I am a 50mm shooter so I must have a 50mm lens for whatever system that I own. For my Nikon Z5, I settled for the cheapest 50mm native Z mount lens I can find, which happened to be the Meike 50mm F1.8 that I got for about USD130/RM600. I tested this lens on the streets and also shooting some food, and I got to say, the lens exceeded my expectations when it comes to optical performance at such a low cost. Since the Nikon Z5 is not my main camera, and I don't use it to make money, it makes sense to keep the lenses on tight budget and this 50mm is the right lens, if you don't want to break the bank. I have shared my full thoughts on the Meike 50mm F1.8 in my video here (click).
I bought the Meike 50mm F1.8 lens with my own money, they did not contact me, and I have no affiliation with them. This is not a review obviously, I see no reason to do so, the lens is a budget option, but I do think it is a great budget lens for Nikon Z. I shall list my quick thoughts in bullet points:
- The lens is sharp wide open, and I am satisfied with the general image output which has good contrast and decent clarity
- The lens flaws are generally well controlled, though there are traces of chromatic aberration, flare and ghosting can be an issue in strong backlight situations, and there is noticeable pincushion distortion, none are dealbreakers.
- I don't like the size of the lens. It is just too huge, in fact it is about the same size as a 85mm F1.8 lens for full frame
- The lens is made of full plastic construction (it has metal mount). It does feel cheap, well, it reflects the price tag here
- The minimum focusing distance is miserable - 0.6m, and you can't do much close up shooting. I wish they have worked on this better, allowing closer focusing, since the lens is bigger than necessary in size
- Autofocus is decent, not blazing fast and definitely not as efficient as native Nikon Z glasses, but it gets the job done
- For such a low price tag, I am not expecting perfection from the Meike 50mm F1.8, but it does deliver good results, and for that, I think this is worth considering if you are on a tight budget.
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What's wrong with 1.8/50 lenses these days? They all seem to have as good a performance as you'd expect from a 1.8/50 since decades, but are blowing all barricades in terms of size. Wasn't there something about compactness being the argument for mirrorless? The 1.8/50 always used to be the cheap standard lens that belongs to each body. And they always had mindblowing performance for low price. You should better go for a 30 year old Nikkor 1.8/50, having better optical performance, 0.25m min focus and is 1/3rd of the size.
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