Meike 25mm f1.8 (APS-C) Lens Review

Kyle Taggart February 8, 2022

This is a review of the Meike 25mm f1.8 (APS-C) lens for the Sony E Mount. The lens is multi-layered, its body is made of high-quality metal, and the lens can be adjusted comfortably and easily. This lens comes in at $74.99 USD, and overall provides very good performance for this price point.

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Note: All example shots were with the Sony a6100, no post-processing was applied.

The lens comes in a nicely branded box, and it also comes with Meike branded front and rear lens caps. That’s always a nice touch with a cheaper lens, rather than just getting generic caps that aren’t even from the lens manufacturer. The rear cap is light gray and has an indicator where it locks, the front cap is a “put on” cap, meaning it doesn’t require any twisting, it simply just fits. Surprisingly, it doesn’t fall off.

This lens is a manual lens, meaning there is no autofocus, which is a huge reason most people end up picking a sony camera in the first place. With that said, if you’ve used a manual lens before-you know how fun they can be, and if you haven’t, you may just find some joy in using a manual lens, especially this one. Manual lenses let you fine-tune your focus with your own hands and judgment. There are things like focus assist and focus peaking to help determine focus, but the ultimate determining factor for obtaining focus is you, using your fingers as you rotate the focus and aperture ring, feeling that tactile part of the photography process.

With that being said let’s go over the focus ring and aperture ring of this lens. The focus ring is the outermost ring on the lens, and it’s silky smooth (as shown above). For the price of this lens, the construction is top-notch. I have zero complaints regarding the focus ring but do note it extends ever so slightly as you focus. The little flat sides with grooves help with grip, overall I like the design approach. Smaller lenses like this, those little helpful details matter. The filter thread size is 49mm, which is the same as the popular Sony 35mm f1.8 OSS. You can’t use the lens hood from the Sony 35mm though, trust me, I tried. There’s nothing for it to screw into, so I’m unsure if a standard one would fit.

The aperture ring on this lens is de-clicked, which is welcome for video shooters who want smooth transitions when changing aperture, but for a photographer like myself, I’d prefer a clicked aperture ring. Clicked aperture rings help lock the aperture in place, so you’re not changing aperture values as you handle the camera, The aperture ring shares the smoothness of the focus ring, so although not clicked, it is quite smooth.

This lens is a 25mm field of view, and the full-frame equivalent field of view would be 37.5mm. So this is very close to the 35mm field of view on a full-frame camera, which is similar to what you see in real life through your eyes. This focal length is great for street photography, travel, and everyday life.

The image quality for $75 is great. Sharpness is quite good, colors look accurate, and I was surprised that at f1.8, the sharpness was as good as it is. Like most lenses, stop the aperture down to f2.8 and the sharpness increases. The minimum aperture for this lens is f16. In the photo above you can see the great minimum focus distance at work as well. This shot was close to its.25 meters minimum focusing limit. For me personally, I find that when a lens has a short minimum focus distance it allows you to be more creative. This may be my favorite shot I got with this lens so far, I doubt anyone would guess it was taken with a lens so inexpensive.

The next three shots shown show the bokeh when shot at f1.8, 2.8, and f5.6 respectively. You can see the shape of the Christmas lights change as the aperture goes down. At f1.8 there is a bit of a football shape, however, the edges are smooth. Towards the center of the image, the bokeh balls are more round. At f2.8 (second photo) you can see the more jagged bokeh balls, and down at f5.6 the bokeh balls shrink to a smaller size. Overall I’m pleased with the bokeh from this lens, there are no “onion rings’ within the lights and the out-of-focus areas feel smooth. It feels like a common thing with each thing I cover on this lens, the sharpness, the bokeh, the quality feels like it’s coming from a more expensive piece of glass. This lens has really just made me want to try more of what Meike has to offer.

Something some of the sub $100 manual lenses for APS-C cameras lack, is control over chromatic aberration, flaring, and barrel distortion. Sometimes lenses can be utterly useless because of flares during daylight, or, they’re more “artsy” because of those imperfections. The Meike combats both chromatic aberration and lens flaring with its multilayer coatings on the lens. I compared the Meike 25mm f1.8 to a Pergear 25mm f1.8, and the difference was quite clear. The image from the Pergear 25mm was more flared and almost felt more faded, with slightly lower contrast. The Meike’s coating on the lens combats that better than a lens without any, and for being a more budget-friendly lens it’s a welcome feature on this lens that sets it a little above the competition. Barrel distortion is present, but it’s not world-ending, and it is to be expected on a wider focal length for APS-C.

You can see from the comparison, the flare from the window light (which is to the left) is more prevalent in the top left-hand corner of the image on the Pergear 25mm. That flaring is much better controlled on the Meike. Both shots were done at the maximum aperture – f1.8.

Below are some more photo examples taken with the Meike 25mm f1.8 – all shot at f1.8 – on a Sony a6100. It’s a great addition for people who love street photography, travel photography, or if you’re a hobbyist looking to get into manual lenses. It has a fast max aperture and it’s a smaller lens so it won’t add too much weight/size to your kit. Meike has the great build quality to their lenses, they have the added touch of branded lens accessories, and the image quality and performance puts it at the top for lenses in the sub $100 range.

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Sample Photos