85mm lenses with wide maximum apertures are some of the most popular out there, particularly for portrait photographers, but they can also run well north of $2,000 for a good model. And so, at less than $200, the Meike 85mm f/1.8 is quite the intriguing lens, but do you get much at such a low price? This excellent video review takes a look at the lens and the sort of performance and image quality you can expect from it in practice.
Coming to you from Christopher Frost, this great video review takes a look Meike 85mm f/1.8 lens for Sony E mount cameras. Certainly, at less than $200, you should not expect the 85mm f/1.8 to compete with flagship models, but on the other hand, it is hard to argue with such a cheap price. Though this particularly model does not produce ultra-sharp images free of aberrations, as Frost puts it, they are quite serviceable. Moreover, the bokeh is surprisingly smooth and pleasant, which is certainly a boon for anyone planning to use the lens for wide-aperture portraits. Altogether, it looks like quite a reasonable performer at a particularly affordable price. Check out the video above for Frost's full thoughts on the lens.
First Please PLEASE stop using CHEAP! It is low in price, cheap means it is made of sub par materials! As a second or third party manufacture at least it is "Chipped" and has contacts for metadata lens info as well as for AF and etc.. And a update port if needed. As far a wide open most want that for bokeh/blur/separation, For normal clarity and normal capture you will always do 2 stops above wide open and this one you will get faster shutter speeds than a f/4 if really needed so will also be good in low light like a city night scape. You use a chart the best test of a lens wide open is a clear night shot of stars with the horizon like the ocean/lake, this will show 1. mustache distortion 2. elongated stars in corners due to poor lens glass outer edges 3. comas 4. Chromatic Aberrations if you get a tree limb or leaves in the capture. Lastly no reviews ever mention if say Lr or any other program like C1 has a lens correction, back in '14 I used the Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 and it took a year before I could edit any image because not even Lr had a LC. If just starting out yes a good purchase BUT when $ are avaliable stay with Sony Lenses they will always be the best.