Meike 28mm f2.8 Review

The Meike 28mm f2.8 is a pancake prime lens for APSC and MFT mirrorless cameras, it has a full frame equivalent focal length of around 40mm on APSC and 56mm on MFT. The copy used in this review is the Fujifilm X mount version on an X-T2.

This “review” is not scientific or wholly comprehensive, it is a collection of my thoughts and findings from using the lens with some sample images thrown in.

The size of this lens is what first attracted me to it, it is a “pancake” formfactor lens that is smilar in size and weight to Fujifilm’s own 28mm f2.8. When paired with the X-T2 it creates a setup that is as discreet and unobtrusive as is possible, making for a great walkaround carry anywhere lens.

Build quality wise, the the body is all metal, it is finely machined with tight tolerances and overall feels well designed and made.

The controls can be quite fiddly to use, in part this is due to the size constraints of the body. The aperture control ring is very thin and close to the camera body, it also clickless and offers little resistance. This makes it more of a challenge to use intentionally but very easy to knock when focusing.
The focus ring is smooth and has a reasonably long throw making it as easy as can be asked to focus and on this sample atleast the focus scale markings while not perfect are still close enough to use for hyperfocal focusing at smaller apertures like f8.

Image quality is a very mixed bag, from wide open at f2.8 the lens is very sharp across the whole frame with only the extreme corners suffering from softness and some distortion. However while the lens is more than sharp enough to use at f2.8 it suffers from bordering on unusable vignetting, at f2.8 there is around 2.5-3 stops of light fall off and even at f5.6 there is upto 1.5 stops. This is enough that it affected my cameras metering and required an increase in the exposure compensation of +1 to correctly expose for the centre frame. The falloff is correctable in post albeit with noise issues from the boosted shadows but it is not a lens that i would be comfortable using with jpegs straight out of the camera.

This shot indoors shows the falloff at f2.8 uncorrected vs +2.5 stops of correction

These shots show the falloff at f5.6 vs +1.5 stops of correction

Overall for the asking price if you are willing to deal with its quirks and post process then it is a reasonable lens, however I would personally recomend just buying a used Fujifilm 28mm f2.8 mk1 for a bit more money.