All right
this right here was the final test for this lens
if it passes, it will have earned a spot in my camera bag
and if it doesn't, then it's gonna go
you might recognize this lens from previous appearances in this youtube channel
oh damn it, it's not working
this is my beloved Samyang 35mm f/1.4
or what's left of it
I love this lens, but it stopped working a few weeks ago
the aperture blades wouldn't open
it's too expensive to fix, so I tried to do it myself
my dad and I opened this lens and got all the way to the aperture blades
took them out of there, and somehow managed to put everything back together
I was hoping it would work...
but it does not work
I am not giving up on this lens just yet
I'm gonna keep trying to make it work again
but as of right now, it's useless
that's why when Meike reached out to me offering this lens right here, for me to try it out
I couldn't say no
I thought it could be, potentially, a replacement for my beloved Samyang lens
and here it is, this is the Meike 50mm f/1.2
and I've been using it for a couple weeks now
I brought it with me on my trip to la mancha
and I've been shooting it here in town, in very different conditions
so, the question is: has this lens earned the spot that the Samyang left vacant in my camera bag?
let's find out
let's begin with the good things
I knew there were at least two reasons why this lens could be a good fit for me and my photography
both of them from a creative point of view
they have nothing to do with image quality
because this is not your lens if what you are after is sharpness
the first one is the focal length
you see, I do most of my photography with a couple of zoom lenses
I love the versatility, the flexibility and the freedom that they give me
but I believe that switching it up every once in a while
and having a constraint like a fixed focal length
can be very good for creativity
and the second one is, of course, the elephant in the room, that very fast aperture of 1.2
now, I'm not a big fan of blurring the background into oblivion
I'd rather use that power in more subtle ways
I have a whole video explaining why I like to shoot wide open
but things get a little bit more extreme when we are talking about apertures like f/1.2
let's take this scene back here as an example
this would be a lovely image no matter what camera or lens I used here
but, by shooting it at 1.2, I can make it better
even if only slightly
in this image, the road leads the viewer to the subject that is the tree
the extreme shallow depth of field makes the road look out of focus on the bottom left of the frame
and it gets more and more in focus as it gets closer to the tree
it is my opinion that that makes it a better leading line
using these kind of apertures we can also add a kind of 3D feeling to the images
as if we were shooting medium format
as I hope you can see on these photographs
things I didn't like about this lens
it's all metal, so it's a heavy lens
and it's not weather sealed
the aperture ring is declicked, it doesn't have hard stops
and that's supposed to be very good for video work but I don't like it for photography as much
I found myself moving it accidentally in between shots and I don't even realize that I do that
it is a manual focusing lens
I personally don't mind too much, I shot a film camera for a long time so I'm used to it
but at this point of my career, I'd rather use an autofocus lens
slowing the image creating process down a little bit can be very good
especially if we are taking more time to find a better composition
but the extra time we spend adjusting settings on the camera,
or in this case manually adjusting this lens
is not necessarily going to make our images any better
in fact, they can make them worse by taking us from the present moment,
from the subject that we are trying to photograph
as we are more concerned about the camera and the lens than the about image itself
I'm happy to report that this lens passed the test
that I was performing at the beginning of the video
and that was about how it handled lights, the street lights, any bright source of light
sadly, many vintage or cheap lenses like this one, don't always handle those lights very well
but I'm very happy with the way this lens behaved at night
and how it rendered those spots, very bright light
given all of this, the good and the bad, I think this lens has earned a spot in my camera bag...
for now
it's still too early to tell, two weeks is just not enough
to know if my view about this lens is going to change in the long term
but I'm liking what I'm seeing so far
I hope this video was helpful
if not about this specific lens, at least about how I look at a new piece of equipment
and the things that I'm looking for when I'm adding something to my camera bag
that's all for today
thank you so much for watching, and see you in the next one!