Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 RXD for Fuji X-mount Review

Dustin Abbott

June 19th, 2023

In 2022 Fuji began to really open up their platform to third party development, and that has opened a floodgate of both new and “ported” lenses from Tamron, Sigma, Samyang, Viltrox, and more. It was that move along with the excellent camera design of the Fujifilm X-H2 (my review here) that triggered my first Fujifilm camera purchase (I had always borrowed Fuji cameras for previous reviews). I had previously reviewed the Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 Di III-A RXD on Sony E-mount in 2021 but I’ve been interested in revisiting the lenses on X-mount for two primary reasons: 1) to see how autofocus performs on a new platform and 2) to see how the lens’ optics survive the very pixel dense 40MP Fuji X-Trans sensor on some of their new cameras. This really pushes the envelope of lens performance, as that high resolution exposes any optical shortcomings in a big way! I won’t be doing an entirely new review, so there will be some redundant parts in this article, but I am going through and updating the content in key areas that are specific to the performance on Fuji X-mount. The Fuji platform is different from the Sony E-mount “lens” that I viewed the Tamron 11-20mm RXD from before, as there are more premium options on Fuji and a higher standard for what features are expected there. Can the Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 Di III-A RXD compete in the Fuji X-mount arena?

Tamron loves its initials in their lens names, so let’s sort out that alphabet soup. Di III is their designation for a mirrorless lens design, and, in this case, the addition of -A at the (Di III-A) refers to their development for APS-C mirrorless. RXD refers to the focus motor, which is similar to the linear motors employed on many of Fuji’s better lenses.

There are few legitimate alternatives to this lens on the Fuji platform, as while there are a number of quality wide angle primes, there are only a couple of wide angle zooms. The first is the premium XF 8-16mm F2.8 (my review here). That lens is large (15mm wider and 35mm longer), heavy (2 1/2 times as heavy as the Tamron), and expensive ($670 more). The focal range does have some overlap, obviously, and the maximum aperture is the same, but there are few similarities outside of that. A more direct competitor is the Fujinon XF 10-24mm F4 OIS, though unfortunately I have not reviewed that lens. The XF 10-24mm is more similar in focal range, size, and price ($999 vs $829 for the Tamron), though it has a maximum aperture of F4 rather than F2.8. That lens does have OIS (optical stabilizer) and an aperture ring along with a larger zoom range, while the Tamron offers the larger maximum aperture, lower price, superior focus system, and (on paper) a superior optical performance, particularly on the telephoto end. Here’s a look at how the raw specs of these three lenses compare:

So is the Tamron 11-20mm RXD a worthy addition to the Fuji platform? You can watch my conclusions in my video review, or just read on to find out…

Thanks to Tamron USA for sending me an loaner of the lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. I have used both my personal Fujifilm X-H2 (my review here) and a loaner of the X-S20 for this review.

Tamron 11-20mm RXD Build, Handling, and Features

The Tamron 11-20mm RXD certainly hits a sweet spot for size and weight for a wide angle zoom. It feels reasonably compact on my larger X-H2, but also fits just fine on the much smaller X-S20 without feeling front heavy. It is 2.9″ (D) x 3.4″ (L), or 73 x 86.2 mm. Like most of Tamron’s mirrorless lenses it has a 67mm front filter thread which allows filters to be shared across almost all of Tamron’s other options for the platform (excluding the much larger 150-500mm, obviously!) The weight is only 11.8 oz (335 g), making it the lightest of the wide angle zoom options despite having the large maximum aperture.

There’s no question this is an extremely useful focal range, giving you framing options from very wide (16.5mm full frame equivalent):

to somewhat tighter framing (30mm full frame equivalent):

This will enable you versatility in composing your wide angle scene and covers most of the classic wide angle options. While the depth of field is more equivalent to a full frame F4 lens, the F2.8 aperture will always have the light gathering capability of an F2.8 lens (regardless of whether attached to APS-C or Full Frame), meaning that the 11-20mm RXD has the advantage of being able to have more in focus at larger apertures but all the light gathering potential of an F2.8 lens – which can be a big help in low light conditions.

As has been Tamron’s design philosophy thus far, the design language is clean, modern, and without distractions. That’s the nice way of putting it. The glass half empty approach is to note that there are no features on the outside of the lens. No AF/MF switch, no aperture ring – just the zoom and focus rings. That wasn’t unusual on Sony in the past, but the aperture ring has been a very common design element on Fuji.

The position of the two rings on the 11-20mm is reversed relative to the 17-70mm, which is unfortunate for those who will buy both lenses to use as a kit. The closer (and wider) of the two is the zoom ring. The zoom ring has a rubberized, ribbed texture, is easy to find by touch, and moves smoothly through the zoom range without any sticking points. The inner barrel will extend about 2cm at the 11mm position, and is fully retracted at the 20mm position.

While many would prefer an internally zooming lens, thus far all of these Tamron zooms have been externally zooming, though they must be doing a fairly good job of sealing the lenses, and I’ve heard little anecdotal reports from buyers about getting dust inside of them. The inner barrel extends smoothly and without any wobble.

The second ring (nearer the front of the lens) is the manual focus ring. You will have to select manual focus from within the camera, though this is common on Fuji cameras and is fairly simple if you have a body that has the Focus Mode lever or button on the front. This (like all mirrorless lenses) is focus-by-wire, meaning that focus input on the focus ring is routed through the focus motor to move the elements. Manual focus feel is fairly light and without a lot of tactile feedback. Typical manual focus aids are all available, as Tamron lenses on Fuji function largely like native lenses.

Tamron has included a shallow, petal-shaped lens hood with deep ribs inside that disrupt stray light bouncing around. It’s plastic and lightweight, but the quality of the plastics is apparent by feel. It doesn’t feel as cheap as some hoods that I see. It feels like it could take a few bumps without cracking. Due to the wide-angle nature of the lens, the lens hood is fairly wide, so it doesn’t reverse completely flush along the sides of the lens for storage.

The lens’ housing is a nice grade of engineered plastics with a satin finish. There’s a platinum-colored accept ring right near the lens mount. Nothing fancy on the outside, but the lens “look” is clean and it looks nice mounted on the camera.

As noted, however, the good stuff is inside. There’s a rubber gasket at the lens mount that is the outer evidence of the weather sealing inside, and this is diagram from Tamron shows that there are a total of seven seal points in the lens. This is capped off by a nice fluorine coating on the front element, which not only helps protect it from scratches but also makes it water and fingerprint resistant and thus easier to clean.

Tamron’s recent trends regarding MFD (minimum focus distance) hold true here, as the lens sports two different MFDs for wide (0.15m/5.9″) and telephoto (0.24m/9.4″). Both are pretty close, frankly, with the 11mm position requiring you to be nearly on top of your subject (the length from the sensor to the end of the lens WITHOUT the hood is 12cm, leaving you only 3cm of working room to your subject. If you leave the hood on, that length grows to 14.5cmm, leaving you a few mm of working room. It will be almost impossible to avoid shading your subject with the lens attached, so remove the hood to give you a bit more working room. Even so, I found it almost impossible to properly light my test chart even moving my lights right in, as this is what MFD looks like:

Should you be able to get that close, you get as high as a 0.25x (1:4) magnification figure, which looks like this.

Being able to pull off shots that close in the real world are rarely going to happen, so I consider that 0.25x figure to mostly be marketing. You can still get a reasonable magnification by backing up a bit, though. My preference is just to use the 20mm position or somewhere in between. The telephoto end gives you a better working distance and better results in terms of sharpness, but unfortunately the magnification figure drops to a much more pedestrian 0.13x, though even that figure is better than the Fuji 8-16mm (0.10x) and only slightly lower than the Fuji 10-24mm (0.16x). The magnification at 20mm looks like this:

You’ll note that the 20mm position gives a nicely flat plane of focus, meaning that real world results are nice and crisp:

The telephoto magnification figure is a bit lower, but achieving the result will be much simpler in the field and probably much more satisfying in the process. I find a nice compromise is to shoot somewhere around 16mm, as you can get closer than 20mm, achieve a higher magnification level, but without being right on top of the subject like at 11mm. This shot shows that you can really fill the frame fairly well by using this technique:

As is common with wide angle lenses, Tamron has reduced the number of blades from nine to 7 rounded blades. A lens like this is less about bokeh and more about being able to produce nice sunstars, and the seven bladed aperture produces a cleaner looking sunstar.

Tamron touts the flare resistance of this lens, but I don’t necessarily find that a great strength for the lens, and the shot above shows why.

The Tamron 11-20mm RXD is a simple lens in terms of design and features, but at the same time I’ve had no long term issues with Tamron lenses just like this one. They’ve held up fine and get the job done, though I do miss some of missing features.

Autofocus and Video Performance

The Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 has Tamron’s excellent Rapid eXtra-silent stepping Drive (RXD), and this is the first time I’ve used it on Fuji rather than Tamron. For stills, it is pretty much flawless, with fast, quiet focus on either the X-H2 or X-S20 bodies that I used for the review.

This is a far cry from some of the older Fuji lenses I’ve used, with noisy focus motors that were slow and rough. Quality of focus is more akin to the newest Linear Motor equipped lenses. I had no reservations in focus when taking photos.

Eye Detect works fine (as it does almost universally now), though with a wide angle lens like this you have to be pretty close for the eye to occupy a large enough part of the frame to show active tracking. If you are close enough, however, the “stickiness” of the box on the eye is fairly good and will follow the subject around. I tested with both humans and also a sequence with Nala at a variety of focus distances and angles.

Video focus pulls were less stellar, however. While focus breathing was minimal, there is some visible stepping in the actual pulls; the initial focus move, a split second pause, and then the final adjustment. The results from my “hand test” were a little better, as the focus adjustment was more confident when moving back to the eye.

More subtle focus transitions during video capture were smooth, and I felt the lens did a nice job transitioning from subject to subject. I got a lot of nice clips with the lens.

What I did find was that sometimes shooting with a smaller aperture and a backlit scene resulting in some pulsing in and out of focus. In once sequence I was capturing flares through the leaves and focus went completely out several times due to a lot of light hitting the sensor. Another clip with some pulsing came when I was up on a cliff while hiking and shooting a big landscape scene over a river. Stills focus was fine, but my video clip pulsed in and out some (all points active) as if the camera/lens wasn’t quite sure what to focus on.

In general, however, I felt my focus experience was great (particularly for stills). And, to be fair, the video performance is better than just about everything I’ve seen until this most recent generation of Fujinon lenses, so Tamron’s RXD focus system and the transition to Fuji focus algorithms seems to have largely been successful here.

Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 RXD Image Quality

The 11-20mm RXD sports an optical formula of 12 elements in 10 groups, with 5 of those being exotic elements (molded glass aspherical, hybrid aspherical, and Low Dispersion). Here’s a look at the optical design and MTFs:

If you understand MTF diagrams, you will note that these are very good looking MTFs for a wide angle zoom lens. Tamron does its MTFs wide open, and the surprising thing about the 11mm result is that there is actually a bit of dip in resolution near the mid-frame position with the corner resolving better than the mid-frame area (though contrast is must lower in the corner relative to the mid-frame). The 20mm result shows a more typical slide towards the edge of the frame. On a 24mm Sony sensor I found resolution to be fantastic, but Fuji’s 40MP sensor in my X-H2 is the most demanding sensor I’m currently testing on for any platform. It is is possible to get very nicely detailed images even on the X-H2’s sensor, however…even at F2.8:

Here’s a look at the vignette and distortion at 11mm:

We can see both moderate barrel distortion and vignette. The distortion is fairly linear, so I could get a reasonable result even with a manual correction of the distortion (I used a +9), and vignette was also manageable. I used a +79 and moved the midpoint over to zero for a nicely clean result. It did seem that I saw a bit more vignette on Fuji than I did on Sony, but that could be just a quirk of testing. Tamron seems to enjoy full in-camera correction support on Fuji, so use the standard profile in camera for JPEGs and Video for a cleaner still result. As always, RAW images will require using the correction profile in your editing software to get a nicely clean end result. Here’s a look at the in-camera corrected JPEG image.

As is typical for a lens like this, the distortion pattern flips to a pincushion style distortion at 20mm, though this distortion is even more linear and easier still to correct for. Vignette was also quite a bit lower. I’ve seen a lot of otherwise good lenses derailed by distortion or heavy vignette, but that’s not the case here; this is a very good result. Everything is easily correctable and none of the flaws extreme.

I watched for chromatic aberrations but saw little evidence of them. Longitudinal chromatic aberrations (fringing before or after the plane of focus) are minimal in this difficult shot of white blossoms transitioning out of focus, and the specular highlights (bokeh balls) are clean in the background.

I could see trace amounts of lateral chromatic aberrations on my chart (fringing in dark to light transitions near the edge of the frame) if I magnified to 200%, they were too insignificant to see in real world use, and a one click correction either in camera in (for RAWs) in software will clean those up nicely:

Let’s move on to resolution and contrast. I do my examinations at 200% magnification, as this clearly shows lens strengths and flaws for you to see. First, here’s my test chart:

We will start with F2.8 crops (near 200%) at 11mm from the center, mid-frame, and extreme lower right corner.

The center looks great, the mid-frame good, but the corners aren’t nearly as sharp. That’s the challenge of such a high resolution sensor on APS-C, though it’s not quite so dire in the real world. I compare results at 200% here. Out in the real world at a more typical 100% magnification things look much more reasonable (11mm, F2.8):

The corners improve a little when stopping down, but never to “wow” levels. This real world shot looks good, however, with good detail in the both the center of the frame and the bottom corner.

The lower resolution sensor point of the X-S20 is a little gentler. Here’s a shot that I felt really popped for color, contrast, and clarity at 11mm, F2.8:

I found that the 11-20mm RXD really hit its stride in the center of the zoom range, with more capacity for really crisp detail even in the corners when stopped down…even on the X-H2.

This is where I would shoot for optimal sharpness, which is truly excellent anywhere in the frame in a real world shot, whether in the foreground or background.

I’m also impressed with the performance at 20mm, which is nicely even across the frame by F4, though still very good across most of the frame even at F2.8. Midframe performance in particular stands out as excellent.

Close results at 20mm, F2.8 hold up well even on the X-H2:

At landscape apertures the lens delivers beautiful, highly detailed results.

While you don’t turn to wide angle lenses for bokeh, the quality of the blur is reasonably good here. This image at 20mm, F2.8 has a fairly nice transition to defocus.

I also think this image looks fairly good, as did others where the background was defocused.

Flare resistance is a bit of a mixed bag. The lens does well with the sun right out of frame, and sometimes directly in frame, but I found flare resistance better at large apertures than smaller apertures, where some ghosting artifacts can come into frame (see the vertical shot of the crimson maple leaves).

Coma performance is quite, with night sky images looking clean other than a bit of “star-stretching” in the corners.

Overall, however, we’ve got a very good lens optically. It’s a good wide angle zoom range, and can produce a lot of great looking images. If you compare the MTF charts to the older Tamron 10-24mm VC lens, the newer zoom is far superior optically

The Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 RXD will definitely bring an intriguing new option to the Fuji X platform. There’s a lot of good optically, and little major issues. You can check out more photos by visiting the image gallery page here.

Conclusion

The Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 Di III-A RXD is a welcome addition to the Fuji X-mount stable of lenses. It gives shooters a wide aperture, wide angle zoom option without resorting to the much more extreme Fujinon XF 8-16mm F2.8 LM WR lens. The Tamron is a far more practical lens, however, weighing a little over a third as much and costing less than half as much.

The 11-20mm F2.8 RXD has a nice (if plain) build with thorough weather sealing, good autofocus, and strong enough image quality to survive the demanding 40MP sensor of the X-H2. It is compact, lightweight, and handles great. Not a lot to complain about, really.

If you are looking for a reasonably priced, relatively compact wide angle zoom for your Fuji camera, the Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 RXD is a very nice option. It’s not as feature rich as some Fuji lenses, but delivers very strong value relative to competing lenses. A lot of Sony shooters have loved the 11-20mm RXD, and now Fuji X-mount photographers can get in on the action. Great times for the Fuji platform!

Pros:

Great wide angle zoom range
Maintains F2.8 aperture
Relatively compact and lightweight
Good build with weather sealing
Fast, quiet, and accurate autofocus
Shares a 67mm filter thread with other Tamron lenses on Sony
Exceptional optical performance
Good coma control
Strong aberration control

Cons:

No aperture ring
Corners at 11mm never got incredibly sharp
Focus hunted a bit during certain video situations

Gear Used:

Purchase the Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 RXD @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

Purchase the Fujifilm X-S20 @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase the Fujifilm X-S10 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase the Fujifilm X-H2 @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

Purchase the Fujifilm X-T5 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Find it Used at KEH

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Keywords: Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 RXD, withmytamron, X-Mount, X, Fuji, Fujifilm, X-H2, weather sealing, B060, Tamron 11-20 RXD, RXD, F2.8, 11-20mm, Di-IIIa, Sony, E-mount, Tamron 11-20mm Review, Tamron 11-20 review, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Astrophotography, #letthelightin, #DA, #weather sealing

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.

Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 RXD (X-Mount) Gallery

Dustin Abbott

June 14th, 2023

In 2022 Fuji began to really open up their platform to third party development, and that has opened a floodgate of both new and “ported” lenses from Tamron, Sigma, Samyang, Viltrox, and more. It was that move along with the excellent camera design of the Fujifilm X-H2 (my review here) that triggered my first Fujifilm camera purchase (I had always borrowed Fuji cameras for previous reviews). I had previously reviewed the Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 Di III-A RXD on Sony E-mount in 2021 but I’ve been interested in revisiting the lenses on X-mount for two primary reasons: 1) to see how autofocus performs on a new platform and 2) to see how the lens’ optics survive the very pixel dense 40MP Fuji X-Trans sensor on some of their new cameras. This really pushes the envelope of lens performance, as that high resolution exposes any optical shortcomings in a big way! I won’t be doing an entirely new review, so there will be some redundant parts in this article, but I am going through and updating the content in key areas that are specific to the performance on Fuji X-mount. The Fuji platform is different from the Sony E-mount “lens” that I viewed the Tamron 11-20mm RXD from before, as there are more premium options on Fuji and a higher standard for what features are expected there. Can the Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 Di III-A RXD compete in the Fuji X-mount arena?

Tamron loves its initials in their lens names, so let’s sort out that alphabet soup. Di III is their designation for a mirrorless lens design, and, in this case, the addition of -A at the (Di III-A) refers to their development for APS-C mirrorless. RXD refers to the focus motor, which is similar to the linear motors employed on many of Fuji’s better lenses.

There are few legitimate alternatives to this lens on the Fuji platform, as while there are a number of quality wide angle primes, there are only a couple of wide angle zooms. The first is the premium XF 8-16mm F2.8 (my review here). That lens is large (15mm wider and 35mm longer), heavy (2 1/2 times as heavy as the Tamron), and expensive ($670 more). The focal range does have some overlap, obviously, and the maximum aperture is the same, but there are few similarities outside of that. A more direct competitor is the Fujinon XF 10-24mm F4 OIS, though unfortunately I have not reviewed that lens. The XF 10-24mm is more similar in focal range, size, and price ($999 vs $829 for the Tamron), though it has a maximum aperture of F4 rather than F2.8. That lens does have OIS (optical stabilizer) and an aperture ring along with a larger zoom range, while the Tamron offers the larger maximum aperture, lower price, superior focus system, and (on paper) a superior optical performance, particularly on the telephoto end. Here’s a look at how the raw specs of these three lenses compare:

So is the Tamron 11-20mm RXD a worthy addition to the Fuji platform? You can get my thoughts by watching my definitive video review or reading the text review here…or just enjoy the photos!

Thanks to Tamron USA for sending me an loaner of the lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. I have used both my personal Fujifilm X-H2 (my review here) and a loaner of the X-S20 for this review.

Photos of the Tamron 11-20mm RXD

Photos taken with the Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 RXD

Gear Used:

Purchase the Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 RXD @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

Purchase the Fujifilm X-S20 @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase the Fujifilm X-S10 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase the Fujifilm X-H2 @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

Purchase the Fujifilm X-T5 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Find it Used at KEH

Want to support this channel? Use these affiliate links to shop at: B&H Photo | Amazon | Adorama | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Ebay | Make a donation via Paypal

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Keywords: Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 RXD, withmytamron, X-Mount, X, Fuji, Fujifilm, X-H2, weather sealing, B060, Tamron 11-20 RXD, RXD, F2.8, 11-20mm, Di-IIIa, Sony, E-mount, Tamron 11-20mm Review, Tamron 11-20 review, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Astrophotography, #letthelightin, #DA, #weather sealing

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.

Meike 85mm F1.8 STM Image Gallery

Dustin Abbott

August 1st, 2022

Meike is one of many newer lens companies who have specialized in inexpensive manual focus lenses (though they also have a lineup of slightly higher end cine lenses). I’ve spent time with three Meike manual focus lenses in the past, including a very inexpensive 50mm F1.7 and a more expensive 50mm F1.2. I’ve also tested no less than 10+ 85mm options on Sony E-mount, but none as inexpensive as the first autofocus lens from Meike that I’ve ever reviewed – the Meike 85mm F1.8 STM. The Meike 85STM (as I’ll call it for brevity in this review) can be had for only $200 USD despite having a decent build quality, fairly good autofocus, and fairly good image quality as well.

The previous cheapest autofocusing 85mm option that I’ve reviewed on Sony has been the Viltrox 85mm F1.8 STM, but that lens will set you back more than double the cost of the Meike, making this a tempting option if you are looking for a seriously inexpensive portrait lens and don’t want to mess with manual focus.

The Meike 85STM can’t compete at the top levels with some of the best 85mm options on Sony FE, but it’s a surprisingly competent lens at this price point, capable of producing some lovely images. Is it enough lens for you? You can get the full picture by either watching my video review, reading the text review, or just enjoy the photos below.

Thanks to Meike for sending me a review loaner 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 a7IV along with the Sony Alpha 1 which will serve as my benchmark camera for the foreseeable future (my review here).

Photos of the Meike 85mm F1.8 STM

Photos taken with the Meike 85mm F1.8 STM

Purchase the Meike 85mm F1.8 STM @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

Purchase the Sony a7IV @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

Purchase the Sony Alpha 1 @ Camera Canada | B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

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Keywords: Meike 85mm F1.8 STM, Meike, 85mm, F1.8, STM, Sony, Meike 85 Review, Meike 85mm Review, Meike 85mm F1.8 Review, Full Frame, Review, Sony Alpha 1, Sony a7IV, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Sony a9, Sony a7IV, Sony Alpha 1, Sony A1, 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.

Meike 85mm F1.8 STM Review

Dustin Abbott

August 1st, 2022

Meike is one of many newer lens companies who have specialized in inexpensive manual focus lenses (though they also have a lineup of slightly higher end cine lenses). I’ve spent time with three Meike manual focus lenses in the past, including a very inexpensive 50mm F1.7 and a more expensive 50mm F1.2. I’ve also tested no less than 10+ 85mm options on Sony E-mount, but none as inexpensive as the first autofocus lens from Meike that I’ve ever reviewed – the Meike 85mm F1.8 STM. The Meike 85STM (as I’ll call it for brevity in this review) can be had for only $200 USD despite having a decent build quality, fairly good autofocus, and fairly good image quality as well.

The previous cheapest autofocusing 85mm option that I’ve reviewed on Sony has been the Viltrox 85mm F1.8 STM, but that lens will set you back more than double the cost of the Meike, making this a tempting option if you are looking for a seriously inexpensive portrait lens and don’t want to mess with manual focus.

The Meike 85STM can’t compete at the top levels with some of the best 85mm options on Sony FE, but it’s a surprisingly competent lens at this price point, capable of producing some lovely images. Is it enough lens for you? You can get the full picture by either watching my video review below or reading on to get the full picture.

Thanks to Meike for sending me a review loaner 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 a7IV along with the Sony Alpha 1 which will serve as my benchmark camera for the foreseeable future (my review here).

Meike 85STMBuild and Handling

The Meike 85STM stands out as being lightweight (356g/12.2oz) but not for being small. I was quite surprised when I pulled out my Sigma 85mm F1.4 DN and found that the physical differences between the two lenses was not significant.

The Meike is the largest of the 4 85mm F1.8 lenses for the Sony that I compared, with a diameter of 80mm (3.15”) and a length of 92mm (3.62”). The Sony 85mm F1.8 wins for the most compact of the quartet, though the Meike wins for being the lightest. I’ve used my own physical measurements and weight for the Meike after finding some minor variance from posted numbers.

The reason for that larger-than-expected size is made clear when I look in the back of the lens and find a significant cavity before the glass of the rear element. I’ve noted that Meike has previously had a Canon EF and Nikon F version of this lens. I suspect that Meike has ported this lens to the mirrorless Sony E-mount much like Sigma did with their earliest full frame lenses for Sony. Making that transition requires moving the optical path forward for proper focus and leaves what is essentially the size of an adapter built into the length of the lens. The Canon version of this lens is about 17mm shorter…as expected.

A look at the rear also shows a welcome inclusion – a USB-C port built into the mount for firmware updates. This recent trend is a very positive one as it means that firmware updates can be done without some kind of dock or accessory, and those firmware updates can keep third party lenses from becoming obsolete due to changes to the camera systems (or camera firmware) that they are made for.

A look in the front of the lens reveals a lot of glass inside (always a welcome sight!) and a very common 67mm front filter thread.

The lens is made from engineered plastics that feel slightly cheaper than those used in more expensive lenses, though the lens doesn’t feel overly plasticky, either.

The included lens hood is petal shaped and quite deep, which is good, as the lens needs it!

The Meike 85STM does have an AF/MF switch, which is always welcome as it is the most direct way to control that function.

The only other feature on the lens barrel is the focus ring, which feels a bit more plastic than many focus rings and moves with very little weight, though I did feel a tiny bit of drag when the lens was in AF mode, which is a bit unusual for a mirrorless lens (though as noted, I think this is more of a “ported” lens). Manual focus action is a little lifeless, though on my Sony bodies I did get the automatic focus assist (magnification of the active area of focus), which is useful.

Minimum focus distance is 85cm/3 feet, which is about 5cm longer than average, leaving us with a below average amount of magnification at that distance (though unlisted, I peg it in the 0.10x-0.11x range. Here’s what minimum focus distance looks like.

Obviously the level of magnification is not particularly high, but performance is quite good. The plane of focus is nice and flat (helped by the distance!), and detail is quite good. Contrast isn’t top notch, but that is consistent with the overall optical performance of the lens. Up close shots are helped by the fact that the Meike 85STM can create some strong background blur, and the lower contrast makes for very nice, soft bokeh.

The lens has the standard nine curved aperture blades, and I did note some sound as the automatic aperture opened and closed (there’s far more aperture iris sound than focus sound, actually). You can see that even at F4 the bokeh highlights look nice and round.

There is no weather sealing or image stabilization in the lens, though neither are expected at this price point. Meike does mention some coatings on the front element that help make it more resistant to fingerprints and easy to clean.

All in all, the build quality is really pretty decent for what is easily the cheapest autofocusing 85mm lens that I’ve ever tested. I can’t vouch for how the lens will hold up over the long haul, but this feels like a pretty decent lens for the money.

Autofocus Performance

I was intrigued to test an autofocusing lens from Meike as I had only tested manual focus lenses from them previously. Overall I’ve had a quite positive experience with autofocus, though there are a few minor quirks that I’ll detail.

One of the earliest things I did with the lens is take it out on a tennis outing with Craig and his wife along with my wife. We played some doubles, but I also spent part of the time seeing how the lens would do tracking the action (and had Craig test it a bit as well for his review). I shot several hundred frames on the Alpha 1, and found that the Meike 85STM had no problem keeping up with the moderately fast action of tennis.

Essentially all of the images where I (or Craig) had eye contact resulted in perfectly focused results, with focus missing only when the subject was turned away from the camera (like when hitting a backhand shot).

I also used it in a church setting, and found that Eye AF grabbed on quickly and accurately on the speaker.

My wife used the lens on the Sony a7IV for my little birthday party, and even in her somewhat inexperienced hands the lens delivered well focused results.

I also tracked some Loki action as he played the kinds of games that cats play with their prey, and Eye AF tracked him accurately as well.

I would have pretty much raved over the autofocus for such an inexpensive lens, but I did run into one issue. Almost all of these tests to this point have been at or near maximum aperture. I stopped the lens down for some landscape work, and found that at smaller apertures the lens did some hunting. I wanted to track a nice cabin cruiser out on the river, and found that in the pulsing I could end up with a result like this:

…when what I wanted was this:

The problem? I got that result after moving back to F2.8 to reduce the pulsing. I was able to get well focused results at landscape distances and apertures, but that isn’t the strength for this autofocus system.

The good news is that there is a port for firmware updates, so there’s at least a chance that Meike can improve on this issue with a firmware tweak.

For the most part, however, I had a very positive experience with autofocus…even when I gave the AF system a little more challenging a target:

Considering this is Meike’s first autofocus lens on the Sony platform, I think they’ve done quite well in pulling it off.

Meike 85STM Image Quality

The Meike 85mm F1.8 STM sports a relatively simple optical formula of 9 elements in 6 groups, but maybe that’s not a bad thing. You can certainly pull off some surprisingly sophisticated images out this inexpensive optic.

That’s not to say the lens is without flaws, but I’m not sure any of them are of the fatal variety. Let’s break it down:

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. You can see some purple fringing on this shot of a feather in the sand before the plane of focus.

If we zoom into that image of the cabin cruiser, we can see that some fringing remains even at F2.8:

The upside of some uncorrected fringing can be seen the in out of focus sand in the shot above, however, as this reduces contrast a bit, but that lower contrast also shows up in a positive way in soft, creamy bokeh.

Lateral chromatic aberrations (LaCA) 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). There’s no problem with LaCA here, as both transition areas in real world images and on my test chart are nice and neutral.

I also give very positive marks for the performance with distortion and vignette. There is a very mild amount of pincushion distortion (-3 to correct) and an insignificant amount of vignette (+29 to correct). You can see the before/after here:

So how about sharpness? We’ll do our formal test on the full frame (35mm) image circle that the lens is designed for, using the 50MP Sony Alpha 1 for this series of tests. Here’s a look at the test chart:

And here are the F2.8 crops at nearly 200% magnification, taken from the center, then mid-frame, and then extreme lower right corner:

We see fairly good sharpness in the center and midframe, though contrast is only okay. You can see a slight haze on the textures. This intensifies into the corners, where acuity is lower and textures are more “smeared”.

Real world results in the middle two thirds of the images look quite good, however, with good levels of bokeh, lower fringing, and soft bokeh.

There is a bit of a contrast boost at F2, and since there is little penalty in terms of light gathering and subject isolation, it might be worth shooting at F2 over F1.8.

By F2.8 there is a clear improvement in contrast and resolution in the center:

…and in the corners:

But by F4 the corners are looking really exceptional, and the lens is pretty close to razor sharp across the frame even on a high resolution (50MP) body:

Real world images at smaller apertures also look nice, with good detail and contrast:

As previously noted, I felt like the bokeh from the lens was better than average (surprisingly). It is nice and creamy both before and after the plane of focus.

Even slightly busier scenes still render nicely.

Color rendition is also good, with nice levels of saturation while still looking natural.

All in all, this is really a very strong optical performance for such an inexpensive lens. You can take some images that look like they were made with a much more expensive lens than what this really costs. If you would like to see more images, check out my image gallery here.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I’m actually quite impressed with what Meike has done here. The Meike 85mm F1.8 STM has moments that remind me that this is a budget lens, but the overall performance from the autofocus motor and the optics is much stronger than what I expected. Now, to be fair, 85mm is not a difficult focal length to do well (I’ve reviewed very few bad 85mm lenses!), but this is a seriously nice option for those on a really tight budget. I would be hard pressed to suggest a lens for $200 that would deliver better results.

And when you add to this a rather decent autofocus performance that worked well enough to track moderate action like tennis…

I’m left with a very positive feeling towards this inexpensive lens. I haven’t always been impressed by Meike lenses, but I feel like this is a serious step in the right direction. There are plenty of photographers who are on a tight budget but aren’t interested in manual focus, and if Meike could provide some low cost autofocus options I suspect they would find a very welcoming market. The Meike 85mm F1.8 STM is definitely worth considering if you fall into that category!

Pros:

Very strong price to performance ratio
Lovely, soft bokeh
Good center and midframe sharpness
Low distortion and vignette
Good sharpness across the frame at smaller apertures
Autofocus works well in most situations
Light weight
USB-C port for firmware updates

Cons:

Some focus pulsing at smaller apertures
Lower contrast wide open
Noisy when changing aperture
“Ported” design makes the lens larger than it needs to be

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Keywords: Meike 85mm F1.8 STM, Meike, 85mm, F1.8, STM, Sony, Meike 85 Review, Meike 85mm Review, Meike 85mm F1.8 Review, Full Frame, Review, Sony Alpha 1, Sony a7IV, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, Sony a9, Sony a7IV, Sony Alpha 1, Sony A1, let the light in, #letthelightin, DA

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Laowa 10mm F4 “Cookie” Lens Review

Dustin Abbott

July 19th, 2022

By my count this is (at least) the 13^th Laowa lens from Venus Optics that I’ve reviewed. I’ve long felt that Laowa stands out for their courage in tackling challenging and unique projects, including wide angle macro lenses, very large aperture lenses, and now, a tiny “pancake” lens that Laowa quirkily calls a “cookie” lens. This tiny new wide angle lens, the Laowa 10mm F4 Cookie (hereafter called the Laowa 10C for brevity), is truly tiny (measuring just 28mm in length weighing only 136g despite its all-metal build by my personal measurements).

Despite such a tiny size, this is a very wide angle of view. It is designed for APS-C cameras, and gives a 15mm full frame equivalent with Sony or Fuji’s 1.5x crop factor, a little tighter with either Canon (1.6x) or M/43 (2x). It’s a LONG way down to my shoes at this focal length!

This isn’t a toy, however, but rather a quality optical instrument capable of producing detailed, rich images.

One thing Laowa has proven very good at, and that is controlling distortion. That remains true even in this tiny lens, so you can get great lines in a photo even without any kind of correction.

A pancake/cookie lens may not be for everyone, but there are real advantages of having such a wide angle of view in a tiny package, so Laowa clearly feels that there will be a productive market for this lens at its reasonable price point of $299 USD. Is it for you? You can get the full picture by either watching my video review below or reading on to get the full picture.

Thanks to Laowa for sending me a review loaner 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 a6400 along with the Sony Alpha 1 which will serve as my benchmark camera for the foreseeable future (my review here).

Laowa 10C Build and Handling

I’ve noted the tiny size of the “Cookie”, and it is in many ways the most significant thing about the lens. The 59mm diameter (2.32” – just big enough to match the lens mount) is the biggest thing about it. It is barely over an inch in length (1.10”) and the 136g (4.8 oz) weight is so negligible that you probably won’t even notice it. If your priority is traveling light, then look no further.

I’m not sure the same can be said exactly about “discrete”, as while the lens is tiny, obviously, the silver color makes it more noticeable (at least on the black cameras like my Sonys) than a black lens would. I like it, though, as it adds some style to the camera.

While I like compact lenses, I’m less excited by pancake style lenses for the simple reason that there are inevitable compromises in handling and optics. The handling issues here are all around the reality that Laowa has had to fit in an aperture ring, focus ring, and hyperfocal markings in a lens that is only an inch long. The aperture ring isn’t bad, as it is very close to the lens mount and ridged for nice tactile response. I’m able to find it easily be feel when looking through the viewfinder. There are only full aperture stops/detents here, so if you wanted more finite control over aperture or a clickless option, this won’t be the lens for you. The aperture ring itself moves smoothly and precisely.

I’m less thrilled by the manual focus ring, which is smaller and located right up at the front of the lens. It’s harder to find just by feel, but perhaps more importantly this location along with the wide focal length of the lens means that I got a fingertip captured in several images (look at the lower right side of this image).

This means that finetuning focus while shooting video is going to be a challenge, though this will be a great gimbal lens for movement shots where you want to just set the desired focal length in advance and then just focus on getting the shot. The focus ring moves smoothly (Laowa is good at this) and has about 120° of rotation.

There are distance markings on that rotating portion of the lens, with hyperfocal markings at F4, F8, and F16 in between the two rings. As per usual, I find hyperfocal focusing less accurate than actually visually confirming focus. I used the hyperfocal markings and got this result:

…but got this (much better) result by just magnifying the image and confirming focus accuracy.

While the shots I’ve used to demonstrate this were taken on the Sony a6400, I will note that I preferred focus (as always) using the APS-C mode on my Sony Alpha 1 due to its superior viewfinder.

Speaking of full frame: I often am asked how a certain APS-C lens covers the full frame image circle and whether it can be used there. In this sequence of images you can see that 1) there is a fair bit of the full frame image circle left uncovered by the Laowa 10C 2) when you crop in you have very slightly more image left than the APS-C crop shown in image 3.

Those using higher resolution bodies like the Alpha 1 or a7RIV will probably still find the result useful in APS-C mode, though I wouldn’t buy this purely for use on full frame personally.

When you have a small lens dominated by multiple rotating sections, you will inevitably have some minor challenges in mounting/dismounting the lens, and that’s true here. There’s nothing “solid” to grab onto, which means you will almost certainly change your aperture/focus settings in the process of gripping the lens tight enough to twist and remove it. I find that gripping as much of the lens as possible does help.

Up front we have a small (and unusual) 37mm front filter size:

You can see from this image that the aperture iris has five straight blades. You are unlikely to see this in the form of bokeh (wide angle focal length with a small maximum aperture), but in this rare shot I could see the shape of the aperture blades (pentagon) in the flare pattern.

While I prefer rounded aperture blades in many lenses, I don’t mind straight blades in a wide angle lens like this for the simple reason that it is easier to create sunstars with straight blades (sometimes even at the maximum aperture). The Laowa 10C creates beautiful 10 pointed sunstars which really add style to an image:

As is the case with most Laowa lenses, the build quality is very high (all metal and glass) but there are a few key missing elements. This includes any kind of electronic communication (you’ll see no electronic contacts in the image below) and no weather sealing.

Things like metering and focus overlays work fine (these are generated by the camera), but you won’t get communication for recording some EXIF information (focal length, aperture, etc…) and there won’t be any cues for automatic in-body-image-stabilization (you will have to manually input the focal length if your camera is so equipped) or for any in-camera correction profiles. You will have to manually correct for, say, vignette, in post correction.

The minimum focus distance of the lens is a tiny 10cm (right under 4 inches), which means you’ll pretty much be on top of your subject at that distance.

Magnification is quite high (it looks to be in the 0.25x range), though getting that close with a wide angle lens means that a flat plane of focus is pretty much out of the question. You’ll have a “sweet spot” of focus like here:

That won’t stop you from getting some nice close up shots, though, so I consider this a very nice addition to the lens’ repertoire.

All in all, the build quality of the Laowa 10C is very nice, the lens is incredibly compact and small (you could easily throw it in a pocket to bring along), but as per usual there are a few handling compromises in such a compact design.

Laowa 10C Image Quality

The Laowa 10mm F4 Cookie lens has the ability to produce some great images despite its extreme size, and I was able to get plenty of highly detailed images out of it.

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. There are going to be very few situations where longitudinal chromatic aberrations could be an issue (wide angle/small aperture), but there will be the rare close up shot where you might see a tiny bit of fringing.

Lateral chromatic aberrations (LaCA) 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). There is a minor amount of LaCA in images from the “cookie” lens, but it is easily fixed.

The vignette and distortion section is a true mixed bag, as while the Laowa 10C does exceptionally well in the distortion department, it really struggles in the vignette category.

We can see a miniscule amount of barrel distortion that is exaggerated by the close focus distance to the chart. I used a +2 to correct for it, but I doubt you’ll need to correct for anything at typical focus distances. Lines look great.

Vignette is another story, however. It is very heavy at F4 (I pretty much need to max out the sliders), and remains heavy at all tested apertures. This is the area where the engineers had to compromise to keep the lens so small. You’ll most likely want to correct for that vignette, as even at 5.6 or F8 you’ll see some heavy vignette:

Here’s the same image after correction:

That’s a big difference, obviously, and most of us would strongly prefer the corrected version.

So how about sharpness? We’ll do our formal test on the APS-C image circle that the lens is designed for, using the 24MP Sony a6400 for this series of tests. Here’s a look at the test chart:

And here are the F4 crops at nearly 200% magnification, taken from the center, then mid-frame, and then extreme lower right corner:

We find a sharp result in the center of the frame, some drop at the mid-frame, but then the lens holds its own until the last percentage point or two at the extreme edge.

Stopping down to F5.6 provides only a minor boost to center sharpness and contrast:

Over in the corners there is a more even illumination and slightly better contrast, but resolution is largely unchanged.

The corners never get razor sharp, though sharpness seems to peak somewhere between F8 and F11.

Stopping down to F16 and F22 (minimum aperture) causes increased softness due to diffraction, so I recommend avoiding those smallest apertures and staying at F11 as a maximum.

Extreme corners never get amazingly sharp, but most of the image frame has nice, crisp results, which is in itself impressive for such a tiny optic. This image, for example, looks very nice other than the extreme edges, which are only acceptable.

The small maximum aperture of the lens means that getting highly defocused backgrounds are going to be rare, but the ability to get very close to your subject means that you can create some separation of your subject from the background.

Here’s another example.

Getting close with a wide angle lens does tend to exaggerate certain proportions (objects closest to the camera seem stretched), so this will work better with some angles and subjects than others.

Still, you can use that perspective in fun ways at times:

I don’t always love Laowa color rendition, but overall I felt like the colors from the Laowa 10C were fairly nice. I got a lot of great looking images with nice color rendition.

Flare resistance was interesting. In this beach setting looking into the full sun, there is very nice flare resistance with next to no ghosting or loss of contrast.

In this shot, you can see some veiling and a bit of prismatic ghosting. I find it somewhat artistic but a little heavy for my tastes.

Most interesting was this sequence of images. I noticed when composing this shot that there was a certain point where I got this very directional prismatic flare, but just a minor composition change would completely eliminate it.

That’s an interesting effect, but obviously an easily avoidable one if you but change the composition. There is no included lens hood, and this is probably one of the situations where the inclusion of a lens hood would eliminate that particular effect altogether (that may be a good or a bad thing depending on your aesthetic tastes). I summation, however, I would say that flare resistance is fairly good and I don’t think will be a huge issue.

All in all, the Laowa 10C provides a fairly strongly optical performance for such a tiny lens. Vignetting is very heavy, but I’ve seen even worse from larger Laowa lenses. The corners never get compellingly sharp, but for most situations they will probably be acceptably sharp. The low distortion and detail elsewhere is a real positive, however, allowing you to bring along this tiny lens and get nicely detailed wide angle perspectives to perhaps compliment another lens you have along. If you would like to see more images, check out my image gallery here.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I find the Laowa 10mm F4 Cookie lens to be an interesting new chapter in Laowa lens development. There are relatively few “pancake” lenses that come to market, but there are certainly plenty of people who like the concept. In this case I would prefer an autofocusing lens, mostly because I find the crowded real estate on this tiny lens leaves little room for the focus ring. In many ways, I’m most reminded of the tiny Voigtländer 20mm F3.5 I reviewed years ago. That too was a tiny, manual focus wide angle lens, though it was slightly more sophisticated in terms of having an electromagnetic aperture iris and thus electronic communication with the camera. I had a lot of fun with that lens, though, and I suspect that you might feel the same with the Laowa 10C.

It has some real strength aside from the obvious compact size, including very low distortion, good detail across a lot of the frame, and reasonably good control of aberrations and flare. Heavy vignette is the only significant optical flaw.

But that compact size is the headliner here. I was able to bring the Laowa 10C along regardless of what camera bag I was using. The Laowa fit fine in a side or front pocket even of a compact bag like a Lowepro toploader. The ability to bring along such a wide angle of view at so little penalty is going to make this lens very interesting for those who want to travel light or even those that want a wide angle lens to compliment a more conventional zoom or prime focal length. For these people, the price tag of $299 USD for this little “cookie” will be well worth it.

Pros:

Extremely compact size
Well engineered – feels quality
Stylish aesthetic
Very low distortion
Good center and mid-frame sharpness
Good magnification and close focus performance
Focus and aperture rings move smoothly
Good flare resistance overall
Great angle of view in such a compact lens

Cons:

Heavy vignette
No electronics
No weather sealing
Manual focus ring can be a little hard to find by feel

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Keywords: APS-C, Sony a6600, Sony Alpha, a6600 Review, Sony, a6600, Review, Dustin Abbott, a6500, a6400, Alpha 1, Hands On, Video Test, Sharpness, Autofocus, CA, Video AF, Autofocus, Eye AF, Lens, Comparison, Test, Dustinabbott.net, Sample Images, Sample Video, Let the Light In, Burst, Action, #letthelightin

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Laowa 10mm F4 Cookie Lens Image Gallery

Dustin Abbott

July 19th, 2022

By my count this is (at least) the 13^th Laowa lens from Venus Optics that I’ve reviewed. I’ve long felt that Laowa stands out for their courage in tackling challenging and unique projects, including wide angle macro lenses, very large aperture lenses, and now, a tiny “pancake” lens that Laowa quirkily calls a “cookie” lens. This tiny new wide angle lens, the Laowa 10mm F4 Cookie is truly tiny (measuring just 28mm in length weighing only 136g despite its all-metal build by my personal measurements).

Despite such a tiny size, this is a very wide angle of view. It is designed for APS-C cameras, and gives a 15mm full frame equivalent with Sony or Fuji’s 1.5x crop factor, a little tighter with either Canon (1.6x) or M/43 (2x). It’s a LONG way down to my shoes at this focal length!

This isn’t a toy, however, but rather a quality optical instrument capable of producing detailed, rich images.

One thing Laowa has proven very good at, and that is controlling distortion. That remains true even in this tiny lens, so you can get great lines in a photo even without any kind of correction.

A pancake/cookie lens may not be for everyone, but there are real advantages of having such a wide angle of view in a tiny package, so Laowa clearly feels that there will be a productive market for this lens at its reasonable price point of $299 USD. Is it for you? You can get the full picture by either watching my video review or reading my comprehensive text review.

Thanks to Laowa for sending me a review loaner 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 a6400 along with the Sony Alpha 1 which will serve as my benchmark camera for the foreseeable future (my review here).

Images of the Laowa 10mm F4

Images taken with the Laowa 10mm F4

Want to support this channel? Use these affiliate links to shop at: B&H Photo | Amazon | | Camera Canada | Ebay | Make a donation via Paypal

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Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud 1-Year Subscription
Get a discount off all Skylum Editing Software (Luminar, Aurora HDR, AirMagic) by using code DUSTINHDR at checkout:
Visit Dustin’s Amazon Storefront and see his favorite gear

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: APS-C, Sony a6600, Sony Alpha, a6600 Review, Sony, a6600, Review, Dustin Abbott, a6500, a6400, Alpha 1, Hands On, Video Test, Sharpness, Autofocus, CA, Video AF, Autofocus, Eye AF, Lens, Comparison, Test, Dustinabbott.net, Sample Images, Sample Video, Let the Light In, Burst, Action, #letthelightin

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.

Sony E 11mm F1.8 Review

Dustin Abbott

June 16th, 2022

I’ve questioned Sony’s commitment to its APS-C platform in the past, as both camera and lens releases in that space have been few and far between over the past 3 years. Sony’s development on full frame has been rather frenzied during that same period, with a number of new camera and what I consider a golden age for lens development. I’ve reviewed one lens after another that I really, really liked in the full frame space, which tells me that Sony has really hit its stride as a camera lens maker. But APS-C has seemed to be on the back burner. And while I still see a lot of room for Sony to deliver a robust sports-oriented APS-C body (something to contend with the new Canon EOS R7 would be nice!), they are taking large strides to shore up the wide angle end of their APS-C catalog with three releases: the E 10-20mm F4 PZ OSS (Powerzoom), the E 15mm F1.4 G, and the Sony E 11mm F1.8 lens. This isn’t the first time that Sony has done some of its better APS-C lenses in bunches, as the last “G” lenses (mid-tier superior lenses) for APS-C came together in 2019: the Sony E 70-350mm F4.5-6.3 G OSS (my review here) and the Sony E 16-55mm F2.8 G. I’ve been fortunate enough to spend time with all three of these new releases, and I’ve already rolled out my review of the 15mm F1.8 G (my review here), the 10-20mm F4 PowerZoom (my review), and now the least expensive of the three small lenses – the Sony 11mm F1.8.

While the 11mm F1.8 is the cheapest of the 3 (and the only one to not receive the superior “G” branding), it remains one of the most interesting of the three to me because of its combination of focal length, maximum aperture, and compact size. The 11mm has less features relative to the other two lenses (no aperture ring, no PowerZoom, obviously), but at the same time it is more fully featured than most Sony APS-C lenses. Here’s a few of the features:

Excellent image quality
Three aspherical elements (like the 15mm F1.4 G)
Dual linear motors driving autofocus (just like the 15mm F1.4 G)
A focus on video performance, with minimal focus breathing
Linear manual focus for more precise manual focus and repeatable focus changes
More physical controls, including an AF/MF switch and a focus hold button
Dust and moisture resistant design
Close minimum focus of 12cm (Autofocus = 0.20x magnification) or 15cm (Manual Focus = 0.13x magnification)
Smaller and lighter than competing lenses

Though the lens looks a little more spartan than the other two lenses without an aperture ring or the G brand on the side, it is still a very nicely featured little lens, and I’ve been impressed with the optical performance, too. This wide angle glass can definitely deliver some dynamic images in many situations.

The retail price here is $548 USD, and that puts lenses like the Samyang AF 12mm F2 (my review here) on notice, as that third party lens has an MSRP of $399. The wider focal length, wider focal range, and deeper feature set makes that $150 feel worth it, though there is some give and take that I break down in this video. The Sony 11mm F1.8 is capable of giving you lovely images even at F1.8:

So is this a lens you should want in your bag? Join me for my thoughts in this review to help you decide. If you prefer to watch reviews, you can check out my detailed video review below.

I want to thank Sony Canada (and Gentec) for the loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. The opinions here are completely my own. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the Sony a6400 along with the Sony Alpha 1 which will serve as my benchmark camera for the foreseeable future (my review here).

Sony 11mm F1.8 Build, Design and Handling

One of the key areas of emphasis with each of these three new lenses is for them to be compact, which they’ve managed to do here despite the wide focal length and reasonably large maximum aperture. Sony’s APS-C crop factor is 1.5x, meaning that the effective focal length is the equivalent of 16.5mm on full frame. As mentioned previously, the closest competitor for this lens will be the still fairly new Samyang AF 12mm F2 (released almost exactly a year prior). That lens is obviously not quite as wide (an 18mm full frame equivalent) and has a slightly smaller maximum aperture (F2 is 1/3rd stop smaller than F1.8), yet the Sony still manages to be slightly smaller and lighter. The Sony weighs in at 179g (6.3oz), while the Samyang is 213g.

That’s true of the overall length, too, where the Sony is 57mm (2.26″) compared to 59.2mm (2.3″) for the Samyang. The diameter is a bit narrower too, with the Sony measuring at 65mm/2.55″ (by me) compared to 70mm (2.8″) for the Samyang. That is reflected in the filter sizes, too, with the Sony at 55mm and the Samyang having a 62mm front filter thread.

All of this boils down to the fact that Sony has managed to deliver a high performing lens that is truly compact, again proving that premium doesn’t have to mean “big”.

As noted in the intro, Sony has given the 11mm F1.8 a weather sealed build (dust and moisture resistant). The diagram shows a total of 8 seal points through the lens along with the gasket at the lens mount.

As noted, we have no aperture ring here, so aperture will have to be controlled from within the camera (I’ll miss that!). What we have is a focus hold button (which can be programmed to a variety of functions in the camera menu) along with an AF/MF switch, which I always welcome as the most logical and efficient means of switching between the two.

The included lens hood is petal shaped, flares out a bit, and is relatively shallow. It can be reversed for storage without adding too much bulk to the footprint of the lens in a bag.

There is a single ring on the lens, and that is the manual focus ring, which is the most generously sized of the three lenses because of slightly simpler controls. The focus ring moves smoothly, and, as noted, behaves in a linear fashion to allow for focus repeatability, which is very important in video work so that you can set up precise and repeatable focus pulls. The focus action is very light, however, and lacks the precision of the best focus rings.

There is no image stabilization (OSS) in the lens, so you’ll have to depend on in camera stabilization if your camera is so equipped.

Inside we have a seven bladed aperture with rounded blades. The aperture shape will initially stay rounded when stopping the lens down but will eventually become polygonal as the blades start to show their shape. You are not overly likely to see this on a wide angle lens like this, though, as there is little out of focus at smaller aperture.

You can focus as closely as 15cm (while autofocusing), though these new lenses allow you to focus slightly closer (about 12cm) when manually focusing. Magnification will range from 0.13x (AF) to closer to 0.20x when manually focused. Here’s what MFD looks like on my chart test:

And yes, you can clearly see a precursor to the an optical flaw that all of these new lenses share: considerable barrel distortion. The focal plan isn’t as flat as on the other two lenses here, and so you have a sweet spot of focus (and thus sharpness) before the edges warp. You can focus ridiculously close, however, and with a shot like this one I was pretty much bumping the subject with the lens:

There’s really very little to criticize as far as the build and handling go. The lens doesn’t have as many features as the other two lenses, but it is also considerably cheaper than them and is also more feature rich than most Sony APS-C lenses already. The Sony 11mm F1.8 is proof positive of the size and weight savings you can achieve when you do dedicated engineering for a smaller sensor size. This is a very compact package for a lens with this wide a focal length and this large a maximum aperture, and I enjoyed using it.

Sony E 11mm F1.8 Autofocus Performance

The Sony 11mm F1.8 joins the 15mm F1.8 as the first Sony APS-C lenses to come with multiple Linear Focus motors. The 11mm F1.8 has two linear motors, meaning that autofocus is very fast, very quiet, and very accurate.

I had no problem stopping fast action with the lens.

Focus action for video was likewise very smooth, with nice, confident transitions that tended towards smoothness rather than “snappiness”. It’s as if focus speed is calibrated to give nice transitions rather than abrupt ones. The smoothness is heightened by the extremely low focus breathing. There’s nothing that draws your attention to the fact that focus is changing other than a new subject coming into focus. I also had good results when tracking my face for video work, or when following action on the basketball court.

This would be a nice vlogging lens due to the great focal length and excellent focus tracking.

Focus speed for stills was also excellent, with quick acquisitions of subjects and good “stickiness” in staying on the subject. I was able to get accurate focus on the a6400 even with a strongly backlit subject like this:

I got nice focus on Craig as he focused on the landscape with the new 10-20mm F4 PZ lens.

I saw good focus results while taking the lens out with me on the golf course as well.

Throughout my test period I don’t think that I ever heard any noise associated with focus at all. The dual motor focus system delivered fast, quiet, and accurate results. This is a premium focus system…and it shows. I was pleasantly surprised to see the sophisticated focus system in the less expensive lens, and it definitely increases my personal interest in the lens.

Sony 11mm F1.8 Image Quality

The MTF chart for the 1mm F1.8 indicate an extremely strong center and mid-frame performance (even wide open) with corners remaining good but not as exceptional. When stopped down the image quality borders on perfect:

The lens is perfectly capable of producing credible landscape images even at F1.8:

The 11mm F1.8 performs well in a lot of the technical merits, in fact, including a good control of LoCA (Longitudinal Chromatic Aberrations) even in very challenging situations. There is next to no visible fringing in the bokeh circles beyond the subject, and nothing to see in the closer transitions to defocus around the lily-of-the-valley that is the subject.

I also see next to no lateral CA (LaCA) in the corners of the frame in this high contrast area:

That’s a good start in a wide angle, wide aperture prime.

I noted a trend in each of these three new lenses from Sony, however, and that is that the engineers chose the same thing to “let slide” in the optical design. Optical engineers are faced with a series of choices. If size is no object, engineers can work to solve most all optical issues (even better if money is no object!) But if you also want to make a lens compact, you essentially have to choose what to leave up to software to correct and focus on doing what you can. Sony’s engineers have done a good job correcting for most optical flaws in these lenses, but distortion is the weak link in the design. It’s clear that they designed with the idea that software would have to correct the distortion. Each of the three lenses suffered in this regard, with the 11mm coming out as worst offender in this regard. Here’s a look my vignette and distortion chart at 11mm, F1.8:

Ouch! That’s a lot of barrel distortion!

A few general observations. First of all, I framed the chart tight in the viewfinder as I was looking at the corrected result in camera. The uncorrected image is obviously much wider than the viewfinder image to allow for the correction profile to fix things. I suspect this lens is wider than 11mm to allow the corrected image to frame more like 11mm. I compared it with the Samyang AF 12mm, which has very little native distortion. The Sony was much wider prior to correction, but after both lenses were corrected (which meant little with the Samyang), the Sony is still considerably wider:

To achieve my manually corrected result I needed to dial in a lot of distortion correction (+40) along with a significant amount of vignette correction (+69, or slightly under three stops). Even after correction, however, you can see a slight “mustache” pattern as the distortion is non-linear. You’ll want to use the correction profile from Sony to get the cleanest correction, but the good news is that as a first party lens, the Sony 11mm F1.8 will receive premium correction support both in camera and in software, so this shouldn’t be a serious issue for you in real world use.

You will want to correct that distortion, however, as it does show up in real images. You can see a curve to the horizon even with the composition only slightly off center.

This is definitely the optical fly in the ointment of this lens.

So how about resolution and contrast? We’ll get answers from my test chart, which you can see here:

I’ve used the 24 MP Sony a6400 for this test, which is currently as high as Sony’s APS-C cameras venture.

Here are high magnification (about 200%) crops from across the frame at F1.8 (Center, Mid-frame, and lower right corner):

These show a very high level of contrast and resolution in the center and mid-frame, with slightly reduced performance in the corners (though frankly they still look very good).

Stopping down to F2 produces minimal improvements, but there is a little more improvement to be found at F2.8, both in the center of the frame:

…and in the corners, which are very good:

Stopping on down produced a minimal increase in contrast in resolution, with F5.6 being pretty much the sweet spot for maximum performance. Real world landscapes at smaller apertures look amazing, with great contrast and detail across the frame:

Colors and detail are generally excellent, and it produces very pleasing images:

Here’s another:

Minimum aperture is F16, and I would stick to F11 as a limit where possible. Diffraction reduces the appearance of contrast and resolution to the lowest level of any aperture.

Another important design aspect for a wide angle lens is flare resistance. I did see a bit of a ring at wide apertures in certain images (like the one below), but fortunately the effect is actually pretty cool:

Overall flare resistance was very good. I was able to tease out one green blob at smaller apertures (F11), but by and large I could shoot into the sun or bright lights without fear. Sunbursts from the 7 bladed aperture look pretty nice:

I definitely noted a real world difference between the Sony and the Samyang in flare resistance. You can see that the Samyang has loss contrast due to the sun coming through the window on the right while the Sony has retained deep saturation levels in the same situation:

Bokeh is not necessarily the highest priority on a lens like this, but I found the quality of the background blur fairly good when I got really close to a subject and blurred out the background.

A wide angle of view means that you will rarely have the background completely out of focus, and I did notice that things were a little more “jittery” when I was less close the subject:

But overall the performance is most regards was excellent here. The 11mm F1.8 gave me a lot of images I was really happy with:

When you consider how small of a package all of this performance comes in, the Sony E 11mm F1.8 will become a very tempting lens for those looking for a premium APS-C wide angle prime. I’d personally debate between it and the 15mm F1.4 G since I prefer the wider focal length of the 11mm. If you’d like to see more photos, check out my image gallery here.

Conclusion

The Sony 11mm F1.8 is a great addition to the Sony APS-C mirrorless catalog. It comes in at a relatively affordable price point, and though Sony decided to not give this lens the “G” branding of the other two lenses, it is kind of hard to determine why. It is short an aperture ring relative to the 15mm F1.4 G, but it seems just as high performing optically, has the same dual linear focus motors, and has roughly the same level of build quality. It also has the more dramatic and thus desirable focal length, in my opinion.

The list of strengths is long, from the quality of the build (including weather sealing), video focused features, excellent autofocus, and a truly excellent image quality performance. The list of negatives is very short and mostly limited to the strong barrel distortion, though the correction profile will help rectify that. There are many applications for a lens with a focal length like this, and wider maximum aperture means that they aren’t limited to the typical landscapes, though it does those very well.

If I were looking for a wide angle prime for my Sony APS-C camera, the 11mm F1.8 would be at the top of my list. The price point of $549 seems reasonable relative to the performance, and I enjoyed the quality of the images I got from the lens along with the ease of use in the field. This may not a “G” lens, but it still feels pretty (g)reat.

Pros:

Nicely built, extremely compact lens
Quality degree of weather sealing (8 seal points)
Dual linear motors produce fast, quiet focus
Low focus breathing
Consistently excellent sharpness and contrast
Good flare resistance
Good bokeh rendering
Good control of chromatic aberrations
Affordable price tag

Cons:

Strong barrel distortion
Fairly heavy vignette

Gear Used:

Purchase the Sony E 11mm F1.8 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

Purchase the Sony E 15mm F1.4 G @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

Purchase the Sony 10-20mm F4 PZ G @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

Purchase the Samyang AF 12mm F2 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

Purchase the Sony a6600 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase the Sony a6400 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Peak Design Leash Strap: Peak Design Store | B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK

Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud 1-Year Subscription
Exposure Software X6 (Use Code “dustinabbott” to get 10% anything and everything)
Visit Dustin’s Amazon Storefront and see his favorite gear

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: Sony E 11mm Review, Sony 11mm F1.8 Review, Sony 11mm, F1.8, f/1.8, Samyang AF 12mm F2, Samyang, 12mm, F2, APS-C, Sony a6600, Sony Alpha, a6600 Review, Sony, a6600, Review, Dustin Abbott, a6500, a6400, Alpha 1, Hands On, Video Test, Sharpness, Autofocus, CA, Video AF, Autofocus, Eye AF, Lens, Comparison, Test, Dustinabbott.net, Sample Images, Sample Video, Let the Light In, Burst, Action

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.

Sony E 11mm F1.8 Image Gallery

Dustin Abbott

June 16th, 2022

I’ve questioned Sony’s commitment to its APS-C platform in the past, as both camera and lens releases in that space have been few and far between over the past 3 years. Sony’s development on full frame has been rather frenzied during that same period, with a number of new camera and what I consider a golden age for lens development. I’ve reviewed one lens after another that I really, really liked in the full frame space, which tells me that Sony has really hit its stride as a camera lens maker. But APS-C has seemed to be on the back burner. And while I still see a lot of room for Sony to deliver a robust sports-oriented APS-C body (something to contend with the new Canon EOS R7 would be nice!), they are taking large strides to shore up the wide angle end of their APS-C catalog with three releases: the E 10-20mm F4 PZ OSS (Powerzoom), the E 15mm F1.4 G, and the Sony E 11mm F1.8 lens. This isn’t the first time that Sony has done some of its better APS-C lenses in bunches, as the last “G” lenses (mid-tier superior lenses) for APS-C came together in 2019: the Sony E 70-350mm F4.5-6.3 G OSS (my review here) and the Sony E 16-55mm F2.8 G. I’ve been fortunate enough to spend time with all three of these new releases, and I’ve already rolled out my review of the 15mm F1.8 G (my review here), the 10-20mm F4 PowerZoom (my review), and now the least expensive of the three small lenses – the Sony 11mm F1.8.

While the 11mm F1.8 is the cheapest of the 3 (and the only one to not receive the superior “G” branding), it remains one of the most interesting of the three to me because of its combination of focal length, maximum aperture, and compact size. The 11mm has less features relative to the other two lenses (no aperture ring, no PowerZoom, obviously), but at the same time it is more fully featured than most Sony APS-C lenses. Here’s a few of the features:

Excellent image quality
Three aspherical elements (like the 15mm F1.4 G)
Dual linear motors driving autofocus (just like the 15mm F1.4 G)
A focus on video performance, with minimal focus breathing
Linear manual focus for more precise manual focus and repeatable focus changes
More physical controls, including an AF/MF switch and a focus hold button
Dust and moisture resistant design
Close minimum focus of 12cm (Autofocus = 0.20x magnification) or 15cm (Manual Focus = 0.13x magnification)
Smaller and lighter than competing lenses

Though the lens looks a little more spartan than the other two lenses without an aperture ring or the G brand on the side, it is still a very nicely featured little lens, and I’ve been impressed with the optical performance, too. This wide angle glass can definitely deliver some dynamic images in many situations.

The retail price here is $548 USD, and that puts lenses like the Samyang AF 12mm F2 (my review here) on notice, as that third party lens has an MSRP of $399. The wider focal length, wider focal range, and deeper feature set makes that $150 feel worth it, though there is some give and take that I break down in this video. The Sony 11mm F1.8 is capable of giving you lovely images even at F1.8:

So is this a lens you should want in your bag? You can find out my thoughts in my video review or by reading my text review…or just enjoy the photos in the galleries blow.

I want to thank Sony Canada (and Gentec) for the loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. The opinions here are completely my own. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the Sony a6400 along with the Sony Alpha 1 which will serve as my benchmark camera for the foreseeable future (my review here).

Photos of the Sony 11mm F1.8

Photos Taken with the Sony 11mm F1.8

Gear Used:

Purchase the Sony E 11mm F1.8 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

Purchase the Sony E 15mm F1.4 G @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

Purchase the Sony 10-20mm F4 PZ G @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

Purchase the Samyang AF 12mm F2 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

Purchase the Sony a6600 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase the Sony a6400 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Peak Design Leash Strap: Peak Design Store | B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK

Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud 1-Year Subscription
Exposure Software X6 (Use Code “dustinabbott” to get 10% anything and everything)
Visit Dustin’s Amazon Storefront and see his favorite gear

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: Sony E 11mm Review, Sony 11mm F1.8 Review, Sony 11mm, F1.8, f/1.8, Samyang AF 12mm F2, Samyang, 12mm, F2, APS-C, Sony a6600, Sony Alpha, a6600 Review, Sony, a6600, Review, Dustin Abbott, a6500, a6400, Alpha 1, Hands On, Video Test, Sharpness, Autofocus, CA, Video AF, Autofocus, Eye AF, Lens, Comparison, Test, Dustinabbott.net, Sample Images, Sample Video, Let the Light In, Burst, Action

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.

Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 RXD for Fuji X-mount Review

Dustin Abbott

June 19th, 2023

Tamron 11-20mm RXD Build, Handling, and Features

Autofocus and Video Performance

Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 RXD Image Quality

Conclusion

Pros:

Cons:

Purchase the Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 RXD @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

Purchase the Fujifilm X-S20 @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase the Fujifilm X-S10 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase the Fujifilm X-H2 @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

Purchase the Fujifilm X-T5 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Find it Used at KEH

Want to support this channel? Use these affiliate links to shop at: B&H Photo | Amazon | Adorama | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Ebay | Make a donation via Paypal

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Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 RXD (X-Mount) Gallery

Dustin Abbott

June 14th, 2023

Photos of the Tamron 11-20mm RXD

Photos taken with the Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 RXD

Purchase the Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 RXD @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

Purchase the Fujifilm X-S20 @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase the Fujifilm X-S10 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase the Fujifilm X-H2 @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

Purchase the Fujifilm X-T5 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Find it Used at KEH

Want to support this channel? Use these affiliate links to shop at: B&H Photo | Amazon | Adorama | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Ebay | Make a donation via Paypal

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Meike 85mm F1.8 STM Image Gallery

Dustin Abbott

August 1st, 2022

Photos of the Meike 85mm F1.8 STM

Photos taken with the Meike 85mm F1.8 STM

Purchase the Sony a7IV @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

Purchase the Sony Alpha 1 @ Camera Canada | B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase a Sony a9M2 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Want to support this channel? Use these affiliate links to shop at: B&H Photo | Amazon | | Camera Canada | Ebay | Make a donation via Paypal

Use Code “DUSTINHDR” to get $10 off ($15 CDN) any Skylum product: Luminar, Aurora, or AirMagic

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Meike 85mm F1.8 STM Review

Dustin Abbott

August 1st, 2022

Meike 85STMBuild and Handling

Autofocus Performance

Meike 85STM Image Quality

Conclusion

Pros:

Cons:

Purchase the Sony a7IV @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

Purchase the Sony Alpha 1 @ Camera Canada | B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase a Sony a9M2 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Want to support this channel? Use these affiliate links to shop at: B&H Photo | Amazon | | Camera Canada | Ebay | Make a donation via Paypal

Use Code “DUSTINHDR” to get $10 off ($15 CDN) any Skylum product: Luminar, Aurora, or AirMagic

Related Articles at DustinAbbott.net

Laowa 10mm F4 “Cookie” Lens Review

Dustin Abbott

July 19th, 2022

Laowa 10C Build and Handling

Laowa 10C Image Quality

Conclusion

Pros:

Cons:

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Laowa 10mm F4 Cookie Lens Image Gallery

Dustin Abbott

July 19th, 2022

Images of the Laowa 10mm F4

Images taken with the Laowa 10mm F4

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Sony E 11mm F1.8 Review

Dustin Abbott

June 16th, 2022

Sony 11mm F1.8 Build, Design and Handling

Sony E 11mm F1.8 Autofocus Performance

Sony 11mm F1.8 Image Quality

Conclusion

Pros:

Cons: