Pergear 25mm f/1.8 Review – A Brand New Lens for my Sony for ~£50!

By Hamish Gill

A little while ago Pergear offered to loan me some lenses to review. I declined at the time, but having recently been shooting with an old Sony NEX-5R I bought a as cheapo digital to play with, I figured I might as well try a low-budget lens for it. I took a look at their website and found the Pergear 25mm f/1.8 for $68 USD – that’s less than £50 in today’s money. How bad, or indeed good, could it possibly be?

The short answer is that for ~£50, it’s quite remarkable. How it’s possible to make a fully functional lens for this sort of cash blows my mind. Within the project I’m working on to bring lenses to market that are made in the U.K. (Omnar Lenses), that sort of cash would only cover a fraction of the machining costs, never mind optics, assembly, painting, a box, and a profit margin. The Pergear 25mm f/1.8 even comes with a little neoprene carry case…!

Build and Mechanical Feel

So for this little money, you would think it must be a pile of junk, right? Well, actually no. It’s obviously not the finest quality lens I’ve ever used, but surprisingly it’s far from the worst either. A lot of these very inexpensive lenses have a very cheap almost rubbery feeling focus feel. The Pergear 25mm 1.8 doesn’t have that feeling – the focusing is actually quite smooth and even feeling throughout the range. How it would stand up to use over time is another matter, but fresh out of the box and after the month or so I’ve had it, it’s been fine.

How it feels aside, it’s definitely worth noting that the focus travel is only about 90 degrees, and that’s all the way from 0.2m to infinity. I’m not sure I have used a lens with such a broad focusing range and such a short focusing throw…? The aperture is un-clicked too. Almost all cheap Chinese lenses are, so no surprises there. The control is smooth enough though, and the marketing guff, make note of the 12-bladed iris that creates a nice round aperture… a decagon, and therefore 10 blades by my count, but who’s counting…?

There’s no lens-to-camera communication or course, but the mount and all the other external parts it’s made of are all metal. The result of all this is a lens that, to a degree at least, belies it’s £50 price tag.

The Pergear 25mm In Use

As I’ve said, I’ve recently been carrying an old Sony NEX-5R around with me. I bought it to experiment with the Funleader 18mm f/8 and enjoyed the combo quite a lot. I enjoyed it so much, that I wondered what I might get out of shooting the NEX-5R with a cheapo lens that actually focuses and has an adjustable aperture. That was when I got back in touch with Pergear and found this lens to play with.

The NEX-5R is a very limited camera, but in many respects, that’s actually what I like about it. It’s old, so it doesn’t have a lot of the superfluous-to-me features more modern mirrorless cameras do. Of course, there was one thing I didn’t consider and that was the lack of focus peaking. I realised this as soon as I mounted the lens to the camera – it felt like an issue to begin with, but I soon found it wasn’t going to be as much as an issue as I’d originally feared.

(Edit: See comments section below – it turns out the NEX-5R does have focus peaking, I just hadn’t spotted it in the menu)

For a start, despite the Pergear 25mm being a f/1.8 lens, it’s still a 25mm so the depth of field even wide open is quite forgiving. Additionally, what’s in focus looks in focus on the screen on the back of the camera. I’m not sure if by design or not, but when establishing focus with the NEX-5R, the area that’s in focus sort of shimmers, perhaps through some sort of aliasing. The lens in use needs to be sharp-enough for this to work, but fortunately – even wide open – the Pergear is indeed sharp enough.

As such, whilst focusing for portraits etc wide open isn’t exactly a doddle on this camera, I’ve found my hit rate to be surprisingly high. And of course, using the depth of field scale for stopped-down shots is very easy too.

Pergear 25mm focus throw
Pergear 25mm focus throw – the whole range is visible here

All that said, I must admit, coming from my experiences with the Meyer lenses I have recently been reviewing, the short focus throw took a bit of getting used to. Where some people might find the Meyer lens’ throw to be a bit extreme in length, the Pergear 25mm f/1.8 is the opposite. Fortunately, this is just something that I needed to get used to rather than specifically being a dal breaker. In fact, once I was used to it, I found myself being able to focus quite quickly and effectively.

Pergear 25mm past infinity
Pergear 25mm past infinity

Focus scale accuracy

One of the things I was quite quick to check was how accurate the focus scale is. Quite often these cheap lenses come out of the factory with a slightly mis-calibrated focus control. On the Pergear 25mm 1.8, the focus does indeed go past infinity – though in its defence, if you line the infinity mark with the focus indication mark, it does indeed seem to be accurate. It’s just worth noting that the lens will focus past infinity if the control is rotated far enough, which it can be as the end stop isn’t at the infinity mark.

Image quality

Aside from the awe at the fact that this £50 Pergear 25mm f/1.8 lens wasn’t total trash mechanically, I was also a little surprised when I started shooting with it. Ok, to be fair, I wasn’t that surprised as I had already read a couple of reviews. I just didn’t expect to get as much joy out of it as I did – it’s far from perfect, optically speaking, but it definitely has some positive character traits that I could make use out of. That said, I should strongly caveat that comment by saying there have been a few situations where I have found some of its strong character traits a little obstructive.

To begin with, it flares. A lot. Wide open pointing in the vaguest direction of any sort of light source and you can expect some fairly heavy veiling flare. Even stopping fairly far down doesn’t completely solve this… though to be fair, I’d imagine using the hood would have solved this following issue – the light was above me between me and the chairs.

Then there is the ring of flare (probably from internal reflections) and the ghosting. Some, admittedly, might be able to harness this, but for my money, I found it to be a little much. I have actually enhanced the contrast in this shot to help draw the issue out from the massive amount of veiling flare that occured when pointing the lens toward the sun.

Pergear 25mm 1.8

It also has stacks of barrel distortion and suffers from colour fringing and vignettes – though all of these issues seem to be relatively fixable in post. You can see more of the veiling issues and the barrel distortion here:

Pergear 25mm 1.8

Have a zoom in on this image on flickr, and you will see some colour aberrations:

Pergear 25mm 1.8

All is not lost though. Given the right sort of light (not shining toward the lens) it does do contrast and pop. And actually, it’s quite sharp too – certainly sharp enough for the NEX-5R which is only 16mp.

Pergear 25mm 1.8

For maximum sharpness, you do need to keep the subject quite close to the centre mind – I found that if I framed my subject out of the centre of the frame, every time I would find myself with a softer photo, regardless of how hard I tried to focus. I think there might be some field curvature at play as well as some sort of other aberration that causes sharpness falloff.

Pergear 25mm 1.8

Finally, bokeh. This is where the pleasant surprise came in – it’s really nice. With the subject in the mid-distance, it’s perhaps just ok, but when taking shots that take advantage of the 20cm close focusing, or even portrait distance, the bokeh is really very pleasant. There’s little about it that distracts – even given foliage or other potential problem causing backgrounds.

Pergear 25mm 1.8

A Couple of Photos

Pergear 25mm 1.8 Pergear 25mm 1.8 Pergear 25mm 1.8 Pergear 25mm 1.8

Final Thoughts on the Pergear 25mm

When I first posted an image of this lens on my social media, someone commented that I would probably be better off buying a vintage lens. To a degree, I think there is something to be said for that statement – but that’s mostly because I enjoy shooting classic lenses.

The reality is though, for the money, this pergear 25mm f/1.8 does offer a few advantages over shooting a classic lens. It’s Sony e-mount for a start, so is small on the camera body and doesn’t need an adapter. It’s also a 25mm, giving it a ~37-40mm equivalent on APS-C cameras – hard to find in the classic lens world, especially combined with the f/1.8 maximum aperture.

Taking the optical traits out of the equation for a minute, for the £50 it goes for, it does make for a quite compelling option for someone looking for a cheap, semi-wide fast manual focus prime for their mirrorless camera.

Take the optical traits into account, and potential purchasers might need to give is a bit more thought. The flare, I think, is the caveat emptor here. I could see some people loving it – for anyone looking for a massive chunk of vieling flare and internal reflection issues to harness, there’s a lot to harness here. For anyone looking for a daily lens to often snap closer-to-wide-open, the flare might be an hinderance sometimes.

Pergear 25mm 1.8 Pergear 25mm 1.8

For all the “issues” with the flare though, it’s hard not to like the central sharpness, bit of a vignette and really nice bokeh for closer-up family snaps. That’s what I have used it for the most, and for that I have enjoyed it. Not convinced? Check out this review – Alik, the author, has done a much better job of harnessing the lens’s optical traits within his style and process than I have!

It’s also quick to focus (once you get used to the focus throw being so short), and for the unexpectedly good mechanical feeling, is even a nice lens to use. And let’s not forget, it’s ~£50. For all the Pergear 25mm f/1.8 offers, it’s hard to quibble at that price. I just hope the build quality stands up to longer-term use.

You can but the Pergear 25mm f/1.8 off their website here (affiliate link)

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About The Author

By Hamish Gill
I started taking photos at the age of 9. Since then I've taken photos for a hobby, sold cameras for a living, and for a little more than decade I've been a professional photographer and, of course, weekly contributor to 35mmc.
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Comments

Parallax Enjoyer on Pergear 25mm f/1.8 Review – A Brand New Lens for my Sony for ~£50!

Comment posted: 03/08/2022

I tried this out because I didn't have this focal length on my Fuji. The filter thread area has flaked off and shown rust after a year of ownership.

So it's basically $68 worth of lens. You're not getting more for your money. I got a few decent photos out of it and has convinced me to go for the Fuji 27mm focal length. Buy cheap, pay twice is undefeated!
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Kody K on Pergear 25mm f/1.8 Review – A Brand New Lens for my Sony for ~£50!

Comment posted: 28/07/2021

Hi Hamish. Fantastic article as always. I too picked up an NEX-5R a while back to use exclusively with vintage and 7Artisans lenses. Am able to use focus peaking on mine. In the setup menu I enabled Focus Peaking (high) and elected to use the red color. The camera is running firmware version 1.0.
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Hamish Gill replied:

Comment posted: 28/07/2021

HA! You're right! I did go through the menu, but didn't see it! Thanks for that!

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Louis Boothman on Pergear 25mm f/1.8 Review – A Brand New Lens for my Sony for ~£50!

Comment posted: 26/07/2021

Great write up Hamish. I bought the same lens in X mount and took it with me on a week away only last week. It is a keeper, I mirror your findings with the flaring but I haven't found it to be too much of a hindrance just yet. No signs of it on a resent sun rise session.
I've also been enjoying a good sweet spot for street photography at F8 and 10ft, accurate scale and sharp.
The only downside is that it doesn't seem to be a true 1.8 aperture when compared to my other lenses.
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Hamish Gill replied:

Comment posted: 26/07/2021

I did wonder about the actual transmission - how far short do you think it might be?

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Terry B replied:

Comment posted: 26/07/2021

Interesting, Hamish. Without access to a T stopped lens for reference, I should have thought arriving at a comparison against other lenses would be a bit hit and miss, perhaps.

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Louis Boothman replied:

Comment posted: 26/07/2021

Comparing with my XC35F2 it starts to pair up around 2.5 it seems

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Matthias Steck on Pergear 25mm f/1.8 Review – A Brand New Lens for my Sony for ~£50!

Comment posted: 26/07/2021

Thanks for this article. I have the Pergear 1.8/25mm too, using it occasionally on my Sony A6000. It's sharp enough to use it on the 24 MP APS-C Sensor and Focus Peaking on the A6000 makes focusing much easier.
I had much less issues with veiling flare, but I always use it with the hood it came with. But with the sun inside the frame I also get massive flare und ghots even with the hood.
I made al little comparison with the Pergear 1.8/25mm and my old Minolta MC W.Rokkor-SI 2.8/24mm (twice as big, three times as heavy) on the Sony A6000 and the Pergear is clearly better in almost every regard.

I've also the Pergear 1.6/35mm which is optically even better than the 1.8/25mm better at a similar price tag.
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Hamish Gill replied:

Comment posted: 26/07/2021

I did wonder about the hood - I have sort of come to the conclusion that I should conduct all of my reviews without hoods since i never use them. I should probably either try them or make more of a point that I'm not using them though.

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Steve B on Pergear 25mm f/1.8 Review – A Brand New Lens for my Sony for ~£50!

Comment posted: 26/07/2021

Great to see this review on here. I 've had my eye on this one or the Meike 28mm. Not sure which one to go with. I already have the Zonlai 22mm, so a 28mm might better suit my needs
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Bob Janes on Pergear 25mm f/1.8 Review – A Brand New Lens for my Sony for ~£50!

Comment posted: 26/07/2021

I've also been quite impressed with cheap Pergear lenses.
I treated myself to their little 10mm f/8.0 APS-C fisheye (no apertures, but it does focus!)
Mechanical quality is impressive. The corners on my NEX-7 are very magenta, but that is due to the intolerance of the sensor on that camera to lenses with the rear element so close to the sensor. The 10 even makes a reasonable go at being a circular(-ish) fisheye on a full-frame camera..
At the prices being asked, it is easy to work around the limitations (and maybe even exploit them at times..).
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Hamish Gill replied:

Comment posted: 26/07/2021

Yeah for sure, I think the newer sensors do better in that regard

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Peter Gribben replied:

Comment posted: 26/07/2021

I have this lens on MFT for my Lumix G85 and GX85. Amazingly small (and cheap!) Doesn't do as well as my Lumix and (Japanese) Leica lenses, but a fraction of the cost. Great for street photography and images are good enough for a standard monitor and Facebook. I have some other similar 7 Artisans lenses and can't understand why some people complain about manual focus and f-stops. I grew up with clockwork 35mm cameras and having to think rather than use IA (intellegent auto) on Lumix, helps at times. Thanks for the review

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Terry B on Pergear 25mm f/1.8 Review – A Brand New Lens for my Sony for ~£50!

Comment posted: 26/07/2021

For around £50, nobody has a right to complain, IMO. Apart from the tendency to flare perhaps more readily than other lenses, you've shown that taking this into account and composing appropriately it can be flare free and a very decent performer, as your images in the latter part of your review testify. My f1.5/50 Summarit will flare if there is a light source in front of the lens even if it falls outside of the FoV and over an arc of 180 degrees. The lenshood can mitigate it but not always.
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Sean Benham on Pergear 25mm f/1.8 Review – A Brand New Lens for my Sony for ~£50!

Comment posted: 26/07/2021

I have the 35mm version and it’s been very handy being compact and fast for my Fuji and a great purchase. One issue I noticed with this lens is the threading for the hood and filters has started to flake and break off. Never seen this before on any of my vintage lenses. Something to keep your eyes on. I guess this is where the discount lies.
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Hamish Gill replied:

Comment posted: 26/07/2021

Yeah, longevity/lifespan of this kit concerns me a little

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Terry B replied:

Comment posted: 26/07/2021

I wonder if something like a Kood ultra slim (2mm) UV filter kept permanently on the lens and to which the lens hood can screwed into would lessen the wear on the lens thread? The filter is very unlikely to impact on the IQ of the lens.

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