Conclusion
Pros
- Well constructed body with nicely damped focus and aperture rings
- Very affordable
- Excellent included filter lens hood
- Good sharpness wide open and excellent sharpness across the frame stopped down
- Almost zero distortion
- Very good control of chromatic aberration
- Decent bokeh when focused close up
Cons
- Significant red and white ghosting can cause issues, depending on the position of bright light
- Field curvature limits cross frame sharpness at wider apertures
- High vignetting wide open that doesn’t fully go away
The Pergear 14mm f/2.8 II is a surprisingly good lens, and I was a bit shocked when I first started looking at the images. While field curvature limits its use in low light situations where you need edge to edge resolution, when stopped down the lens is quite sharp even into the corners, showing performance not too far behind lenses 10 times its price. The most shocking revelation is the near total lack of distortion, which is an exceptional achievement in a 14mm lens at any price point, and is absolutely incredible for a lens costing just $290.
Things aren’t perfect of course, and the Pergear lacks the refined coatings of more expensive glass, which can lead to significant ghosting when the sun is in certain positions. Vignetting is high wide open and contrast is average, but overall, the lens does a remarkable job for a budget ultra-wide. In my experience, you need to spend around $1,600 or more before you start finding 14mm lenses that will best this in overall optical quality, and it easily surpasses the Samyang 14mm f/2.8 to become my new recommended budget ultra-wide.
If you are interested in this lens, Pergear does have a couple of sales going on right now, with 20% off now through December 1st on Pergear’s website with the code BFCM2023PERGEAR. If you miss out on that, they’re offering a 10% discount on Amazon beginning December 2, using the code 107XFUAA.
Image Samples
Click on an image to enlarge. As this lens does not transmit EXIF data, aperture information is not available. I will mark the aperture if I remember what an image was shot at.
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