![\"\"](\"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/pergear14.jpg\")
<\/a>Disclaimer: Pergear was kind enough to provide the lens reviewed here. However, they had no editorial oversight or input, and are seeing this review at the same time as the rest of you. I am committed to providing fair and unbiased reviews, and have provided my true thoughts on this lens accordingly. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n If you’ve used any of the recent manual focus lenses out of China, as well as the lenses from Cosina out of Japan, you’ll notice that companies have figured out that it’s not that much more expensive to build a high quality feeling manual lens. This Pergear 14mm f\/2.8 follows that trend, and feels outstanding in the hand. The lens is constructed entirely of metal and glass. It’s a rather compact lens, but it’s very dense with a weight of 487g, or just over a pound. The lens has a built in small petal hood that helps provide very minor shading of the bulbous front element. There is also a second external hood available that I’ll discuss in a moment. The lens has painted markings and engraved and red paint filled focus scale markings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are two controls on the Pergear 14mm f\/2.8 II, like on most manual prime lenses: a focus ring and an aperture ring. The focus ring is about an inch in length, with a finely ribbed texture, and it is heavily damped and moves extremely smoothly. As this is a lens that will often be zone focused due to its width, I like the choice to go with a heavier damping, which should help with accidental focus changes between shots. Unlike some of the more expensive manual focus lenses from, say, Voigtlander, the Pergear does not reverse the aperture and focus ring direction for the Nikon mount lens – the lens focuses the way everyone else does, so if you’re entrenched in the Nikon focus direction you may have to mentally adjust a little. Personally, having shot Canon and Sony for most of my life, I’m used to this direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The aperture ring is also smooth and well damped, with positive detents. It’s a wonderful feeling aperture ring, and a step up from a lot of lenses in this price class. There are two minor downsides to the aperture ring, though. First, the detents are a little odd – you get half stop detents between f\/2.8 and f\/5.6, but then full stop detents beyond f\/5.6 to the minimum aperture of f\/22. It’s not a big deal, but if changing aperture by feel, you need to remember that change. Second, I do wish the aperture ring was slightly larger in diameter, as it sits against the built in hood but is very slightly smaller in diameter, so it’s not quite as easy to grab as it could be. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 14mm lenses with bulbous front elements usually have the downside of no front filter use, but the Pergear 14mm does not have that issue. Included with the lens is a rather substantial round metal lens hood with an integrated filter thread. This is a thick and solid lens hood that bayonets on to the front of the lens and enables the use of 82mm filters with the lens. My NiSi 82mm polarizer works great with no vignetting, but I’d imagine stacking filters would cause corners to darken. The lens hood locks solidly in place, but it is very tight to get on, requiring some force to push towards the lens and twist. The hood is reversible if you really want to do that, but the push-on lens cap won’t work in that position, and the hood barely extends beyond the built-in hood anyway. I do wish Pergear had included an 82mm lens cap to put on your filters or the hood, but if you want that you’ll need to buy a generic 82mm cap. The included cap is a metal push-on style cap that fits snugly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Overall, the Pergear 14mm f\/2.8 II is a very well constructed lens with the unexpected filter hood being a very nice perk for such a budget lens. And to think Canon still makes you purchase their cheap plastic hoods for almost all non-L lenses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There is no autofocus, image stabilization or even lens contacts at all, but of course the lens will work with your camera’s in-body stabilization if it has it. Nikon’s bizarre settings only allow for certain focal lengths (largely based on manual focus F mount glass availability), but setting it as a 15mm f\/2.8 lens worked just fine for me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As I noted in the intro, I didn’t really expect a lot with regards to optical quality with this lens. It is a budget 14mm lens, after all. However, I was very pleasantly surprised, as the Pergear 14mm put it a very strong performance overall, especially with regards to stopped down sharpness and distortion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A 14mm lens is a hard lens to make, and an even harder one to make sharp. The very best modern ultra-wides can manage to get very sharp images from corner to corner, even wide open, but these are somewhat few and far between. The Pergear doesn’t manage that pin sharpness wide open, but it does perform very well overall. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At f\/2.8, the lens shows very strong resolution centrally that tails off a bit as you get to the edges. There seems to be a little bit of field curvature here, so flat plane subjects as well as outdoor landscapes will show these soft edges at wide apertures. However, focusing near the edges shows good to very good resolution even at f\/2.8, though then the center at the same distance suffers and can go out of focus (depending on distance). My sample did have a slight bit of decentering, with the left edge being a little softer than the right when shot at wider apertures. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Stopping down to f\/4 improves things, but f\/5.6 sees a very large jump in resolution, providing very good resolution across the frame, and at f\/8 and f\/11 it’s very sharp corner to corner. The shot above was taken at f\/8 – click to view full size. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This is very impressive for such a budget lens, and frankly, it’s great for any ultra-wide. For instance, the Peargear at f\/8 is sharper at the edges than the Canon RF 14-35mm f\/4L IS and the Nikon Z 14-30mm f\/4 S. The Pergear 14mm also shows good sharpness even when focused at the minimum focus distance of 0.22m. Overall, while not a perfect showing here, this is an excellent performance and is especially good for such an affordable lens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While ultra-wide lenses are not known for throwing backgrounds out of focus, on full frame especially, they can do so when focused close up. The 14mm f\/2.8 II shows quite pleasing bokeh when focused close up at f\/2.8. Specular highlights are generally neutral, and most backgrounds fall away very nicely. Shots like the one below with lots of fine branches can show a bit of nervousness, but nothing out of the ordinary for such a wide lens. Again, a very surprising result here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Pergear 14mm f\/2.8 II shows moderate contrast overall and maintains that at all apertures and focus distances. Compared to more expensive lenses like the Nikon 14-24mm f\/2.8 S, the Pergear shows a more muted contrast response, but while unremarkable, it also doesn’t produce images that are flat. Color is generally quite good, though I did see some minor color shifting in the corners in some shots. This isn’t uncommon for many ultra-wide lenses, especially those made for Leica M mount and adapted to mirrorless bodies, though it’s a little unusual to see in a dedicated mirrorless lens. It didn’t visibly show up in all shots, though it’s something to keep an eye out for. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The lens shows very good control of chromatic aberration, with essentially no field relevant lateral chromatic aberration, and frankly no visible longitudinal CA or purple fringing in daily use. Very impressive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now we come to what is perhaps the Pergear’s most impressive feat optically, as well as its two weaknesses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n First, let’s talk distortion. 14mm lenses almost always have some form of distortion. The high end primes generally have a touch of barrel distortion, while 14mm zooms usually have significantly more. Budget 14mm lenses generally have a ton of distortion and that is often complex and hard to correct. However, the Pergear 14mm f\/2.8 has almost no distortion at all. If you look extremely closely, there is the slightest hint of barrel distortion when focused closer up that changes to a very slight pincushion distortion near infinity. In all cases, the distortion is extremely minor and will only be visible if taking images that are grid-like in nature, and even then only when pixel peeping. This is absolutely remarkable for a $289 14mm lens, and is the lowest distortion I’ve ever seen in a lens this wide, from any manufacturer at any price point. None of the samples in this review have had any geometric distortion correction performed (though I have done the occasional perspective distortion correction to straighten verticals due to camera angle).<\/p>\n\n\n\n And now we come to the one area where the Pergear 14mm shows a relatively poor performance – flare. While the lens doesn’t show too many issues from veiling flare, showing generally strong contrast throughout even with the sun in frame, it can produce rather spectacular ghosting in a lot of circumstances. Wide open, the lens can show both red and white ghosts in partial ring formations, and these can be quite bright. Stopped down, the white ghosts go away, but the red flares remain at all apertures, depending on where the sun is in the frame. In some positions, there is essentially no ghosting at all, save for some very small multicolored spots. In others, strong dramatic red flare arcs can be seen covering portions of the image, and at one specific location at the very edge of the frame, a bright white flare can ruin your image. Sometimes the red flare can actually look pretty cool, but overall it’s a pretty weak performance here. On the plus side, when stopped down the lens can show rather well defined 10 pointed sunstars. Both the red flare and the sunstars can be seen in the shot below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, the Pergear 14mm f\/2.8 shows rather strong vignetting when shot at f\/2.8 that eases as you stop down to around f\/5.6 but never fully goes away. The vignetting can be corrected in programs such as Lightroom, but will lead to some increased noise in the corners. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Overall, despite some weakness with regards to flare and vignetting, the Pergear 14mm f\/2.8 II turns in a surprisingly good performance here. Good sharpness in the center wide open and very good resolution across the frame stopped down, very low distortion and great CA control are the highlights here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 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<\/a> with the code BFCM2023PERGEAR. If you miss out on that, they’re offering a 10% discount on Amazon<\/a> beginning December 2, using the code 107XFUAA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Click on an image to enlarge<\/em>. 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. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n In recent years, there has been a rise in the production of mirrorless lenses from smaller companies in China. The early efforts were sometimes a bit spotty, but over the years we’ve seen brands like Laowa, TTArtisan, 7Artisans and Viltrox produce more and more high quality lenses at reasonable prices. Pergear is a company that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"yes","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[245,26,306,40,494,8,249],"class_list":["post-12153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","tag-14mm","tag-lens","tag-lens-review","tag-nikon","tag-pergear","tag-review","tag-ultra-wide"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/pergear14.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p28RGq-3a1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12153"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12217,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12153\/revisions\/12217"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Construction and Handling<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/a>Continue: Image Quality<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Image Quality<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Sharpness<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>Bokeh<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>Color, Contrast and Chromatic Aberration<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Distortion, Flare, and Vignetting<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/a>Continue: Conclusion and Image Samples<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Conclusion<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Pros<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Cons<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Image Samples<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>If you enjoyed this review, check out my other reviews in the Review Index<\/a><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"