This one slipped by us the other day when Meike announced their new low-budget 50mm f/0.95 APS-C lens for mirrorless cameras, but the company has also announced the new Meike FF Prime 16mm T2.5 Cine lens, too. This full-frame lens offers a maximum aperture of T2.5 that goes all the way down to T22, covers a full-frame sensor with a 96° horizontal field of view, and comes in a variety of mounts. The new lens brings Meike’s Cine lens line up to seven lenses in total (six that actually exist so far), including the 24mm, 35mm, 50mm 85mm and 105mm T2.1 and the yet-to-be-released 135mm T2.4 lenses, rounding out the range quite nicely with the new ultrawide. There’s still no word yet on when we’ll see the 135mm T2.4.
Fitting in with the rest of the Meike FF Prime cine lens lineup, the 16mm T2.5 features an 86mm front filter thread and a 90mm diameter for fitting to standard matte boxes. It also sports the usual MOD 0.8 gears for both focus and aperture as we’d expect for connecting to a follow focus or focus motor. On full-frame it offers a horizontal field of view of 96° and 70.8° on Super 35mm/APS-C. One thing that will be very welcome to cine lens users is the huge 330-degree throw on that focus ring. With a minimum focus distance of only 30cm, that should help to provide a lot of control over exactly where you want to place that focus point. Of course, being a 16mm lens, you’re only going to going to get that control out to a few feet before it clocks into hyperfocal. But within those few feet, it offers a lot of precision.
The Meike FF Prime 16mm T2.5 Cine lens is available to pre-order now for $1,199 – this may be a pre-order price only – on the Meike website in PL, EF, RF, E and L mount options. It’s expected to start shipping at the end of the month.
