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First walk in the park with Meike 6.5mm/2.0
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 14, 2017 6:01 pm    Post subject: First walk in the park with Meike 6.5mm/2.0 Reply with quote

I'm not sure this belongs here because the Meike 6.5mm/2.0 is not a vintage lens but the title of this section of the forum does say "Manual Focus Lenses" not "Vintage Manual Focus Lenses" so I suppose it's ok.

So this is a relatively new lens and doesn't seem to be very well known. There aren't that many reviews around yet. For those who don't know, it's a circular fisheye that covers APS-C. Focal length is 6.5mm, max aperture f/2.0 and the field of view is 190°. Not a typo, it's actually 190°, the lens can see behind itself! If you shoot from about waist height, you will have your feet and the top of your head in the frame, simultaneously!

It's chinese and very cheap (around 150) and completely manual (no AF of course, manual aperture and even no contacts on the mount, so no EXIF). Despite the low price it is exceptionally well made. All metal (except rubber on the focus ring), very small and compact, mount is metal and fits perfectly on the camera (no play), the focus ring is smooth and with perfect resistance, aperture ring likewise (though no click stops and no click/declick option). Even the lens cap is metal. Top tier manufacturers could take a few notes from Meike.

Optically it's more than adequate. Reasonably sharp in the center from f/2.0, sharp across the circle stopped down. High contrast from what I can see so far and handles large light sources well (no obvious loss of contrast with lots of bright sky in the frame). I wasn't able to point it towards the sun yet though. Minimum focus distance is 0.2m which sounds good, but actually could be better for some spectacular close ups. There are some purple edges around high contrast bits (tree branches and such). Nothing too problematic, but you need to turn the defringe function in your raw converter on for affected shots.

One weak point of the lens is that the circle it projects seems to be ever so slightly larger than APS-C and not completely 100% perfectly centered. The result is that a small portion at the top of the circle gets cut off. If you want a completely circular image, you need to apply a circular crop which then makes the view cover around 180° I suppose. I've seen samples from others that show the same behaviour so this might be a design flaw.

But overall the quality is easily good enough and you will have much harder problems to solve when shooting this lens than worry about technical quality. Can't say much about that yet because I have a lot to learn and it's a steep learning curve. Still, here are some of my first shots with this lens, shot on a NEX-6, raw format, converted with RT and adjusted to taste. I find that circular fisheye images work well when presented in threes:

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2. All wide open and near or at MFD:


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5.


6. And finally a typical circular fish selfie Razz


PostPosted: Fri Apr 14, 2017 8:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

nice!! Like 1 small Like 1 small Like 1 small


PostPosted: Fri Apr 14, 2017 11:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

last one...... great composition and mood Like 1 Like 1


PostPosted: Sat Apr 22, 2017 7:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A few more:

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6.


PostPosted: Sat Apr 22, 2017 7:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Again the last one... Like 1 Like 1


PostPosted: Sat Apr 22, 2017 11:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Like 1 small Like 1 small Like 1 small


PostPosted: Sat Apr 22, 2017 11:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Like 1 Like 1 Like 1


PostPosted: Sun Apr 23, 2017 7:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Must be fun using this Meike!
Great results!