Blackmagic Forum

I recently bought a set of Meike S35 Cine Lenses (18, 25, 35, 50 & 75) for use on the Pocket 6k Pro. I’ve noticed that the 25mm has a warm cast and doesn’t match the rest of the set (see screenshots attached).

I purchased the 25mm separately from the rest of the set and wanted to try it out before purchasing the rest. I did notice the colour cast but assumed it was just part of the character of the lens as people say they lean warm. But when the rest arrived the difference was obvious.

Do I have a faulty 25mm lens or is it normal for them not to match if not purchased altogether?

The 25mm was purchased from CVP, a reputable retailer in the UK. The rest were purchased directly from the Meike website as part of a kit with a case.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Matthew

You might see if changing the colour temperature a small amount for 25mm clips is all you need to do.

If you were to contact CVP, they may have a suggestion. They might ask you to shoot a colour chart with identical composition and lighting for each lens in your set.

You can use DaVinci Resolve to detect colour differences across all lenses.;

Some Illuma lenses even change color when changing the aperture.
My impression is that some manufacturers don’t care much these days any more, with digital color correction available. Minolta did care to match their lenses for color, but those are vintage now.

Thanks Rick and Uli for getting back to me. I'm going to do some more tests. I'll update this thread with the results. Thanks again.

I had a set of Meike fullframes that I sold because the color difference between lenses was just enormous on both the m/g and b/w axis. Very mediocre lenses that quickly got surpassed by the DZO's and Nisi's of the world for budget prime video lenses.

Sean van Berlo wrote:I had a set of Meike fullframes that I sold because the color difference between lenses was just enormous on both the m/g and b/w axis. Very mediocre lenses that quickly got surpassed by the DZO's and Nisi's of the world for budget prime video lenses.

Thanks Sean. I did look at the DZO's and Nisis but they were outside my budget at this time. If I ever get a full frame camera in the future I'd want to budget for something like those.

I got hold of another copy of the 25mm and the colour cast is identical to the one I have. I can't tell the shots from the two different copies apart. So I'm now pretty sure that the 25mm doesn't match the rest of the set in terms of colour (and it's not just my copy).

Another reviewer found the same issue with the 25mm not matching:


Another flaw to be aware of is that the 50mm flares very easily, but it comes with a lens hood which controls this. This was mentioned in the CVP review and found it the case:


Hope that helps, in case anyone else comes across this thread in the future. Personally, for the price, I'm ok with working around the issues and I'm going to keep the set.