Joined in 2023 
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It looks like the lable “ made in China” is no longer something photographers are too skeptical of. I have the 7Art 25 1.8 and the Meike 35 1.7, and FD 50 1.4 Chrome nose, Quantaray 135 2.8 & Canon 300 4.0. It depends on what you want to shoot, but all the mf glass is very cheap and has pretty good iq. If you switch focus lever on the front of the camera to “M” position, the manual focus assist is activated. I use focus peaking with highlight or “standard” focus peaking (zooming) without any highlighting and still can’t decide which one is better. Highlighting sometimes highlights things mistakenly and obscures the detail, but then I make mistakes without the highlighting as well. Third option “digital split image” wasn’t very useful for me. You can cycle between these modes by long pressing the rear wheel. As promised here's a follow-up comparison shots between 7artisans 25mm f1.8, Sony FE28mm f2.0, Sony PZ 18-105 f4.0. DoF - well if this really is your critical need - then just get a legacy 50mm F1.8 lens (becomes a 100mm equivalent on an MFT camera) and at 2 meters focus distance the DoF will be only 8cm while the kit zoom at 42mm will have a DoF of 37cm at F5.6 and 2 metres focus point.
focusing ring and aperture ring too close together, easy to move aperture ring unintentionally while focusing, the problem is negated with a sugru focusing tab I read a review of the Pergear that made me think it was worth trying - but I ended up just getting the Fuji 23/2 instead, and a Meike 28/2.8 for when I want something smaller and MF. I love the Meike 28/2.8 it's one of the most underrated cheap MF lenses for Fuji and Sony right now.
I received my lens on the 21st of this month when I watched the solar eclipse from my front walkway :-). I noticed that aperture ring is quite off. I did a very simple non-scientific test — I set the camera on ISO 200, lens on f/2 and tuned the exposition compensation so that shutter speed falls on 1/100s. Then I switched lens to f/4, f/8 and f/16 to see what’s the shutter speed, expecting that it should go down by the factor of 4 (since I’m testing 2 stop differences). Results (sorry for the table look): | Aperture | f/2 | f/4 | f/8 | f/16 I think it fits well design-wise with the Fuji aesthetics. With my Fuji XT-10 it forms a small and well balanced combo. Handling and build quality Focusing ring I just wanted you to know how I feel about the lens. It's not a Leica nor is it probably as good as most fast primes in its focal length but I just have fun taking it out for a spin so to speak. Aperture ring on Hengyijia is a little bit worse — from f/2 to f/8 it’s a little looser and from f/1.8 to f/2 and f/8 to f/16 it’s tighter and you need a bit more force. It also feels like there is some dust particles in the mechanism which makes the change not totally smooth as in the Discover copy. But these “defects” don’t present any real problem in use.
One note to the camera — viewfinder of my XT-10 is relatively small which is not ideal for manual focus. Having XT-1/XT-2 with their much larger viewfinder would probably make the experience better with more images in focus. Macro MPB puts photo and video kit into more hands, more sustainably. Every month, visual storytellers sell more than 20,000 cameras and lenses to MPB. Choose used and get affordable access to kit that doesn’t cost the earth. size - well this is where the 7-artisans wins - but, for manual control with a viewfinder the 7-artisans puts the control rings very close to the camera body. I find that a legacy lens with adaptor puts the aperture and focus rings exactly under my left hand fingers - so easier to use in practice. Today I thought I'd take it for a walk in one of our town's pleasant parks just to try it out. I'll post some images from that lens made a few hours ago. None of my pictures are earth shatteringly precious or even very interesting. In addition I had trouble finding focus using the outer focus ring on the lens - probably because my 74 year old eyesight isn't really top notch anymore nor am I used to, as I once was, manual focusing. However, IMHO, I find the lens quite acceptable and a little gem for the price.The Meike 25/1.8 is OK. I don't like the rendering as much as the 7artisans 25/1.8, but it's capable of getting sharp enough across the field at f/8. As mention in my previous post center sharpness for the 7artisans is very good and I can't tell any difference from the FE28mm (edit - closer look and the FE28 is sharper at all apertures) and also a tad better than the 18-105 zoom (edit - pretty close). But the corners you can obviously see the problem. After reading the positive posts about the little Pergear 25mm from Sr.Cordeiro and jbroon37, I'm more than a little impressed. Some years ago I got the M43 version of this lens and was totally surprised by how good it was. The 25mm 1.8 is about the same size as an Industar 50mm 2.8, for anyone familiar with old Soviet rangefinder lenses, projecting forward slightly more than the width of my X-Pro1 body, with the tapered-in body style of Fuji's 23mm and 35mm f2 native lenses. Operation is better than any Russian lens I've owned, more German in feel than anything. The finish is virtually identical to the X-Pro, and aesthetically a good match.
In the last few weeks, we covered a couple of new Chinese Fujifilm X mount lenses here on FujiRumors, such as the brand new 7Artisans 60mm F2.8 1:1 Macro and the Kamlan 50mm f/1.1 MK II. The wide manual focus ring is electronic and super-silky-smooth in its action. There is just the right amount of friction to ensure it is not accidentally turned. AF is driven by an accurate and almost silent Linear Motor, and focus can be acquired in as little as 0.04s. Focusing is down to 0.19m, for a maximum magnification of 0.2x, or 1:5. The only complaint I have is the focus scale, which is sufficiently at odds with the reality through the EVF to make scale/zone focus a non-starter. The barrel contains feet and metre distance engravings, progressing (in feet) from 0.6, 1, 2, 5, 16 and infinity markings. Subjects at approximately 5ft - pin sharp at f1.8 though the EVF - showed closer to the 16 ft than 5 ft markings, and the void between the two makes hyperfocal shooting a gamble. It's possible, but you'd have to work out your own sweet spot and most users will confirm distance through the viewfinder. I assume the discrepancy is the result of the same lens being produced for a variety of sensor formats. I'm thinking of getting this lens as a wider and smaller alternative to the FD. Would you suggest I just get the Panasonic 25 f1.7 instead? in extremely sunny weather it seems to be sometimes difficult to see what’s in focus and what’s not. I had this problem particularly on snow — snow produced a lot of highlights in the viewfinder which is again similar to focus peaking highlights. I mis-focused several images because of this. Split image manual focus assist might be better in this use case.I also had the 7artisans 25/1.8 for my Sony. I liked the rendering of the 7artisans - more than the 23/2 of the X100S - but it was kind of weird. It had a midfield weakness that got worse as you stopped it down. Wide open for bokeh detail shots, environmental portraits it was great - but it was rubbish for landscapes at f/8, with a sharp center, sharp edges and corners, and a fuzzy midfield donut. Can anyone compare the sharpeness to an old FD 50mm f1.8? I'm looking for something lighter and wider. This lens seems like the perfect option. optical quality - even the humblest Vivitar or Hoya 28mm will outperform the 7-artisans. Both need a good lens hood to perform at their best (and remember to buy a telephoto length one as this is for M4/3 crop factor use) https://alikgriffin.com/pergear-25mm-f1-8-first-impressions-sample-images-a-few-problems-but-a-ton-of-fun/
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