Urnst Loc: Brownsville, Texas

Does anyone else use these Chinese lenes with mirrorless cameras? I have some native autofocus
lenes but lately I have acquired several Chinese lenses which I enjoy working with. They are small, with high quality metal build and generally less than $100 to purchase. I have an 8mm F4, a 17mm F1.4, a 35mm F1.2 and a 50mm F1.2. They are as sharp as I need them to be and a pleasure to use. I highly recommend using them.

yorkiebyte Loc: Scottsdale, AZ/Bandon by the Sea, OR

I use a Meike 35mm F 1.4 (non - AF) on my Olympus and Lumix bodies quite a bit. A very sharp and contrasty lens. Well made - reminds me of 1960s era Minolta lenses in build. Like tanks!!

Sharp wide open (1.4) thru F 8.0 - I've never used it stopped down from there. The only thing that bothers me is the no clicks F-stop thing. Other than that, a fine, well-built lens!

$48. from eBay!

RichardRW Loc: West coast of Florida

What system are you using??

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

What method are you using for focus and shooting? What mount adapter?

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

I wouldn't think of it. I prefer lenses made by or under the direction of the OEM.
--Bob

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

When you're going cheap(er), old-school, film-era, manual focus, and SLR-based mounts, the OEM options probably don't apply to any of the options now being mounted to glorious mirrorless digital cameras.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

No I have not.
Do have an 8mm from S. Korea that is excellent.
I do not collect lenses that I will not use and for me generally primes are not them today.
With FD lenses I mostly have primes due to the cost and not as good quality of zooms 40 years ago.
Glad to hear the Chinese primes are so good as I see them but not sure.
Perhaps?

Brian45 Loc: Melbourne, Australia

In ten years time the quality of Chinese products will be fully recognised and you probably wouldn't want to buy anything else.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Yes, I have several of those lenses... though I don't know if "made in China" is a fair way of grouping them. Some of these lenses are made in S. Korea.... plus a lot of OEM stuff is made in China... or Thailand... or ???

Canon doesn't offer many EF-M lenses... they currently list eight. Most are zooms. I wanted several smaller primes for use on my M5 (APS-C) camera...

Meike 12mm f/2.8... superb lens bought used for all of $119, including tax & shipping (list price is something like $240, but it often can be found for $199 or less). Very well made and sharp. It's a manual focus/manual aperture lens, which isn't a probably with an ultrawide. Mostly metal... only the lens hood is plastic, but it is good fitting and even has a "latch" to keep it in place (much as Canon is doing with most of their newer lens hoods). The Opteka 12mm f/2.8 appears to be the exact same lens. Uses 72mm filters (no vignetting issues even without "slim" filters).

Rokinon 21mm f/1.4... Another excellent, beautifully made manual focus/manual aperture lens. Lists for $449, but is currently on sale for $339. I bought used and had to replace the original lens hood with a good fitting, metal screw-in. Frankly, I will be selling this lens because the manual focus didn't work for me. I wanted this lens for street photography and auto focus was helpful. So I ended up getting the very compact (and more plasticky) Canon EF-M 22mm f/2 (for which I also ended up buying a screw-in metal lens hood). Someone else using the lens differently might be perfectly happy with the Rokinon (or the identical Samyang variant). Lens uses 58mm filters.

Kamlan 50mm f/1.1 II... Yes, that's correct: f/1.1 aperture. This is possibly the largest aperture short telephoto, crop-only lens anyone makes right now. It's extremely well made and rather hefty. Big, beautiful glass! All metal barrel. Even the supplied, screw-in lens hood is metal (and reverses for storage). The only plastic parts are the front and rear caps. Came with a nice storage pouch, too. This is the latest, version II. I don't know how it was improved over the original, but color rendition is great, it can really blur down backgrounds wonderfully, yet is sharp in the focus plane. It's aperture is formed by 11 curved blades. It sells for $249 new. I got a deal on an open box/demo unit. It's also a manual focus/manual aperture lens. As with the 21mm Rokinon, I'm afraid I have replaced this with an autofocus lens because it's another focal length where for my particular purposes AF will be preferable (I got the Sigma 56mm f/1.4, considerably more expensive). Uses 62mm filters. The aperture ring is "de-clicked" for silent operation when shooting video. Has been selling for $249, but in some mounts is now selling for $209 or even less.

Urnst Loc: Brownsville, Texas

I use Olympus micro four thirds cameras. No adapter is necessary; the lenses mount directly.

Urnst Loc: Brownsville, Texas

I use focus peaking. No adapter is necessary. They connect directly to the camera.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Thanks for the clarification. I need adapters for my Canon FD onto anything other than Canon FD.

Hip Coyote

Another reason evil geniuses use the micro 43 system!

cactuspic Loc: Dallas, TX

Though it is not within the $100 price range, I use the Laowa 2.5-5x lens in the Canon RF mount. It is manual as is the Canon MPE65 macro lens. While it does not have the full magnification range of the Canon (the Canon goes from 1x to 5x), it is a sharper lens. Because of it's smaller profile, it is also easier to light around. Very high quality at a better price point.

Urnst Loc: Brownsville, Texas