Meike has announced its new 100mm T2.1 cine lens that covers S35 sized sensors. It is available in either PL or Canon EF mount.
The 100mm T2.1 now completes the S35 set. Meike now has the following lenses available:
- 18mm T2.1
- 25mm T2.1
- 35mm T2.1
- 50mm T2.1
- 75mm T2.1
- 100mm T2.1
This makes for a nice and relatively inexpensive six-lens set and all the lenses feature a common T2.1 aperture.
Concept
The 100mm T2.1, just like the rest of the lenses in the series is being touted as an affordable, compact-sized cine prime lens. The Meike S35 series is a good option if you are thinking about getting dedicated cine prime lenses, but don’t have a lot of money to spend. In a lot of ways, lenses like these offer cine-style mechanics at the price point of a normal stills lens. I have previously reviewed quite a few Meike lenses and they offer very good optical performance considering their low price point. They are clean lenses and while they don’t have a ton of character they are perfect for a lot of projects, especially corporate work.
As I have already mentioned the lenses will cover S35 sized sensors. However, the actual image circle coverage is 33.6mm, so as you will see further down in the review they will actually cover a lot of full frame sensors when shooting in 4K or UHD. Now, these lenses are only available in Canon EF or PL mounts. The mounts are not swappable. A user-swappable EF/PL mount would have made a lot of sense, especially given the target audience for this lens.
S35 made a resurgence in 2022 with ARRI, RED, Sony, and several other camera manufacturers releasing new cameras. The great aspect of S35 sensor-sized cameras is that there is a lot broader range of lenses with better focal lengths available than there is for full frame and larger sensor cameras.
Size & Weight
The 100mm T2.1 tips the scales at 990g (34.92oz) in PL mount, and 1kg (35.27oz) in Canon EF mount. This is quite a lot of weight for a small lens, but it still makes it manageable on a wide array of cameras.
The PL-mount version is 98.5mm (3.88″) long and the Canon EF mount version is 106.5mm (4.19″) long.
Other Features
The lens has a 77mm front filter diameter so you can easily attach common-sized filters. The front diameter of the lens is 80mm which makes it a little harder to attach some matte boxes without an adapter ring, however, some smaller clip-on matte boxes such as the Wooden Camera 4 x 4″ Filter Zip Box for 80-85mm Exterior Diameter Lenses will attach directly to the lens.
The minimum focusing distance is 90cm (35.43″). The lens has a focus throw of 270 Degrees and both the iris and focus ring feature industry-standard 0.8 pitch gears.
Optical Structure
The 100mm T2.1 consists of 13 elements in 7 groups. The lens also has 12 aperture blades.
Price & Availability
The Mieke 100mm T2.1 S35-Prime Cine Lens is now shipping for $649.99 USD.
Competition?
There is actually not a lot of competition in the S35 cinema prime marketplace, especially for lenses that come in either PL or EF mount. Most cine prime lenses being made today cover full-frame and larger sensors.
This probably gives the Meike lenses a little bit of an edge as they aren’t competing directly against a lot of other lenses.
As far as affordable Canon EF mount cine prime options are concerned, lenses like the SLR Magic APO MicroPrime Cine lenses could be considered competition. They have the same T-stop, however, they cover full-frame and larger sensors.
