Hengyijia 25mm F1.8 (Black) HD.MC Manual Lens for SONY E-mount NEX ILCE Camera

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when shooting in low light, viewfinder is usually quite noisy and it’s difficult to see what is in focus and what isn’t. The main problem here is that focus peaking highlight looks quite similar to the noise in the viewfinder. To mitigate this, you can set the highlight to red color. Also in low light you typically use wide aperture which makes it even more difficult. Get it...You just need more experience reading the peaking function. Maybe this video ( https://youtu.be/aMShIo-fHcs ) will help you. focusing ring and aperture ring too close together, easy to move aperture ring unintentionally while focusing, the problem is negated with a sugru focusing tab

My only question is: does anyone know who actually makes Pergear lenses? I've done a bit of research and come up with almost nothing, except for an interesting tidbit: apparently, both Pergear lenses and Brightin Star lenses are, for all intents and purposes, identical. Maybe I am a hard reviewer. Just being honest. I didn't just judge wide open. I posted just as many shots stopped down. And I just follow-up with with a stop down comparison all the way to F16. One of the main issue I have is the corners don't get much better until F8, which makes F2-F7 not very useful. Colors seem pretty good - nice contrast. You can compare to my FE28F2.8 and 18-105 in a follow-up post. Seems to do well with CA - probably better than the 18-105 zoom. There is some barrel distortion. Also it does flare if you shoot at an angle to the sun. in extremely sunny weather it seems to be sometimes difficult to see what’s in focus and what’s not. I had this problem particularly on snow — snow produced a lot of highlights in the viewfinder which is again similar to focus peaking highlights. I mis-focused several images because of this. Split image manual focus assist might be better in this use case.

I really prefer it not be as crisp as a software corrected AF lens. My primary use is going to result in images where sharpness is not critical because of the image effects involved. Still, having it easily fit into my bag, and knowing it's there for a "regular shoot" such as a concert or other event is a nice option. Can anyone compare the sharpeness to an old FD 50mm f1.8? I'm looking for something lighter and wider. This lens seems like the perfect option. After reading the positive posts about the little Pergear 25mm from Sr.Cordeiro and jbroon37, I'm more than a little impressed. Some years ago I got the M43 version of this lens and was totally surprised by how good it was. It's certainly easier for me to find focus using peaking on my E-M1 as I did in the last group of images I posted, somewhat more difficult using my E-M5 since it doesn't have focus peaking (except a version of it as a workaround if one messes with the art filters which I've tried and it doesn't seem to be very helpful to me). I did try magnification when I used it with my GF1 for several shots a few days ago but the implementation of that particular focus assist on that camera was very unwieldy for me. Today I thought I'd take it for a walk in one of our town's pleasant parks just to try it out. I'll post some images from that lens made a few hours ago. None of my pictures are earth shatteringly precious or even very interesting. In addition I had trouble finding focus using the outer focus ring on the lens - probably because my 74 year old eyesight isn't really top notch anymore nor am I used to, as I once was, manual focusing. However, IMHO, I find the lens quite acceptable and a little gem for the price.

So for me - unless the 8cm gain in Dof with a headshot is a dealbreaker - my advice is get out your old film camera kit and have a go with the old technology before you pay up for a new lens ------- unless the vignetting, field edge distortion and "toy camera" look is what you want - but then, just add an online filter in post-processing and have a much more controlled version of the same. I received my lens on the 21st of this month when I watched the solar eclipse from my front walkway :-). I guess my problem is more that I can't distinguish when the colored outlines in focus peaking are most "in focus". The outer focusing ring does leave a little to be desired on this diminutive lens - but a bit more practice on my part might help with that. For value yes it is 5 stars. But I don't weigh it maybe as strongly as others. For the price, it's hard to get something better.I am buying a lens for my sister's birthday.The price is almost the same. But I am hesitating which one to buy. Any advice? She has a Fuji X camera. Center sharpness is very good even wide open and hard to discern between the 7artisans vs. my Sony FE28mm F2.0. However corners are a complete different story. They are very soft wide open with vignetting and progressively get better to F8 - where it's pretty much gone. I don't think there's much use for this lens between F2-F6. Either shoot wide open with creamy bokeh or stop it down for landscapes. Not really anything in between. This section is actually quite lens-agnostic, but I’ll mention it anyway since it’s essentially my first “normal” manual lens. DoF - well if this really is your critical need - then just get a legacy 50mm F1.8 lens (becomes a 100mm equivalent on an MFT camera) and at 2 meters focus distance the DoF will be only 8cm while the kit zoom at 42mm will have a DoF of 37cm at F5.6 and 2 metres focus point.

I read a review of the Pergear that made me think it was worth trying - but I ended up just getting the Fuji 23/2 instead, and a Meike 28/2.8 for when I want something smaller and MF. I love the Meike 28/2.8 it's one of the most underrated cheap MF lenses for Fuji and Sony right now.I like the short focus throw of the lens, it's less than 1/3 turn from infinity down to 0.6 feet. Not too short of a throw, but much better than many of my legacy macro lenses where you have to turn the ring almost 3/4 for full range. I also like the textured machining on either side of the focus ring, very nice to operate with one finger. Distortion measures +0.10% pincushion, which is so close to being rectilinear as makes no difference. Even at the edges, straight lines will remain as straight lines, making it an excellent choice for architectural shots. Aperture ring on Hengyijia is a little bit worse — from f/2 to f/8 it’s a little looser and from f/1.8 to f/2 and f/8 to f/16 it’s tighter and you need a bit more force. It also feels like there is some dust particles in the mechanism which makes the change not totally smooth as in the Discover copy. But these “defects” don’t present any real problem in use. Apochromatic lenses have special lens elements (aspheric, extra-low dispersion etc) to minimize the problem, hence they usually cost more. Focusing ring has a distance scale to aid in zone focusing. But focusing is probably misaligned in some way and the distance scale is off — infinity is around 6 meters mark on the distance scale. Anything after that focuses “after infinity” — i.e. nothing is in focus.

I've got the Pergear 25mm 1.8 and I've been very satisfied with the image quality using it on my X-Pro3. I was actually surprised at how sharp it was compared to some of the other manual lenses I've tried (e.g. Pergear 50mm 1.8, Meike 35mm 1.7) even at 1.8. Unfortunately I can't compare to the 7artisans though since I don't own that one.

I'm not going to do any sort of lab style testing, since that isn't relevant to the purposes for which I bought this lens.