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The Viltrox AF 85mm f/1.8 II is a tele lens for FF and APS-C, manufactured from 2020. The focus is done by Stepper Motor, it does not have image stabilization. The average price, when it has been added to the JuzaPhoto database, is 458 €;
41 users have given it an average vote of 9.4 out of 10.
MOUNT
This lens is available with the following mounts:
Canon RF: this lens is compatible with mirrorless fullframe and APS-C Canon RF.
Nikon Z: this lens is compatible with mirrorless fullframe and APS-C Nikon Z.
Sony E: this lens is compatible with mirrorless fullframe and APS-C Sony.
Fujifilm X-mount: this lens is compatible with mirrorless APS-C Fuji.
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Pros: Outstanding clean and elegant finish. Tight assembly. Light (!!!) - it balances very fine on a small Fuji body (XT-2 and XT-1 in my case). Very comfortable to hold. Extremely fast AF. Fantastic ability to find and hold on to eye and face in eye-focus mode. Good close focus on aps-c sensor. Silent. Good price (320 EUR here).
Cons: Small amount of blue fringing in ***extremely*** backlit images - corrected 100% in my software. No problem.
Opinion: After getting my fingers burnt on many Fuji lenses (super expensive but only average image quality) and having browsed sample images of fellow photographers I decided to give Viltrox a chance. So far so good - the lens is super elegant and seems very well made. AF is extremely fast, silent and sure. Eye and face focus work like a dream too. It is very comfortable to hold. Manual focus ring is smooth and precise. This lens is in my opinion 10/10 in aesthetics and mechanical properties. I will report on its optical properties when I have shot first 1000 images with it. By now I only shot a few test shots so I can only say the bokeh on aps-c Fuji body is spectacular - by far the best I have seen from any Fuji lens so far - it is smooth, it is soft and creamy - exactly what I want it to be.
The following opinions have been automatically translated with Google Translate.
Opinion:Won at an auction for 160€, I wasn't sure if I had made a good purchase, as soon as I arrived I took a few TA shots and various apertures, I was stunned, excellent optical quality, excellent build quality. Curious, I made a small comparison with the Fujinon 16-55 2.8, you won't believe it, but the Viltrox is much sharper, already at f1.8 it manages to solve the lowercase letters on the bottles where several lenses, even excellent ones, fail. At f2.8 it's already monstrous. On the Fujifilm X-H1 it doesn't have the AF performance of the professional zoom, but it's not bad. In some photos I noticed some purple bangs on metals. For the rest, given the price, I would say vote 11
Pros:Under certain circumstances: excellent sharpness at TA; balanced colors; AF good; pleasing bokeh; good perceived quality of the body; Very tempting price.
Cons:On the Canon R6 the performance is too hit and miss in the different shooting modes, which makes the lens unreliable in general. Only one firmware update released by Viltrox at the end of 2022, then software support has disappeared from the official website only for the RF mount. It is therefore not recommended for those who have a Canon mirrorless.
Opinion:The Viltrox AF 85mm f/1.8 II taken alone is a good lens in many respects, but finding a specimen that communicates perfectly with the camera in all shooting modes is a lottery, which unfortunately I did not win. So much for my experience with two used Viltrox specimens on the Canon EOS R6. Always be wary of "reviews" from youtube brands and filter only the information you need. They all copy each other doing the usual useless test of the shot of a wall, a person or an immovable object then they cheat you with half an hour of examining like obsessives the shots magnified on the monitor. However, the quality of a lens is not measured by evaluating only sharpness, vignetting or chromatic aberration. The first thing to test, especially with regard to lenses from third-party manufacturers, would be compatibility with all the automatic functions of the various camera bodies. Showing people just how sharp the lens is is pointless and misleading if there are compatibility issues in the overall operation. In my experience, in fact, two examples of the model in question behaved in the same way on the R6, producing inconsistent results in different shooting situations. Just a few examples: when you vary the apertures; when using at least one auto exposure parameter (shutter priority, aperture priority, or auto ISO); when going on continuous shooting (burst) with auto ISO; other. If it goes well, 1 in 6 shots is exposed correctly. Not to mention the AF that even in continuous shooting at a certain point "loses the compass" and the failure of the camera to recognize the lens that occurs occasionally when turned on. The situation improved a bit by updating the lens to the latest firmware version 1.1.5 released by Viltrox in September of 2022. Unfortunately, however, since then there is no longer a page dedicated to updates for the RF mount on the official Viltrox website, so the lens can no longer keep up with fw updates and the latest Canon camera models. It does not seem to me the utmost seriousness and correctness on the part of a company to eliminate without any communication the software support for an entire system (RF) of such a recent lens (released in 2020) that is still on the market today. In conclusion, as anticipated at the beginning, if we analyze the lens itself it is also nice. Compact and lightweight, it appears comfortable to handle. The metal body and smooth bezel give good quality feel, apart from the lens hood which is bad. The presence of the USB-C port would also have been a plus point if Viltrox hadn't sawed off the upgrades for the RF mount so prematurely. When it works, the lens delivers a satisfying overall image rendition. Even at TA he plays with much more expensive 85mm. AF in single shot mode and video mode is good. Ultimately, I think it is a good lens, suitable for exclusively amateur use and limited to "relaxed" situations such as landscapes and portraits with living beings that remain in a plastic pose for the photographer. It can also be used for some unpretentious video shooting, as long as you have a way to stabilize it. Not recommended for any professional use and for all those dynamic contexts where promptness and reliability are required (street, events, reportage, other).
Pros:Incredible q/p ratio, overall quality, blurred color at all distances, neutral colors tending to warm, sharpness, AF always accurate, comfortable and balanced, possibility to update the firmware without accessories and with extreme ease.
Cons:for some strange reason closing the diapheramma after f2.8, the autofocus becomes less reliable (I almost always use it at TA), maybe a bit the size
Opinion:A little considered lens, certainly better than the sony that I found it too contrasty on the shadows, it filters little or no UV and with a very bad bokeh at certain distances. I use it a lot with satisfaction. Great for events and portraits. Even in the evening the shots are all perfect on my a7 III, where it is always hooked. The blur is very nice, it creates a subject-to-background detachment from expensive lens. Unlike the sony, the overall color rendering is warmer and very natural. Really recommended. Sometimes it is found at affordable prices. Brava viltrox now update the 50mm 1.8 because it didn't turn out as well for you.
Cons:I would say nothing maybe the hood that does not engage quickly
Opinion:I have been using this lens for about a year on fuji APS-C so with a focal length that translates into about a 130 mm. overall I find it a good lens well usable, given the brightness, for interiors (concerts, ceremonies and more). given the size is a bit unbalanced on the XE series while working well on both XT and XH (on X-H1 sometimes goes into block the AF). good three-dimensionality and color rendering.
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The following opinions have been automatically translated with Google Translate.
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