A good macro lens opens up a whole new world of photographic possibilities, but it also represents a very niche area of photography. Some people are born macro photographers; it’s their favorite type of photography. Others don’t mind dabbling in it, but aren’t so invested that they are interested in spending a thousand dollars on a lens that they will mostly use for one specific kind of photography. That’s what makes lenses like the Pergear 100mm F2.8 2x Macro interesting. They promise the ability to create those amazing macro images while not breaking the bank to do so. The Pergear 100M costs about $270, making it far more tempting to add to the casual macro photographer’s kit. But does cheap in price also mean cheap in quality? That’s what we are here to explore, which you can do in either my video review, linked below, reading the text review, or by just by enjoying the photos in the gallery below to get the “flavor” of the lens.
Thanks to Pergear for sending me a review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. All opinions and conclusions are my own.*The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the 45MP Nikon Z8, which I reviewed here.
I like reviewing macro lenses in the winter, as macro photography is one of the easiest kinds of photography to do indoors. You can take ordinary household items and create extraordinary images by getting in close.
Several years ago I reviewed the Laowa APO 100mm F2.8 2X Macro, and in many ways the Pergear 100M seems like it was inspired by the lens. They both have a long slender profile (Laowa on left, Pergear on right), a similar focal length, and even a similar functional design where the focusing groups move obviously forward and backwards inside but without the external length changing.
The Laowa is more expensive but also much better optically, as we will see, but there’s a lot of physical similarities.
I like to utilize macro lenses for doing my product photography, as often there will be fine details that I want to capture than ordinary lenses won’t magnify enough. I’ve used the Pergear 100M for a number of the product photography sessions for lens reviews.
There’s some debate about which focal length is best for a macro lens, but suffice it to say that the 90-105mm range is probably the most popular, landing the Pergear 100M right in the sweet spot for macro photography.
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
A good macro lens opens up a whole new world of photographic possibilities, but it also represents a very niche area of photography. Some people are born macro photographers; it’s their favorite type of photography. Others don’t mind dabbling in it, but aren’t so invested that they are interested in spending a thousand dollars on a lens that they will mostly use for one specific kind of photography. That’s what makes lenses like the Pergear 100mm F2.8 2x Macro interesting. They promise the ability to create those amazing macro images while not breaking the bank to do so. The Pergear 100M costs about $270, making it far more tempting to add to the casual macro photographer’s kit. But does cheap in price also mean cheap in quality? That’s what we are here to explore (which you can do in either my video review, linked below, or by reading on in this text review.)
Thanks to Pergear for sending me a review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. All opinions and conclusions are my own.*The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the 45MP Nikon Z8, which I reviewed here.
I like reviewing macro lenses in the winter, as macro photography is one of the easiest kinds of photography to do indoors. You can take ordinary household items and create extraordinary images by getting in close.
Several years ago I reviewed the Laowa APO 100mm F2.8 2X Macro, and in many ways the Pergear 100M seems like it was inspired by the lens. They both have a long slender profile (Laowa on left, Pergear on right), a similar focal length, and even a similar functional design where the focusing groups move obviously forward and backwards inside but without the external length changing.
The Laowa is more expensive but also much better optically, as we will see, but there’s a lot of physical similarities.
I like to utilize macro lenses for doing my product photography, as often there will be fine details that I want to capture than ordinary lenses won’t magnify enough. I’ve used the Pergear 100M for a number of the product photography sessions for lens reviews.
There’s some debate about which focal length is best for a macro lens, but suffice it to say that the 90-105mm range is probably the most popular, landing the Pergear 100M right in the sweet spot for macro photography. Let’s dive deeper.
Build and Handling
The Pergear 100M is a manual only lens. There is no autofocus, no electronic contacts, and both focus and aperture will need to be manually controlled. The upside for a macro lens is that many macro photographers prefer manual focus for macro anyway, and it also means that it is pretty simple for Pergear to offer the lens in a variety of lens mounts. I’m reviewing on Nikon Z mount, but it is also available for Sony E, Canon RF, Leica L, Canon EF(don’t often see that anymore!), and Fuji X (an APS-C only system, so the lens will have an effective focal length of 150mm there). The lens can also be used on the APS-C/DX versions of these mounts, where the effective focal length will be magnified by the crop factor of that camera.
As noted, this is a very long and slender lens. It is just 71mm (2.79″) in diameter, but a whopping 157.8mm (6.2″) in length. It weighs in at a fairly hefty 814g (28.7oz) on my scale.
The front filter threads are a common 67mm.
One design element I do prefer about the Pergear over the Laowa is that the Laowa experimented with having an included filter become the front element. I didn’t like this design, and they went away from it with the subject 90mm APO F2.8 2x Macro that came out the next year. The Pergear uses a traditional glass element there instead, and the focusing group of elements moves back and forth behind that front element. When at macro distances the focusing elements come right up to that front element, as seen here:
When you focus to infinity, that focusing group will retract quite deeply into the lens barrel, as you can see here.
There is no lens hood included, and while adding one would obviously expand the length of the lens, the lens is a bit flare prone, and a hood could prove useful.
The build quality actually feels quite nice. It’s a hefty lens, but that’s in large part because everything is made of metal and glass, with a nice anodized satin finish to the barrel and with markings nicely etched into it.
This is a fully manual lens, so no electronics. Both focus and aperture control will be manual via the rings. The aperture ring comes first, and while it is marked at the traditional full stops, the mechanism is clickless, allowing you to move smoothly through the whole aperture range. This can be useful for focus racks during video capture, though I find the weight of both rings definitely on the heavy side, which would make racking a little more difficult.
Between the aperture and focus rings are hyperfocal scales.
The aperture iris itself has a high blade count of 13 blades, which allows it to remain circular even when the lens is stopped down.
The manual focus ring is nicely wide and ribbed in metal, but I have a few complaints here. First of all is the weight of the focus action, which is unnecessarily heavy. I had a similar observation about the first Zeiss 100mm Makro-Planar that I reviewed, but unlike that lens, this is an internally focusing lens and so that extra weight just feels unnecessary.
My second complaint is about the focus throw, or available rotation. There is about 130° of focus travel, which isn’t bad, but only about 15° of rotation is available to cover the whole distance from 1 meter (3 feet) to infinity. This makes focus in that range extremely difficult, as even the slightest movement causes focus to be completely off. It’s unfortunate, as you really need that precision when using a manual focus lens.
There are no switches or dials on the barrel of the lens; the only features are the two rings.
Minimum focus distance is 30cm, and you can achieve an extremely high 2:1 (2.0x) magnification at that distance. You’ll have about 12cm of distance between the front of the lens and the subject at that level of magnification.
I wish the manual focus ring were a little better executed, but overall this feels like a nicely made lens for the money.
Manual Focus on Nikon
Manual focus is an overall positive experience on my Nikon Z8. Here’s a few reasons why:
Clear, useful EVF. On paper, the EVF of the Z8 is nothing special, but, in practice, it works very well. I’ve got much higher resolution viewfinders on Sony cameras, but Sony viewfinders do some weird things when the shutter is half depressed. And I typically want the shutter half depressed when manually focusing, as this helps stabilize the viewfinder while I focus. Nikon’s viewfinder is clear and makes it easy to see focus moving as I turn the manual focus ring.
Effective IBIS (VR). I’ve been impressed with the real world stability of Nikon’s in camera VR. It works effectively and allows for both a stable viewfinder experience as a I focus and also stable results when I take the shot. To my knowledge, no manual focus lens to this point has included lens-based image stabilization, so having effective in-camera stabilization is very important.
Useful manual focus aids. There are three primary manual focus aids that I’ve utilized when manually focusing, including the onscreen focus confirmation box (put it where you want focus to be, and it will turn green when proper focus has been achieved), magnification of the image to visually confirm focus, and focus overlays (peaking). With some lenses Nikon includes a directional arrow that points you the direction you need to turn the focus ring to focus in the right direction, but that isn’t always the case. I’ve found that the focus box is quite accurate, though, and it makes manual focus fairly easy.
The Pergear 100M is a purely manual lens, with no electronics, and that subtly changes the calculus, however. On the positive side, Nikon is unique among the brands I test in allowing one to manually create some proper metadata for a lens. You can manually input the lens name, focal length, and maximum aperture. This not only helps with VR (the camera knows the proper focal length), but also helps images to be sorted properly in your editing software because that name transfers in the EXIF data. Note the information given to my image in Lightroom:
The good news there is that I can search for images with that name designation rather than them all falling under the “unknown” category. I can even sort them by the proper focal length. What won’t always be properly reported, however, is the aperture. It will always be F2.8, which means that sometimes that will be right and in other cases very wrong.
On the negative side of the equation, the lack of electronic means that A) you will get no automatic magnification of the focus area when you start to manually focus and B) Nikon’s innovative focus guide won’t work. I don’t love Nikon’s manual zoom function, so I don’t love the manual focus process quite as much here. That isn’t helped by a not having enough rotation for easy focus beyond the macro range.
Image Quality Breakdown
The Pergear 100mm F2.8 2x Macro has an optical design of 14 elements in 9 groups, though I was unable to source whether or not any of those elements are of the exotic variety. The MTF chart shows a performance that varies somewhat according to the focus distance. Peak performance seems to come at the 2:1 level.
It is possible to get great looking macro shots with the Pergear 100M, but there are a few negative factors that can influence those results. The most obvious of those is flare related issues. The contrast of the Pergear 100M is easily impacted by backlighting. In the comparison below, I show a scene that is light from both sides, but in the first example there is no backlighting source, while in the second shot I add a backlight. You can see just how much the contrast is reduced in the second example.
And it isn’t just backlighting. It’s pretty easy for glowing effects or light leaks to end up in your images even if the light source isn’t actually in frame. You can see from these product shots of the Sirui Aurora 85mm that various light leaks can be pretty common.
Now perhaps you say, “I like that look!”, and that’s a valid perspective. But it is definitely true that you’ll have to be very careful and intentional about how you use light, because this lens is very flare prone.
I was also testing the Laowa Tilt/Shift 55mm F2.8 Macro at the same time, and I did a comparison shot between the two with a Christmas decoration that was flooded with directional light from a window behind it. You can see that the Pergear image is flooded with veiling and prismatic haze, while the Laowa and its superior coatings is essentially unaffected by the light.
Bottom line is that you have to learn to use the Pergear 100M to its strengths, and, if you do so wisely, you can use those light leaks to devastating effect.
We’ll start our detailed examination with a look at vignette and distortion.
There’s no major concerns here. There is a small amount of pincushion distortion (I used a -3 to correct) and a moderate amount of vignette (+44 to correct).
The Pergear 100M is not entirely immune to color fringing, though it isn’t bad. You can see a bit of blue-green fringing after the plane of focus here.
It did fairly well with text, too.
That’s important, as a lot of macro work includes shooting shiny, well lit surfaces that are likely to produce color fringing. Less color fringing means more versatility in what you can capture and in what conditions.
The lens is not free from lateral chromatic aberrations (this tends to be a weakness of cheaper optical glass), but it’s fairly well contained.
So, not a flawless performance, but not bad for an inexpensive full frame macro lens, either.
So far, so good. What about sharpness? These tests are done on the 45MP Nikon Z8 body, and crops and comparisons will be shown at 200%. Here’s the test chart:
And here are F2.8 crops from across the frame, including the center, mid-frame, and lower right corner.
Macro lenses tend to be very sharp, typically, but as we saw from the MTF charts, essentially the closer you get to your subject, the better the lens performs. At the test chart chart distance, the results are pretty ho-hum, with unexceptional contrast or rendering of fine details.
That’s true for real world results, too, which are reasonably sharp but lack the high contrast, high detail “bite” that I expect from macro lenses.
Stopping down to F4 does improve contrast somewhat, but it doesn’t radically improve sharpness.
A look at the more distant MTF diagram earlier showed that the lens is actually sharper in the mid-frame zone than it is in the center at distance, and that proved true in my tests. I found center and corner results at F5.6 (usually the aperture value that produces peak sharpness consistency across the frame) to be only okay, but the mid-frame result at F5.6 is quite sharp.
If I shift over to the upper left corner, where I have the identical bill, the results aren’t nearly as good.
If you buy this lens, you might want to remember that compose accordingly.
F8 and F11 remain fine, but you’ll see a pretty obvious amount of softening after that due to diffraction. Minimum aperture is F22. I found that the camera didn’t quite meter correctly when the aperture was set to F22, with a mild underexposure. I’ve found this to be pretty common with lenses that lack electronics.
The most important aspect of image sharpness for a macro lens is in the macro area, and the MTF suggest that performance is most consistently good at very close focus distances. It’s pretty common to select smaller apertures at macro distances because otherwise depth of field is so tiny that it’s almost unusable.
I’m somewhat spoiled by owning some very good macro lenses, so I’m not necessarily blown away by sharpness and contrast in macro images from the Pergear 100M, but they are good enough to be useful. This shot (I think at F5.6) of the gears on an adjustable wrench have enough detail to look interesting.
This shot at F2.8 shows enough detail and contrast to work when viewed large, but the fine details aren’t exquisitely well resolved when viewed at a pixel level.
I do think there is enough sharpness to satisfy those whose budgets will only cover a lens like this. Obviously you can get superior results with a superior lens (the Laowa 100mm F2.8 2X Macro is optically superior, for example), but you’ll almost always pay dearly for that superior lens.
There’s plenty of performance here to shoot the classics like the ring in the pages of a Bible, for example.
Or how about the strings on a guitar?
Bokeh is reasonably good from the Pergear 100M. You can see from the macro images above that it is very easy to produce a shallow depth of field when shooting at macro distances, which means a LOT of bokeh. I also felt like bokeh was pretty good in other circumstances, too, like the specular highlights in this shot of a classic SLR.
There’s a bit more edges than what I would like in the bokeh of this shot of dried grasses, but it doesn’t look bad.
At close (but not macro) distances, it isn’t hard to completely blur out a background.
Because of the focus challenges outside of the macro range, I didn’t love the Pergear 100M for non-macro images. I also didn’t feel like the optical performance was as good there, though you can still create some interesting images with a little patience.
The best use of the Pergear 100mm F2.8 2X Macro is doing macro with it. Put it on a tripod and have fun making creative images. It’s a great way to cope with a cold, snowy day like the one I’m experiencing while creating this review.
If you want to see more images, check out the image gallery here.
Conclusion
The Pergear 100mm F2.8 2x Macro is a bit of a mixed bag. On the build side of things, it feels fairly well made, and that’s particularly true when you consider the lost cost of the lens. It’s also fairly heavy, however, and the mechanics of the focus ring aren’t perfectly executed.
The short focus throw outside of the macro range makes this a less appealing lens to use for general purpose photography, and I liked it best as a macro lens.
The flare tendencies of the lens can be harnessed to creative use, and while the Pergear 100M is far from the sharpest macro lens that I’ve used, it’s not fatally flawed either. The fact that it has twice the level of magnification as many other macro lenses that can just go to 1:1 means that there are even more possibilities of images you can make. I was able to create a lot of images that I enjoyed with it, and it that is true for someone like myself who has used and reviewed many hundreds of lenses (and dozens of macro lenses), then I suspect you’ll be able to thoroughly enjoy your macro experience with the Pergear 100mm F2.8 2x Macro, which qualifies as one of the best full frame macro bargains out there.
Pros:
Good level of build quality
Very inexpensive
Low distortion
Low vignette
Minimal fringing
Reasonably sharp at F2.8
2x magnification
Strongest performance is at macro distances
Bokeh quality pretty good
Some will find flare artifacts and light leaks artistic
Very decent full frame macro lens for a budget price
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Pergear released a 14mm F2.8 wide angle prime for full frame cameras a few years ago, and while it was nicely sharp, there were some areas that could be improved. But Pergear is back with a second attempt that has improved on a number of those shortcomings. The new Pergear 14mm F2.8 II features:
More compact size
Reduced flare (though this remains a vulnerability)
A reduced minimum focus distance (from 43cm to 21cm for the new version)
An improved design for the attachable filter holder
I didn’t test the first lens, but while there are a few areas where this ultra wide angle prime shows its budget origins (it costs $299 USD), but it also has some serious strengths, including incredibly sharpness even on my high resolution Sony a7RV (61MP).
It also has very low distortion for such a wide angle lens, making this a valid budget option for capturing interior spaces and retaining clean lines.
While colors are not also as accurate as more expensive lens with better optical glass, there was a certain charm to the color rendition in many images, leading to rich looking images.
If you’ve never shot with an ultra wide angle lens (the Pergear 14mm F2.8 II has an impressively wide 114° angle of view), you’ll discover that while the focal length does provide some composition challenges (you often need to get much closer to subjects than you might expect!), such a wide angle lens provides wonderfully dynamic images.
The Pergear 14mm F2.8 II is a manual everything lens, so won’t be for everyone, but a lens like this is easy to focus and shoot with…with a few caveats. Should you consider the 14II for an extreme wide angle alternative for your full frame mirroless camera (it comes in Sony E-mount [tested here], Canon RF, Nikon Z, and Leica L)? You can judge for yourself by either watching my video review below, reading my text review, or just enjoy the photos below.
Thanks to Pergear for sending me a review sample of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the Sony a7RV along with the Sony Alpha 1 that serve as my benchmark cameras for Sony lenses.
Pergear 14mm F2.8 II Build and Handling
Pergear has reduced the size of the MK II version of the lens and given it a different profile. It is very compact now for a full frame lens at just 65mm in diameter and 80mm in length (2.56″ x 3.15″) and weighs in at 500g (17.6oz).
This is a manual everything lens, so both focus and aperture will be controlled via the corresponding rings on the lens barrel. The first ring is the manual focus ring which has a nice, definite damping with a surprisingly quality feel to the focus action. The focus throw is not long; about 110° from minimum to infinity.
There is a distance scale on the ring itself, while on the non-rotating part of the barrel there is hyperfocal markings for almost all the potential aperture values.
There is a narrow manual aperture ring beyond this with light but noticeable detents at half stop marks between F2.8 and F5.6. From F5.6 to F22 there are only single stop clicks for each aperture value.
The aperture action feels good, though I did note that the ring moves a little to the left of F2.8 and what feels like a full additional stop after F22, denoting a slight calibration issue.
Up front there is a very small fixed lens hood that helps protect the bulbous front element.
Typically this would preclude the use of traditional filters, but Pergear has a clever solution for that. There is a nicely made attachment that bayonets on the front of the lens that looks like an extended lens hood but is actually a filter holder with 82mm filter thread. The attachment is all in metal and nicely engineered with good tolerances. It bayonets in tightly and securely.
Just using the filter holder itself added no additional vignette, though vignette definitely intensified when using a stronger ND filter.
If I had one recommendation, it would be include an 82mm pinch cap in addition to the metal cap that fits over the fixed lens hood.
The lens feels complete with the filter holder in place, and I would be happy to keep the attachment on all the time and use a pinch cap to protect it. The included lens cap fits over the fixed lens hood.
The aperture iris has ten blades. You won’t be creating a lot of bokeh with this lens, so this is less about creating a circular aperture and more about creating a nice clean sunstar (even aperture blades produce the same number of blades on the sunstar, so we have a ten-bladed sunstar here).
The minimum focus distance is improved to 22cm, though the maximum magnification level is still very low (it looks like approximately 0.07x or so to me):
That doesn’t make for overly blurred out backgrounds, though I did still think that some close up images still had a certain charm to them.
There is no weather sealing on the lens, though it is internally focusing, so there should be relatively few ways that dust or moisture can intrude into the lens. The complete lack of electronics also means that there are fewer potential components to be impacted.
The Pergear 14mm F2.8 II has a surprisingly heavy weight for its compact size, but that’s largely due to having a very high degree of build of all metal and glass. It doesn’t feel like a budget lens in terms of the fit and finish, and isn’t bad to handle in the field at all.
Pergear 14mm F2.8 II Manual Focus Observations
Many people have a very negative perception of manual focus lenses as they don’t enjoy manual focus or feel like it will result in a lot of missed shots. The truth of the matter with a lens like this is that there is actually very little focusing involved. If you are shooting at 14mm and stop down to F4 then focus a distance of 2 meters in front of the camera, everything from less than a meter away from the camera to infinity will be in focus. The copy of the lens that I tested actually had a properly calibrated infinity focus, too, so I could just turn the focus ring to the hard stop at infinity and pretty much everything would be in focus all the time.
The only time I messed with focus is when I needed to focus on a close subject, and then using a focus aid like a colored focus overlay or magnifying the image in the viewfinder or on screen made nailing focus simple. I didn’t have one misfocused shot in my whole catalog of images taken with the lens, and, frankly, I didn’t spend much time focusing with it.
It may seem intimidating to use a manual focus lens, but that’s really not much of a difficulty here.
What I did find more of a challenge is metering in certain situations. There are no electronics in the lens, and I sometimes find that lenses without electronics and heavy vignette (which this lens has) makes for some challenges for metering. Some shots tend towards underexposure. I typically shoot in Aperture Priority (AV) mode, and most of the time the camera did a fairly good job metering, but not always. The worst sequence, in fact, was when I shot my test chart for various lens evaluations, and I actually ended up manually setting the exposure for the appropriate stops as I moved throughout the aperture options because I didn’t trust the camera’s metering results. I would say that this will provide more a challenge for less experienced photographers than manually focusing.
One final observation is that lenses without electronics will not transmit any EXIF data to the camera, so your photos will be missing some data like the lens designation, lens focal length, and the aperture value. The EXIF data will only record camera related information like the shutter speed and ISO value. There is some penalty to using a lens like this without electronics, but it’s not quite as severe as some people might think.
Pergear 14mm F2.8 II Image Quality
The Pergear 14mm F2.8 II has a few optical weaknesses, but it also has some very impressive attributes for such a wide angle lens – namely incredible sharpness and very low distortion for such a wide angle of view. My first 14mm lens was a very similar kind of lens – the Rokinon (Samyang) 14mm F2.8, which I reviewed back in 2013. In some ways this Pergear lens reminds me of that one, in that, despite some evidence of being a lower budget lens, the images you can produce are quite impressive. But the Pergear is a much stronger lens all around, with better build, much lower distortion, and excellent sharpness that (unlike the Samyang) reach all the way to the corners. This is an extremely sharp wide angle lens even on a 61MP sensor.
There are a few optical issues to highlight, but a lot of strengths here. There’s one of each to look at if we inspect our distortion and vignette chart:
We see a surprisingly strong performance for distortion. There is a negligible amount of barrel distortion that you could easily leave uncorrected (I did not bother with correcting it in my real world images). I used a +3 to correct the barrel distortion for the result on the right above. Vignette is much more heavy, requiring a +76 to correct at F2.8 (nearly three stops), though I will note that vignette does diminish as you stop the lens down. Note that any kind of heavier vignette like this will get magnified in long exposure shots when using filters. The comparison below shows the same shot without a filter (left) and with a six stop ND filter on the right:
This isn’t a mechanical vignette issue (caused by the filter itself), but rather the natural vignette being amplified because comparatively less light is reaching the edges of the frame.
Longitudinal chromatic aberrations (LoCA) typically show up as purple/magenta fringing before the plane of focus and blue/green fringing beyond the plane of focus due to colors not being perfectly focused together. They typically diminish as the lens is stopped down to smaller apertures. I didn’t see any real world LoCA, though that wasn’t unexpected in a lens with such a wide focal length and a low magnification figure. There just isn’t much room for narrow depth of field with a lens like this. A lens like this would be more likely to suffer with Lateral chromatic aberrations (LaCA) that show up as fringing on either side of contrast areas (like tree trunks, for example) along the edges of the frame. Unlike LoCA, they do not improve when stopping the aperture down, but are much easier to correct for (typically a one click “remove chromatic aberrations” box in editing software). We can see once again that there is no evidence of any fringing near the edges of the frame.
So far only the vignette shows in the negatives, and that’s a very common issue with wide angle lenses.
So how about sharpness? I’ve used the very high resolution (61MP) Sony a7RV for this series of tests, which obviously sets an exacting standard for sharpness and contrast. Here’s a look at the test chart:
And here are the 14mm F2.8 crops at about 180% magnification, taken from the center, then mid-frame, and then extreme lower right corner:
We see an extremely sharp center, good (though slightly softer) mid-frame, and corners not far behind the mid-frame. That’s very good for such a wide angle lens, particularly in the corners. The lens is probably helped by the low distortion there, as the corner sharpness doesn’t take a hit by being stretched.
At a more typical 100% magnification, this translates to excellent real world sharpness, allowing you to take great photos even at night:
Stopping down to F4 sharpens up the midframe and corners further. Here’s a look at the upper left corner with F2.8 on the left and F4 on the right.
There’s more sharpness on tap by F5.6, and the corners really sparkle by this point (F4 on the left, F5.6 on the right):
Landscape aperture shots look great, with lovely detail all throughout the frame.
F5.6 and F8 look great, but after that diffraction on my high resolution test camera will start to diminish contrast. F11 still looks pretty good, but the image is noticeably softening by F16 and very soft by F22.
I didn’t get a chance to shoot stars, but I did see a low instance of coma in the corners of the frame for nighttime images, so this actually would be a pretty decent budget astro lens.
While Pergear says that this lens is improved for flare resistance, I still find this to be perhaps the biggest single weakness for the lens. In certain positions there are large ghosting issues, like the left hand of this lens.
In some positions, the flare resistance was fine, like in this shot:
Pulling down that same composition to a different spot, and we see a flashing of light across the frame.
Colors were not fully accurate, in my opinion, with a slight green bias. In my tropical shots, I felt like it worked, and images actually looked really great.
I loved a lot of my early morning shots along the ocean, as I felt the optical glass complimented this type of shot.
In some other settings, however, I felt the greens were a little oversaturated and had a slightly cartoonish look.
In general, however, I’m very impressed with the image quality from this lens. I did feel like I needed to spend a bit more time with basic edits (no correction profiles, a delicate hand with colors, etc…), but I was able to get a lot of images that I really liked.
For the money, I would say that you would be hard pressed to get more bang for your buck in an extreme wide angle lens. If you would like to see more images, check out my image gallery here.
Conclusion
To be honest, I didn’t have high expectations for this lens. Pergear is still “young” as a lensmaker, and a wide angle, wide aperture prime for full frame is not an easy engineering challenge. It’s clear that the first generation lens had some strengths, but it also had a number of significant weaknesses. There isn’t a huge time gap between these two releases, but from what I can see I would say that Pergear was probably wise to accelerate the development of this second generation lens, as there are some clear signs of maturing design in this Pergear 14mm F2.8 II. You can definitely get some great images even from the most high resolution full frame camera available right now.
The Pergear makes for a great night lens as well, as you don’t really need to think about focusing (once focus is set), allowing you to quickly grab images in any kind of lighting condition.
For most people, a 14mm lens is never going to be their primary lens. It’s probably not even your second lens. It’s a more specialized lens for certain situations, so, as a byproduct, I think there is a definite market for the Pergear 14mm F2.8 II because its price is so low. A smaller investment of under $300 USD makes more sense than spending $1000+ on a lens you might use less frequently. But what makes a lens like this intriguing is that for a small investment you can get a lens that is capable of producing really dynamic, engaging images. If you’re looking for a relatively inexpensive lens that will give you the kinds of images that a kit lens cannot give, the Pergear 14mm F2.8 II is an intriguing option despite having a few shortcomings.
Keywords: Pergear 14mm F2.8 II, Pergear 14mm, Pergear, 14mm, F2.8, II, Wide Angle, Full Frame, Pergear 14mm F2.8 II Review, Sony, Review, Sony Alpha 1, Sony a7IV, Sony a7RV, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Travel, Mexico, Cancun, Photography, let the light in, #letthelightin, DA
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Pergear released a 14mm F2.8 wide angle prime for full frame cameras a few years ago, and while it was nicely sharp, there were some areas that could be improved. But Pergear is back with a second attempt that has improved on a number of those shortcomings. The new Pergear 14mm F2.8 II features:
More compact size
Reduced flare (though this remains a vulnerability)
A reduced minimum focus distance (from 43cm to 21cm for the new version)
An improved design for the attachable filter holder
I didn’t test the first lens, but while there are a few areas where this ultra wide angle prime shows its budget origins (it costs $299 USD), but it also has some serious strengths, including incredibly sharpness even on my high resolution Sony a7RV (61MP).
It also has very low distortion for such a wide angle lens, making this a valid budget option for capturing interior spaces and retaining clean lines.
While colors are not also as accurate as more expensive lens with better optical glass, there was a certain charm to the color rendition in many images, leading to rich looking images.
If you’ve never shot with an ultra wide angle lens (the Pergear 14mm F2.8 II has an impressively wide 114° angle of view), you’ll discover that while the focal length does provide some composition challenges (you often need to get much closer to subjects than you might expect!), such a wide angle lens provides wonderfully dynamic images.
The Pergear 14mm F2.8 II is a manual everything lens, so won’t be for everyone, but a lens like this is easy to focus and shoot with…with a few caveats. Should you consider the 14II for an extreme wide angle alternative for your full frame mirroless camera (it comes in Sony E-mount [tested here], Canon RF, Nikon Z, and Leica L)? You can judge for yourself by either watching my video review below or reading the text review…or just enjoy the photos below.
Thanks to Pergear for sending me a review sample of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the Sony a7RV along with the Sony Alpha 1 that serve as my benchmark cameras for Sony lenses.
Keywords: Pergear 14mm F2.8 II, Pergear 14mm, Pergear, 14mm, F2.8, II, Wide Angle, Full Frame, Pergear 14mm F2.8 II Review, Sony, Review, Sony Alpha 1, Sony a7IV, Sony a7RV, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Travel, Mexico, Cancun, Photography, let the light in, #letthelightin, DA
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Pergear has delivered another ultra-cheap lens to follow up on the Pergear 25mm F1.8, that I reviewed earlier this year. That lens roughly corresponded to a traditional 35mm focal length on full frame (37.5mm), while the new lens, the Pergear 35mm F1.6, has an 52.5mm equivalent focal length, making it a “normal” lens for either Sony or Fuji APS-C shooters and a short telephoto (70mm) for M43 shooters. It joins the 25mm F1.8 as two of the least expensive new lens I’ve ever covered…and two of the smallest. This gallery will share photos from the lens that I take during my review period along with my video review. Photos taken with and review done on a Sony a7RIII body in APS-C mode.
Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like. Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.
Great News! I can now offer a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52018DA in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!
Keywords: pergear 35mm, 35mm, pergear, F1.6, 1.6, Pergear 35mm F1.6, Pergear 35mm 1.6, Review, Dustin Abbott, Portrait, EOS M, EF-M, Fuji X, Sony E, a6500, a6400, X-T3 Sony a7RIII, Sharpness, Resolution, Bokeh, Video Test, Sample Images, Real World, Bargain, discount code
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
I’ve been interacting with Pergear for a couple of years now as a distributor of other brands, then a retailer of those brands, but now they have gotten their feet wet with actually producing a Pergear branded lens…and at a serious bargain! The Pergear 25mm F1.8 sells for only $68 USD, making it perhaps the least expensive new lens I’ve ever covered…and one of the smallest. But this isn’t a toy; the Pergear 25mm delivers quite good results and can make some beautiful pictures on your APS-C mirrorless camera. It’s available for Sony E, Fuji X, and M43. This gallery will share photos from the lens that I take during my review period, and you can check back regularly to both see new photos and to check in for my final review of the lens. Photos taken with and review done on both Sony a6500 and Sony a7RIII bodies.
Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like. Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.
Great News! I can now offer a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52018DA in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!
Keywords: pergear 25mm, 25mm, pergear, F1.8, 1.8, Pergear 25mm F1.8, Pergear 25mm 1.8, Review, Dustin Abbott, Portrait, EOS M, EF-M, Fuji X, Sony E, a6500, a6400, X-T3 Sony a7RIII, Sharpness, Resolution, Bokeh, Video Test, Sample Images, Real World, Bargain
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
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