Neewer 28mm F2.8 MF APS-C Pancake Review

Neewer 28mm F2.8 Pancake
a.k.a. Kaxinda/Meike



I purchased this from the same US-based eBay seller that I bought the Neewer 50mm lens from for a bit less than $65 shipped.

6 elements in 5 groups
9 aperture blades
MFD 250 mm
102g
49mm filter thread
clickless aperture

Compared with

Sony E 16mm F2.8 Pancake
Sony E 20mm F2.8 Pancake
Sony E 16-50mm F3.5-5.6 OSS
Minolta AF 24mm F2.8
Discover 25mm F1.8
Minolta/Sony AF 28mm F2.8
Sony DT 30mm F2.8 Macro
Sony DT 16-50mm F2.8 SSM

This is an all-metal all-manual lens with tiny lens elements. It is approximately the same size as the Sony E 16mm F2.8 pancake. The filter threads stick out a bit farther than the recessed ones on Sony pancakes, but the supplied slip-on metal lens caps sits more flush than the Sony center-pinch caps. It feels and is significantly heavier than the Sony pancakes despite lacking any motors. It is not that much smaller or lighter than the Discover 25mm F1.8--most of the difference is accounted for by the deeply recessed front element on that lens.

The focus grip is a bit wider than the one on the Sony 20mm pancake, and fairly heavily damped. The focus and aperture rings have similar amounts of resistance unlike the 35/1.7 and 50/2 lenses where the focus rings turn easier.

The aperture ring operates in the opposite direction to the other Kaxinda lens which turn the same as direction as Minolta SR lenses. The focus ring turns in the normal Minolta/Sony direction. The focus scale is only printed in meters. The aperture markings seem to be accurate and even pessimistic. There are no label for f/11. and Wide-open it actually lets in a bit more light than the Minolta/Sony 28mm F2.8 and the DT 16-50mm F2.8 zoom at 28 mm. It only lets in 3/8ths of the light the Discover 25mm F1.8 does wide-open.

It is sharper wide-open in the center than the old 28mm F2.8 AF primes or the 16mm F2.8 pancake. Even mid-frame it is a bit sharper than the 16mm pancake. The corners however are softer and darker than the other lenses, and stopping down the lens does little to improve the corner sharpness.

It has about twice the barrel distortion of the old 28mm primes--a bit more the the E 16-50mm OSS kit lens at the same focal length.

The Sony wide converters seem to function well held to the front of this lens. It shares the 49mm filter thread size with those lenses. Of course it doesn't have the bayonet lugs to hold those accessory lenses or the Sony hoods in place. The Sony 49mm center-pinch lens caps do fit well.

This is wide-open showing the shading and distortion at F2.8


F2.8 Center


F2.8 Mid Top Left


F2.8 Ext Top Left


F2.8 Bottom Right


Edited by QuietOC - 27 January 2017 at 23:05

I noticed this is a native lens according to Neewer. Maybe submit the lens for inclusion in the lensdatabase.

The pictures you showed don't impress me much. Could be the lighting.

I notice you made a comment about distortion of the 16-50mm PZ. I assume that is from raw with software that does not support Sony's correction profiles embedded in the raw file?

In camera jpegs should be corrected automatically and for lenses that require heavy correction the latest firmware does not allow the option to be turned off. If you are seeing distortion in camera jpegs, maybe check your camera settings?

Thanks for the write up. How does it compare to the Sony 20mm for E mount?