Solving decentering in a cheap Pergear 35mm f/1.6 lens

Lounge
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Hi,
recently I received two new shiny lenses from Amazon for my Fuji X-T30:

  • Meike 25mm f/1.8
  • Pergear 35mm f/1.6

The first one is a total hopeless disaster despite positive reviews. But we all know how poor QC is from these companies. Not that Fuji itself always gives perfect lenses… but that’s on another level.

The second lens is something entirely different.
I felt that the Pergear 35mm was razor sharp from the first moment I put on the camera: never seen a focus so clear in the EVF. Then I discovered the bad news: while the center and left parts of the image are perfect even wide open, the rightmost part is a different story…
There is a strong astigmatism and you can never reach perfect focus on the right.
Of course decent sharpness can be reached by stopping down to f/5.6 or more, but I wanted more.

So I decided to disassemble the lens to see if there was something clearly wrong in the assembly. I didn’t see anything really suspicious except for a significant play in the inner barrel containing the small lenses within the aperture iris. I tried my luck by trying to center the lenses and then I screwed back in place everything.
And, yes! The lens has become almost perfect now! There is still a residual unsharpness on the right but you should zoom 100% to see it.

So, my message is: if you happen to get a decentered lens of this kind, that is really easy to take apart with no special tools: before sending it back to the seller, try your luck with this procedure…
You may get a great lens for 70 euros :wink: And btw, no chromatic aberration at all, even wide open.

Of course sharpness isn’t everything and this lens suffers badly from flare when f<2.8, but you know, it’s MUCH MUCH better than the Fuji 18-55 and than a Canon FD 35mm f/2.8.

Good luck!

example shot at f/1.6

DSCF4822
DSCF48223200×2132 3.35 MB

1 Like
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Its a shame you didn’t go for the 7Artisans or Pergear 25mm 1.8’s, I have both an they’re excellent for the money.

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Dave,
I had the 7artisans 35mm 1.2 and it was usable just for portraits since the corners were a total mush. I’ll order the Pergear 25mm shortly. I’ll let you know how it ends with China QC :slight_smile:

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@black_daveth yesterday I received the Pergear 25mm. It’s going back to amzn. Huge play in the barrel, no infinity focus. Basically it’s trash. It’s a pity, since if you bend a bit the lens hood on a side the imeages look good…
I think I’m done with these little guys. Maybe it’s time to shell out 300 euros for a Fuji 23mm f/2 with that horrible fake focus.

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that’s a shame, mine is solid with nicely dampened focus, and even came with a properly calibrated hard-stop at infinity.

if you have one more Chinese experiment left in you, I’ve heard very good things from both an optical and QC perspective about these Kamlan lenses.

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I have this lens and I’m not sure what you’re talking about.

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The focus-by-wire. I have the Fuji 18-55 and manual focus is not a pleasure at all…

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Thanks Dave, thanks for the tip, maybe in the future I’ll consider them. I didn’t know that Kamlan built wide angles. The 21mm looks interesting.

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Right, a lot of their lenses use this mechanism. I dont manual focus the fuji, so i never noticed.

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I was puzzled by

as well. I’ve been contemplating this lens and reading a lot of reviews, and the worst I could find was:

The manual focus ring is electronic, so it only works some of the time depending on how you have your camera set.

In SINGLE (S) autofocus mode (selected on-camera) the focus ring works only if you have the shutter half-pressed. It’s ignored if you aren’t half-pressing the shutter.

In CONTINUOUS ( C ) autofocus mode (selected on-camera) the focus ring is completely ignored.

In MANUAL FOCUS ( M ) mode (selected on-camera) the focus ring works only if you don’t have the shutter pressed. It’s ignored if you half-press the shutter.

Confused? Me too; this is why I prefer mechanically-coupled focus rings.

[Fujifilm XF 23mm f/2 Review]