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John, thank you for your reply.

I agree with you, no doubt, I like your second and third paragraph. To the first paragraph I will respond at the end*.

I really do wish that it were as you said, but optics can’t be fooled. Fortunately. Unfortunately we, people can be too easily.

Why did I respond to your review?
After reading the review thoroughly few days ago, I wondered for a few seconds, if I “knew” DOF in conjunction with the aperture well enough. If I were decades younger, I would – after reading the review and testing DOF with f/5.6 on my new 28mm – probably ask myself, what was wrong with my lens or what was wrong with me. Why? Pointless.

I understand hyperfocal distance from analogue times, I think.
1) Wider the lens, greater the depth of field – easier it is to use this method. With 35mm and 28mm it is not so easy, it gradually goes easier with 24, 21, 18mm and so on.
2) Smaller aperture (with any lens), greater DOF it is.
3) Further I focus (any lens), the greater DOF.

Just one more example (street photography); If I focus on 3m with 28mm lens on MFT sensor, DOF would be from 2,30 to 4,30m. Quite shallow. Usable, but not convenient. If I do the same thing with 21mm lens, I get DOF from 2 to 6,6m. Better. Btw, you forgot to say, where to prefocus in “30cm to infinity”. In any case, DOF “30cm to infinity” is faaaaaaaar away from 2m – and here we can’t choose our opinion as we wish, just because we think we have the right.

As I see with this lens (and every other 28mm on MFT) at f/5.6 you get 2m (in depth) of relatively sharp picture. You can tolerate unsharpness beyond that for whatever reason. But focusing in advance (zone focusing) with 28mm lens still needs understanding and attention. Much more so on MFT. True? Not?

For this discussion, I tested this lens few times and I agree with all (my) words and numbers. There are even your valuable review examples which clear out our discussion, your photos at different f stops under “MEIKE 28mm f/2.8 Aperture range”.

(And meanwhile I learnt something new; If I focus on 3m distant object, scale on this lens shows 2m. If I do the same with “legacy” Zuiko OM 28mm f/2.8 with adapter, it shows 3m.)

*At the end; sorry, really sorry again. In first paragraph of your response you wrote: “How much DOF is acceptable depends on many things, but particularly on our definition of how critical sharpness has to be. With a small format we do have an advantage.”

Do we?

If we agree that (in this case) greater DOF is advantage: this is true only – because of shorter focal length lenses. Smaller sensor has greater depth of field with the lens with the same field of view (FOV) – but this is lens with different, smaller focal length (for the same FOV). Smaller focal length of the lens is the only reason for this advantage. But – with the same focal length here and there, 28mm for example, the smaller sensor has serious disadvantage of seriously smaller DOF than bigger one. Do you believe that? (= rhetorical question). And here we are.

Let’s go out.
Boodo

Disclaimer: my discussion was about 28mm lenses in general. I didn't write any opinion about this particular lens, except few mentioning of printed scale data on this lens. Meike 28mm: price / design, construction, optics, size = *****.

Made by Boodo on 13 Feb 2020 12:59PM, join in and reply to this comment!  Reply

Whilst it's true that a lens only actually is ever focused on one distance, the DOF either side can be very acceptable. How much DOF is acceptable depends on many things, but particularly on our definition of how critical sharpness has to be. With a small format we do have an advantage.

With this lens, I would think in terms of street photography where the difficulty in focusing would make it all but impossible to focus for every shot. Then setting a moderate aperture and the optimum focus distance for the expected subject, using it as a snapshot setting could well be viable.

Some 35mm-format film lenses used to have a distance and f/8 marked in red just for this purpose, but for MFT format I would probably set f/5.6 as mentioned. At the price though what's to quibble about, and I'm glad that you like your lens!

Made by johnriley1uk on 12 Feb 2020 4:27PM, join in and reply to this comment!  Reply

Dear John,
I’m sorry, but your conclusion is seriously wrong. So seriously that I felt the need to create an account to say that. Your statement in Verdict is general and as such it seems important, it is more than just opinion about some lens. Hyperfocal distance is very good way, let me say clever way, to use our cameras and (wide angle) lenses.

But where did you get this:
“However, there is an excellent depth of field scale so setting the hyperfocal distance and then just snapping away is a viable option. At f/5.6 everything is in focus from 30cm to infinity and for a more critical sharpness, the lens could just be set to f/8 to make sure.”

30cm to infinity? “… more critical sharpness …”? Did you check this out?

Let me say, you wish! And yes, I wish.
I’m not an expert, but I immediately saw that this statement is seriously misleading. (It may be OK for my phone.)

It’s just a 28mm-wide-angle-lens, from experience this could not be true. Btw, even depth of field (DOF) scale on this lens is not excellent at all for APS-C (Fujifilm) sensor. I guess it is similarly off for MFT too. If I set hyperfocal distance for 5.6, I couldn’t come near hyperfocal distance with f/5.6 aperture. At f/16 I come barely close to the scale data for f/5.6 (meaning barely sharp “infinity” in photo).

Here are same “sad” but I believe true DOF calculator data for 28mm lens on MFT cameras:
1) at f/5.6 hyperfocal distance is at 9.65m. DOF (more or/and less) is from 5m to infinity.
2) at f/16 hyperfocal distance is at 3.38m. DOF is from 2.5m to infinity.

So valid conclusion for me is that I can use hyperfocal distance with this (& every other 28mm on MFT) lens at f16 or smaller – if I’m interested only in objects 2.5m and more away. Of course, I can use f/8 or even f/5.6 for as much DOF as possible, but this is not hyperfocal distance (which includes “infinity”, not by chance).

Unfortunately for DOF from “30cm to infinity” (for 28mm on MFT or APS) f/32 or f/64 may be sufficient. I'm not talking about the numbers, but the usability and understanding.

Boodo

PS: Well, I forgot to say that I like this lens, no problems here.

Made by Boodo on 12 Feb 2020 12:43PM, join in and reply to this comment!  Reply

In an ideal world there would be a universal camera body to test all lenses on, but sadly it depends upon availability of a suitable body and also when a lens is released. New, higher pixel counts are used now, but it would be impractical to re-test lenses reviewed on other lower pixel cameras. So, they are equated as far as possible by describing results as "excellent", "very good" or whatever, but it's not perfect for sure.

Made by johnriley1uk on 30 Jan 2020 6:01PM, join in and reply to this comment!  Reply

Quote:Thanks for this review. I've got the 17-28/2.8 Tamron and the comparison of performance with this lens at 20mm shows a significant difference in sharpness and maybe, just maybe, justifying its addition.


The Tamron 20mm 2.8 was tested on the A7R III with 42 MP and the Tamron 17-28mm 2.8 on the A7 III with only 24 MP. Therefore the results are not comparable. With more MP the results can be much higher, but maybe with worse corner sharpness.

To the reviewers: Why do you review lenses on different cameras and making the results incomparable?

Made by FujiJoe on 30 Jan 2020 5:15PM, join in and reply to this comment!  Reply

First you right "There is color fringing at the edges..." and looking at the samples I can indeed see very strong CA. But than you conclude "Well-controlled CA" ???

Made by FujiJoe on 30 Jan 2020 5:04PM, join in and reply to this comment!  Reply

Quote:Surprises that nowadays a big producer makes a lens with extremely soft corners.


Suddenly it's extremely soft? Not true. If you're a perfectionist, use primes or the 16-55 and 50-140mm. This is a mid-range do-it-all lens and it is superb at that.

Made by themak on 27 Jan 2020 8:55AM, join in and reply to this comment!  Reply

A general query on your testing methodology.

In your testing notes you say green column numbers are at taken at "the edges".

By "edges" do you mean to the long edge of the frame which (on 24x36 format) is 12mm out from the centre, or to the short edge which is 18mm out from the centre?

My aim is to "approximately guesstimate" corner numbers - which I appreciate Imatest does not provide.

It seems reasonable to expect a greater divergence between corner and a measure 12 mm out than between corner and 18mm out.

Made by LenShepherd on 26 Jan 2020 3:57PM, join in and reply to this comment!  Reply

MTF charts for this lens?

Made by acase on 24 Jan 2020 8:14PM, join in and reply to this comment!  Reply

Any MTF charts for this lens yet?

Made by acase on 24 Jan 2020 8:11PM, join in and reply to this comment!  Reply