and cool to use, and I think the rendering might have even been a touch nicer than this lens in a different way.
The Pergear lens is a very nice upgrade to build quality. It actually uses fewer elements at 5 in 3 groups. There is another lens with this same design called the Andoer 25mm F1.8 here on Amazon. which doesn’t look to come with a lens hood.
PerGear 25mm f1.8 – Amazon
These samples are mostly of my kids. I’ll grab more samples with more variety for the full review, but I know that a lot of you who follow me also have kids and like it when I post kid shots.
For now, I’ll walk you through what’s going on with this lens.
Pergear 25mm f1.8 First Impressions
Pros: Some of the best micro-contrast, nice bokeh when close and wide open. Some of the build quality of the sub $100 lenses.
Cons: Not that sharp wide open, ugly bokeh at mid-range, strong vignetting wide open, ugly lens flares.
Specialty: Micro-contrast, Close focus portrait, or still life photography.
If you need sharpness wide open you kind of need to stay close to the center frame.
I won’t get too much into sharpness in this review because that’s not really what these lenses are about and usually their sharpness is just ok. You still need lenses that are sharp obviously, but sharpness is not always the end-all-be-all to lenses, especially for how we are using these lenses, which is, to have fun and shoot some unique-looking images with a ton of organic pop.
I will say the Pergear is sharp enough for this purpose, but it’s probably not going to be sharp enough for a lot of people when shot wide open since it’s mostly only sharp in the center frame.
It likes being stopped down just a little.
Here are some controlled samples at f1.8.
These two shots are stopped down to about f5.6 and here it’s performing well.
It’s also a little hard to nail focus at f1.8 while keeping the subject close where things look best. That’s the issue with a lot of these cheap small lenses, they just don’t look great when shooting wide open at far distances. Stopped down to f4 and they are fantastic, but in terms of sharpness, it’s looking like this lens might be a little below average for the f1.8 lenses.
Problems With IQ But Tons Of Pop
This lens is interesting, I see a lot of problems with image quality, but it’s good at doing what it does good, which is that close-up portrait with tons of micro-contrast, and it’s bad at everything else.
I think you’ll get more of a balanced lens in terms of image quality with the 7Artisans 25mm or Meike than this Pergear.
You should get a pretty good idea of the image quality with all these samples. It’s doing some cool things and it’s looking like these Pergear lenses have more of a lean toward artistic imagery than some of the higher element lenses like the 7Artisans and Meike.
There are a lot of situations where the bokeh just looks strange. This comes from shooting subjects wide open that are far away. It doesn’t like that.
But when close, it looks great. Like a whole different world opens up.
Flaring is also a little ugly at times. Rather than producing cool orbs, it streaks which is distracting. But sometimes in the right conditions, you can get a nice glow, like in the third image here and in the samples of my daughter below.
It comes with a lens hood but it doesn’t do anything. It will just block out the very outer angles to help just a little bit of veil flaring when the sun is out of frame, but that’s it. Think of the lens hood as more of a lens protector than a device to reduce flaring.
Can’t complain though, these images turned out to be beautiful. This is my daughter playing with a sand crab.
Micro Contrast is pretty insane with this one – In a good way. It just has so much punch and 3D pop. If you’re shooting with your kids or pets it’s going to blow you away. Stop it down just a little bit to like f2, and you’ll really get a ton of pop. That’s kind of what this lens is, a micro-contrast goddess, but if you want a lens that’s a little more balanced in terms of performance, you might try looking for a higher element lens. Or just collect them all and use them for different situations as I do.
No two lenses are the same and that’s what’s so cool about building out a kit with these cheap lenses. They all have little specialties.
Pergear 25mm f1.8 Build Quality
Build quality is probably random with these lenses but this one is performing a little nicer than my Pergear 35mm f1.6.
The Pergear 25mm f1.8 has a focus throw that is a bit smoother, not as much grinding when adjusting focus like the 35mm, but still some. Focus is still a little stiff with these lenses but this 25mm is better than the 35mm. I would say, with my copies, the 25mm so far is the best when it comes to the way it feels, and it probably has the nicest feel of all the cheap Chinese lenses I’ve tried so far – my copy anyway.
If you’re wondering about the Pergear 50mm f1.8, it has all the same problems as the 35mm.
I just realized there is a Meike 25mm f1.8 that I don’t have. I’m ordering it now and will look at it after I get through these Pergear lenses. It looks like it has the same optical design as the 7Artisans but with fewer aperture blades.
I feel like this lens is not as sharp as the 7Artisans and a lot of the other f1.8 lenses, but this could be because the Pergear really only performs well in the center. So buying the Meike will allow me to do a side-by-side comparison.
Check out all the different lenses available for your camera mount. I’ve been updating the Micro Four Thirds lens list lately which has a lot of these cheap lenses available for it.
Pergear 25mm f1.8 Bottom Line
I’m still working with this lens but it’s a ton of fun to use. I like the build of the Pergear lenses a lot but it seems like there are some tradeoffs to the image quality compared to the Meike and 7Artisans lenses. Probably some more micro-contrast at the cost of some mid-frame sharpness.
Stopping down to f5.6 and all these lenses give pretty similar results with some minor differences, little tradeoffs that aren’t that big of a deal.
When wide-open at f1.8, I’m getting a softer or smoother rendering overall with these Pergear lenses because most of the sharpness is just in the center frame. If you can work with that, you can get some cool results but the minute you place the subject in the rule of thirds area of the frame and shoot wide open, you run into some sharpness issues. This would mean it’s more than a field curvature issue.
Pay attention to that in these samples below, and remember super sharp images are not always necessary for all styles of photography. You still get good 3d pop even though the images are not sharp so if you’re shooting older people that are worried about wrinkles, this can be a cool solution.
Overall, it’s not a bad lens, the build quality makes up for a lot of the issues with the image quality and you can get some cool pop with some crispiness especially when your subject is center frame while shooting wide-open.
So far I’m enjoying using these lenses but they are different than the Meike and 7Art lenses.
PerGear 25mm f1.8 Sample Images
When I mark the data with the f-, it means I don’t remember what aperture I was at. Strong vignetting probably means closer to f1.8.
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Nice images, I was wondering if you have any experience with the Zonlai 22mm? It is slightly more expensive than these lenses but seems to be marginally better optically, and I wanted to know what your thoughts on it were.
Nope, but I looks like they have some of the same optical formulas we see with Meike and Pergear, except this 22mm is the only 22mm out there that I’m seeing. I’ll have to check it out.
I recently got the Meike 25/1.8. It’s optically different than the 7Artisans/Zonlai 25/1.8, at least based on my experience using each lens. I don’t have them both to compare. To complicate things more, I shot the 7a 25/1.8 on a NEX-5R and the Meike 25/1.8 on the Fuji X-E3.
They both have a 7/5 construction, but the look is different. There are quite a few things different in the rendering. The Meike is less sharp in the center wide open, and really never gets sharp across the frame by f/8. It isn’t just the deep corners. Bokeh looks different, especially and the bokeh you get when focused in a mid-distance way.
The 7a 25/1.8 on my NEX was strange – quite sharp wide open. As you’d stop down, the corners and edges would also sharpen up, but there was also a weird mid-field donut of unsharpness that would actually get worse as you stopped it down more. I could just barely detect it starting around f/4, but by f/8 it was stark. This was on both ~5 ft brick wall shots as well as infinity landscapes. I never found anyone else who ran an aperture series on this lens to confirm it, perhaps it was a defect in my copy.
I love the Meike 28/2.8! One of my favorite leses on the NEX-5R. Edge to edge sharp wide open, nice contrast, tiny and cheap. I shimmed mine for easy infinity focus, love it for street shooting, landscapes while skiing. Works great as an tiny out-and-about combo.
Fun fact – you can swap the mount plates between at least a few of these Meike lenses. I have an E mount Meike 35/1.4 and am able to swap the mount plate between it at the X mount Meike 25/1.8. 🙂
IMHO, the worst thing about these lenses is the click-less aperture, with incorrect markings on the ring. At least, I haven’t seen any of these cheap Chinese MF lenses with an accurate aperture ring, assuming my method for testing that is correct (center point metering, fix ISO, watch shutter speed decrease).
Ah cool. That’s good to know, so it’s worth doing a side by side comparison of the two.
I agree with you on the clickless aperture. Makes it difficult for me to compare them. I’ll be on f2.8 on a 7Artisans but it gives me the dof of f4.
That’s good to know about the mounting plates too. That means maybe I can swap them around for the different systems.