I wasn't very impressed with 35/1.2 manual lenses from Neewer and Meike in the past, but was hoping for better performance from the Zonlai 22/1.8 that is a stop slower and a stop more expensive. 8 elements in 7 groups, nice build quality, should be an OK prime, right?
I am not seeing it.
The build quality is good indeed, the close focus is amazing, the aberrations are well controlled but the lens just is not sharp. Well, it is acceptably sharp right in the centre, but then the sharpness across the image goes down and then up again in weird waves. It looks like the lens was optimised to produce decent corners as it is stopped down to about f/4 but the rest of the image was largely neglected. Can't use it for landscape.
The only other lens I have in this focal length is the Fuji XC 15-45 kit zoom that is f/4.2 at 22 mm. This power zoom is not the finest lens in the world but it is better than the Zonlai prime at any aperture across the whole frame. Here is an example of the SOOC JPEGs shot at about f/4:
A screengrab of the image centre, 100% crop: Zonlai 22/1.8 at f/4 [left] and Fuji XC 15-45 at f/4.2 [right] . Fuji zoom is a touch sharper but Zonlai is not too bad.
Same two images as above but the crop is off centre, halfway between the centre and the edge: Zonlai 22/1.8 [left] at f/4 and Fuji XC 15-45 at f/4.2 [right]. What happened to Zonlai?
I was expecting the prime to be sharper than the zoom at the same f-number, but it is not. Here is a brick wall shot with Zonlai at f/4 [handheld]:
A brick wall test shot: Zonlai 22/1.8 at f/4.0, a full resolution image. Spot some sharp patches alternating with some blurry patches. The barrel distortion is rather bad...
Not sure what I should do next:
POLL
the lens is a dud, get a replacement
0% 0 votes
this is as good as it gets for a f/1.8 wide angle lens that is sold for £120 new, don't bother with the replacement.
100% 11 votes
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FrancoD • Forum Pro • Posts: 20,728
Re: Zonlai 22/1.8, am I expecting too much?
In reply to Dem Bell • Jan 10, 2021
I blame the bricklayers for that wall.
not sure about the f/1.8 shot , possibly not bad at that aperture but the second one of the two houses is pretty soft even compared to your kit lens.
I suspect a decentered lens element.
John Crowe • Veteran Member • Posts: 3,862
Re: Zonlai 22/1.8, am I expecting too much?
In reply to Dem Bell • Jan 11, 2021
1
Never heard of Zonlai until now. I voted for
2. No idea Neweer made lenses either, and never heard of Meike either.
You are better off with vintage manual focus lenses but even then something like a 20/2.8 is not real cheap. A 35/1.4 is even more money.
When you are looking at "fourth party" lenses assume they will be similar at best to the absolute cheapest kit zooms you can find.
Canon EOS 5DS R Canon EF 70-200mm F4L USM Canon TS-E 17mm f/4L Kenko Teleplus Pro 300 AF 1.4x Venus Laowa 12mm F2.8 Zero-D +15 more
FrancoD • Forum Pro • Posts: 20,728
Re: Zonlai 22/1.8, am I expecting too much?
1
Zonlai also sell a 25mm f/1.8 that is also sold as 7Artisans, Discover and Hengyijia.
Andersonm • Senior Member • Posts: 1,121
Re: Zonlai 22/1.8, am I expecting too much?
In reply to Dem Bell • Jan 11, 2021
1
£120 new is dirt cheap. Production cost is likely less than £10 for each piece of glass inside. Can't expect much.
High quality photography equiment unfortunately costs some money. On the upside, if you buy good quality used, it shouldn't drop in value.
Olympus OM-D E-M5 Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 45mm F1.8 Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 12mm 1:2 Panasonic 20mm F1.7 II Panasonic Leica DG Summilux 15mm F1.7 ASPH
Valdai21 • Regular Member • Posts: 381
Re: Zonlai 22/1.8, am I expecting too much?
In reply to Dem Bell • Jan 11, 2021
1
I think it's to be expected from a 120$ lens. There is probably a lot of sample variations. If you return it, you may got a better one, or even worse.
nail33 • Senior Member • Posts: 1,127
Re: Zonlai 22/1.8, am I expecting too much?
In reply to Dem Bell • Jan 11, 2021
Andersonm • Senior Member • Posts: 1,121
Re: Zonlai 22/1.8, am I expecting too much?
In reply to nail33 • Jan 11, 2021
For lens manufacturers and lenses like this, I think the probability is quite high that they manually select good lenses to send to reviewers, unfortunately.
Olympus OM-D E-M5 Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 45mm F1.8 Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 12mm 1:2 Panasonic 20mm F1.7 II Panasonic Leica DG Summilux 15mm F1.7 ASPH
Martin_99 • Veteran Member • Posts: 5,426
Re: Zonlai 22/1.8, am I expecting too much?
In reply to Dem Bell • Jan 11, 2021
2
Zonlai 22/1.8, am I expecting too much?
If I would buy cheap chinese lens, I certainly wouldn't do comparisons of 100% crops. If you like the photos without pixel peeping, keep the lens.
Sony a6400 Sigma 56mm F1.4 DC DN | C Sony E 70-350mm F4.5-6.3 G OSS Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 Sigma 23mm F1.4
OP Dem Bell • Senior Member • Posts: 1,383
Re: Zonlai 22/1.8, am I expecting too much?
In reply to nail33 • Jan 11, 2021
nail33 wrote:Here is a review of this lens:
//dustinabbott.net/2018/04/zonlai-22mm-f-1-8-final-review/
Thanks. I read this review before I bought the lens. Unfortunately, it does not have full resolution images available to download and most lenses will look sharp when you down sample the image to 1.5 Mpx.
I also looked through images on flickr which does not typically have the f-ratio for a manual lens. Some images were worse than others, some where quite good. There was one shot of a brick wall that was reassuringly sharp [probably shot at f/11, now I've tried this lens].
OP Dem Bell • Senior Member • Posts: 1,383
Re: Zonlai 22/1.8, am I expecting too much?
In reply to Dem Bell • Jan 11, 2021
Thank you everyone for your replies, much appreciated.
I suppose I should be surprised not by how bad the Zonlai is but by how good the Fuji XC 15-45 is. Sure, the Fuji kit lens cannot do f/1.8, but at f/4.0 and above there is no point of having the Zonlai. Plus the zoom has a 3-stop OIS and can go anywhere between 15mm and 45mm. This 136-gram bag of primes can be had "used as new" for about £60-£70 on the fleabay.
I don't know how Zonlai manage to sell their 22/1.8 prime for twice as much, but I'm sending mine back. I know it is not all about sharpness and I have a shoe box worth of vintage glass to prove that. This lens is just weird, at least my copy anyway.
Thanks again for your collective wisdom. The verdict was unanimous.
beagle1 • Forum Pro • Posts: 11,922
Re: Zonlai 22/1.8, am I expecting too much?
In reply to Dem Bell • Jan 12, 2021
Dem Bell wrote:I wasn't very impressed with 35/1.2 manual lenses from Neewer and Meike in the past, but was hoping for better performance from the Zonlai 22/1.8 that is a stop slower and a stop more expensive. 8 elements in 7 groups, nice build quality, should be an OK prime, right?
I am not seeing it.
The build quality is good indeed, the close focus is amazing, the aberrations are well controlled but the lens just is not sharp. Well, it is acceptably sharp right in the centre, but then the sharpness across the image goes down and then up again in weird waves. It looks like the lens was optimised to produce decent corners as it is stopped down to about f/4 but the rest of the image was largely neglected. Can't use it for landscape.
The only other lens I have in this focal length is the Fuji XC 15-45 kit zoom that is f/4.2 at 22 mm. This power zoom is not the finest lens in the world but it is better than the Zonlai prime at any aperture across the whole frame. Here is an example of the SOOC JPEGs shot at about f/4:
A screengrab of the image centre, 100% crop: Zonlai 22/1.8 at f/4 [left] and Fuji XC 15-45 at f/4.2 [right] . Fuji zoom is a touch sharper but Zonlai is not too bad.
Same two images as above but the crop is off centre, halfway between the centre and the edge: Zonlai 22/1.8 [left] at f/4 and Fuji XC 15-45 at f/4.2 [right]. What happened to Zonlai?
I was expecting the prime to be sharper than the zoom at the same f-number, but it is not. Here is a brick wall shot with Zonlai at f/4 [handheld]:
A brick wall test shot: Zonlai 22/1.8 at f/4.0, a full resolution image. Spot some sharp patches alternating with some blurry patches. The barrel distortion is rather bad...
Not sure what I should do next:
maybe - My $100 Canon 22mm f/2 pancake is better but hey, it's cheap
www.flickr.com/photos/mmirrorless
Re: Zonlai 22/1.8, am I expecting too much?
In reply to Dem Bell • Jan 12, 2021
1
Dem Bell wrote: Well, it is acceptably sharp right in the centre, but then the sharpness across the image goes down and then up again in weird waves. It looks like the lens was optimised to produce decent corners as it is stopped down to about f/4 but the rest of the image was largely neglected. Can't use it for landscape.
The phenomenon you're describing here sounds like a case of field curvature, which is a fairly commonplace flaw in lenses like this one. I don't think you're likely to get a significantly better copy. That said, the lens could be fine for certain types of photography, where corner-to-corner sharpness isn't mandatory. [Or you could just not worry about it too much and shoot whatever you like, which tends to be my approach!]
Sony a6300 Sony E 70-350mm F4.5-6.3 G OSS Sigma 35mm F2 DG DN Sony FE 24mm F2.8 G Sigma 18-50mm F2.8
OP Dem Bell • Senior Member • Posts: 1,383
Re: Zonlai 22/1.8, am I expecting too much?
2
theworstphotographerontheinternet wrote:Dem Bell wrote: Well, it is acceptably sharp right in the centre, but then the sharpness across the image goes down and then up again in weird waves. It looks like the lens was optimised to produce decent corners as it is stopped down to about f/4 but the rest of the image was largely neglected. Can't use it for landscape.The phenomenon you're describing here sounds like a case of field curvature,
Thank you, I also think this is what it is. If I mark the blurry areas in the brick wall shot, they make a big thick circle around the centre. The centre is sharp, the corners are sharp but the area between the centre and the corneres is blurry. I can still see this blurry circle at f/8.
Any shot with a texture [like a field of grass] shows this unexpected variation in blur.
which is a fairly commonplace flaw in lenses like this one. I don't think you're likely to get a significantly better copy.
I agree. It looks like this is a design feature. Now I am aware of the problem, I can see it in some images on Flickr. Don't need to zoom in 100%.
That said, the lens could be fine for certain types of photography, where corner-to-corner sharpness isn't mandatory.
Agree, this pattern doesn't show up in close up images ala a dandelion in the sea of blur. Stopping down to f/11 also helps.
[Or you could just not worry about it too much and shoot whatever you like, which tends to be my approach!]
Nah, I think sticking with the kit zoom as a walkabout lens is my preferred option.
Re: Zonlai 22/1.8, am I expecting too much?
In reply to Dem Bell • Jan 13, 2021
Yes.
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