Today we are taking a look at the first lens from the Chinese manufacturer Meike, the Meike 55mm f1.8 Pro, a fast full-frame affordable option for mirrorless cameras.
Founded in 2003, Hong Kong-based Meike Digital Technology has been developing and manufacturing both stills and Cine lenses for over 2 decades. Recently the company added new lines of APS-C and FF lenses with AF technology at some very affordable prices and today we will be looking at one of the company’s PRO series lenses.
The Meike 55mm f1.8 Pro
Optical Design
The lens is made from 8 elements in 11 groups including 2 ED elements, 2 high refraction elements, and a single Ultra-high refraction element.
Materials
The lens is made from what feels like a high-quality polymer, similar to what Sony uses on many of its lenses.
Size and weight
The lens feels very light in the hand and it tips the scale at under 400 grams (39oz) with the hood and 9cm (3.5”) long.
Rings
The lens has two rings. A wide front focus ring and a narrow aperture ring. The focus ring has a nice feel to it with good tolerance. Our only minor complaint is that you can feel a little “grind” when you turn it, this is however not the only lens we encountered with this so it’s nothing special, it is just not perfectly smooth.
The aperture ring moves with nice tactile and audible clicks and there is an auto mode. It also has some dotted texture for extra grip which is very welcome. We would love to see a lock as well as a de-click switch in future models, even if this adds a little extra to the price.
Buttons and switches
The lens has an AF/MF switch that makes a satisfying click.
AF/MF switch
Sealing
The lens does have a rear rubber gasket but we have no official information regarding the dust and waterproof nature of the lens so please be careful when working with it in the rain.
Mount
The lens comes in both Sony E, Nikon Z, and L mounts. It has a USB-C connection on the mount for updating firmware. The mount on our unit was a little too stiff.
Hood/Cover
The lens comes with a petal-shaped hood 4cm (1.5”) long with a small nice touch, and groves that make the hood easier to lock and remove, we would like to see this on all lenses.
Aperture
The lens has 9 rounded aperture blades. we will see later on in this review how this affects the Bokeh of the lens.
Filter
The lens has a small and somewhat unconventional 58mm front filter thread.
Performance
Focus
When it comes to manual focus the lens works pretty well although as you would expect this lens has a fly-by-wire mechanism and hence there is no way for repeated identical focus pulls.
We tested the AF in the studio in both lit and low light situations and the focus seems to be snappy and accurate on our A1.
In a real-world test, we found that with the A1 the lens had difficulty focusing on objects coming closer to the lens, mostly at closer distances.
Sharpness
We tested the sharpness of the Meike lens using our Imatest chart with the Sony A1. Wide open in the center the lens is fairly sharp but the contrast is fairly low. Closing down to f/2.8 improves the sharpness a bit and the contrast looks much better.
Meike 55mm f1.8 Pro sharpness test center of the frame – top left (f/1.8), top right (f/2.8), bottom left (f/4), bottom right (f/5.6)
The edge of the frame is not sharp wide open and even at f/4 is not perfect but at f/5.6 you see good sharpness.
Meike 55mm f1.8 Pro sharpness test corner of the frame – top left (f/1.8), top right (f/2.8), bottom left (f/4), bottom right (f/5.6)
Now let’s put things in a little perspective. We wanted to compare the lens to our old Zeiss 55mm f/1.8 lens. A design that is still selling today for around $900.
The Meike 55mm f1.8 Pro and the Zeiss 55mm f/1.8
In the center, the Zeiss might have a tiny edge over the Meike in terms of contrast but at f/2.8 there are more or less the same.
Meike 55mm f1.8 Pro vs. Zeiss 55mm f/1.8 sharpness test center of the frame – top – Meike- left (f/1.8), right (f/2.8), bottom – Zeiss – left (f/1.8), bottom right (f/2.8)
In the corner, both lenses are not sharp wide open but at f/2.8 the Meike is a hair sharper and even more so in the very far corner at f/4. We were not expecting this from such an affordable lens.
Meike 55mm f1.8 Pro vs. Zeiss 55mm f/1.8 sharpness test corner of the frame – top – Meike- left (f/1.8), right (f/2.8), bottom – Zeiss – left (f/1.8), bottom right (f/2.8)
Close up performance
The official close-up focus distance of the lens is 55cm (we have no official data on the macro magnification ratio of the lens).
In our test we measured the minimum close-up distance to be 56cm (possibly a little closer with MF) and in terms of sharpness, wide open in the center of the frame we see very good sharpness but low contrast that improves considerably moving to f/2.8.
Meike 55mm f1.8 Pro close up sharpness test center of the frame – top left (f/1.8), top right (f/2.8), bottom left (f/4), bottom right (f/5.6)
In the corners, you need to close down to between f/2.8 and f/4 for very good sharpness.
Meike 55mm f1.8 Pro close-up sharpness test corner of the frame – top left (f/1.8), top right (f/2.8), bottom left (f/4), bottom right (f/5.6)
Looking again at the Zeiss 55mm f/1.8 for comparison, the Zeiss can focus from much closer, about 50cm or so, but it is also softer wide open in the center but sharper in the corners.
Meike 55mm f1.8 Pro vs. Zeiss 55mm f/1.8 close up sharpness test center of the frame – top – Meike- left (f/1.8), right (f/2.8), bottom – Zeiss – left (f/1.8), bottom right (f/2.8)
Meike 55mm f1.8 Pro vs. Zeiss 55mm f/1.8 close-up sharpness test corner of the frame – top – Meike- left (f/1.8), right (f/2.8), bottom – Zeiss – left (f/1.8), bottom right (f/2.8)
Breathing
Looking at the breathing performance of the lens is where things really got interesting.
In our test, the lens showed almost no breathing at all. Almost as if this lens used breathing compensations (which of course is not the case since this is not a Sony-supported lens).
If you compare this to the Zeiss you can see just how much breathing that lens has.
Chromatic aberrations
In our test, we have seen very minor longitudinal chromatic aberration if any wide open.
Our lab CA test – f/1.8 on the left and f/2.8 on the right
In some of our real-world shots, we did see some CA, especially against bright light sources on contrasting edges.
CA in a real-world image (click to enlarge)
Flare
Testing the flare of the lens wide open we see a lot of green, purple, and yellow colors even with the hood.
We wanted to see how this compares to the Zeiss and it seems fairly similar. We would be very careful with both lenses pointing directly at bright light sources.
Vignette
Looking at corner darkening, wide open with the camera corrections turned off you can see fairly minimal vignetting that is reduced even further by f/2.8.
Meike 55mm f1.8 Pro vignette test – top left (f/1.8), top right (f/2.8), bottom left (f/4), bottom right (f/5.6) [the line in the lower part of the images is from our moving wall]
Compared to the Zeiss which has very heavy vignetting wide open, the Meike is the clear winner of this test.
Zeiss 55mm f1.8 vignette test – top left (f/1.8), top right (f/2.8), bottom left (f/4), bottom right (f/5.6) [the line in the lower part of the images is from our moving wall]
Barrel distortion
The Meike seems to have a tiny bit of uneven curvature with the corrections turned off with the Zeiss showing more straight lines although both seem to have some distortion in the top left corner.
You can also see that the Zeiss is a tiny bit tighter in terms of its focal length and also a little darker overall with the same settings (especially in the corners as we have seen before).
Barrel test – Meike on the left and Zeiss on the right
Bokeh
The bokeh is not the strong point of the lens. The Bokeh balls are not round even fairly close to the center wide open and even at f/2.8 they are not round enough and small.
Meike 55mm f1.8 bokeh test – top left (f/1.8), top right (f/2.8), bottom left (f/4), bottom right (f/5.6) [the line in the lower part of the images is from our moving wall]
While this is not ideal, looking at the Zeiss performance in this test it seems very similar with the addition of onion rings inside some of the bokeh balls.
Bokeh test Meike (top) vs. Zeiss (bottom) – f/1.8 on the left, f/2.8 on the right
Image/video samples
We shot some images and videos on the A1 and our colleague Lew shot some more with his A7 IV, here are some examples (more can be seen in the video above including a couple of video samples).
Conclusion
We were pleasantly surprised by the Meike 55mm f1.8 Pro. The lens performed almost identically, and in some respects better compared to a much higher priced lens in the category (although of a much older design) with good sharpness, no breathing, little CA, and good general build quality.
The lens is not perfect of course, our unit’s mount was a little too tight on the camera, flaring can be a problem against bright light and bokeh balls are also very small and wide open although this was true for our Zeiss 55mm f/1.8 as well.
All in all, for the money this lens is a steal if you are looking for an inexpensive, lightweight, and fairly well-rounded “normal” focal length lens.
The Meike 55mm f1.8 Pro with Knurling on the aperture ring
Pricing
Talking about pricing, the lens is extremely affordable at only $280 on Amazon (pricing fluctuates so keep your eye on the price).
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Iddo Genuth 
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