Meike 85mm f1.4 AF - A new Cream Machine

Having recently reviewed a couple of other Meike lenses, I was asked to take a look at their 85mm f1.4. I'm an absolute sucker for 85mm lenses. There's something about the field of view of an 85 that suits my eye and the proportion of lens size to front element size has always lured me. This goes right back to my first Nikkor 85/1.8 with a slightly bulbous front element and was cemented the first time I ever saw an 85mm f1.4. It was love at first sight. I've owned way too many in this focal length over time but a few have left an indelible mark.

In their day these lenses were either aspirations or very significant financial investments. Indeed Nikon still list the 85/1.4 G at £1600+.

Meike, well known for their cost effective solutions, released this lens last year. It was part of a step change from Chinese manufacturers that produced full spec, autofocus lenses with special elements and promising levels of performance once only associated with the most expensive offerings. How did they do with this one? Read on.

First a few facts and figures.

A few aspects strike you immediately. This is a substantial lens; falling somewhere between the Nikon G and the Sigma Art in both size and weight when the necessary FTZ is taken into account for use with the Z cameras. It comes in at 735g.

There's a lot of glass inside. 13 elements in 8 groups including 4 ED and two high refractive index. This is a design that would have been reserved for the highest cost tiers not many years ago. Currently Meike have this lens priced at between £351 and £512.

The lens is nicely finished in the now usual mix of metal and composites. It feels weighty of course - there's a lot of glass and glass is heavy. There is nothing to find fault with in my view. Meike make no claims about weatherproofing but there is their now standard red rubber gasket at the lens mount. I assume this is to protect the USBc firmware update port on the mount. Incidentally, the Meike firmware update process makes many others look as though they were invented in the stone age.

As a further indication of the upper tier level of this lens, it includes a (Fn) function button which can be assigned by the user via the camera menu.

I've used this lens on my Z7 handheld and in my more usual tripod mode. It handles well given that it has no pretensions as a lightweight offering. It's all about the aperture and performance.

Focus is accurate, quick and quiet - I've no comment on video or moving objects, they're not my area of expertise. With any such wide aperture lens at maximum aperture, it's always worth checking focus if you have selected a specific leaf, stem or bud.

85/1.4 lenses can deliver a distinct look in landscape photography and this Meike is no exception. Stop down to f5.6/f8 and you have an very sharp short tele. Open up towards f1.4 and the backgrounds start to melt away. We tend to judge 85/1.4’s by how sharp they are wide open and how much we like the way they render the out of focus areas, especially backgrounds.

This Meike passes both tests exceptionally well to my eye. Wide open, centre sharpness is at least good. The edges lag only a little behind. Stop down a touch and everything moves up to very good across the frame. I find the out of focus areas a creamy delight. Much of the output of this lens reminds me of the Nikon 85/1.4 AF-D ( The original cream machine) but this sample of the Meike is perhaps a tad crisper wide open and Chromatic Aberration is much better controlled. The overall bokeh feel is very similar. I no longer have a Nikon example to show direct side by side comparisons but I've made enough exposures over the years to feel confident about my judgments ( allowing for any sample variation). My basic testing suggests that the results should delight most portrait photographers. That's not my field but it's similar enough to the old Nikkor to suggest this should be the case

That that should tell the reader that this is a very good lens indeed and especially for the money. The compromise, in my view, is as it has always been for fast lenses, size and weight.

This is a good lens and for some close to perfect. It does not offer the biting clinical sharpness of a Nikon Z 85mm f1.8Z and in terms of pure sharpness offers no real advantage over the 1.8 Meike offering even when stopped down. However when you open this lens up and let it breathe, there is a bit of magic about it. As mentioned above it reminds me greatly of the Nikkor Af-d but with the Chriomatic Aberration cured. If my memory is accurate and my comparisions with existing images on file secure, its a little crisper wide open but doesnt quite reach the same sharpness when stopped down. It gets to very good rather than outstanding perhaps.

I’ve enjoyed using it and find the rendering of both the in and out of focus areas really pleasing. I think as a buying choice the decision is very easy for Z mount cameras. If you want clinical sharpness, buy the Nikkor 85/1.8Z. If you want something with a little sprinkling of magic and don’t want the weight and inconvenience of an FTZ, buy this Meike.