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Viltrox AF 40mm F2.5 E-mount Review | Making "Normal" Affordable
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Sep 3, 2024
Photographer Dustin Abbott shares a deep dive review of the Sony E-mount version of Viltrox's very good (and inexpensive!) AF 40mm F2.5 STM lens. | Read the Text Review: | Visit the Image Gallery | Check out the DA Merch here: https://bit.ly/TWIMerch | Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/dustinabbott | On the Web: http://dustinabbott.net/ | Sign up for my Newsletter: http://bit.ly/1RHvUNp | Instagram: http://bit.ly/DLAinsta | Facebook: http://on.fb.me/1nuUUeH | Flickr: http://bit.ly/1UcnC0B | 500px: http://bit.ly/1Sy2Ngu Follow Craig @ https://www.instagram.com/craigstoffersen/ Want to support this channel? Use these affiliate links to shop at: B&H Photo: http://bhpho.to/1TA0Xge Adorama: https://howl.me/cjU0LKdp3LN Camera Canada: http://bit.ly/DLACameraCan Sony Canada: https://www.thesonyshop.ca/?ref=abbott Amazon: https://amzn.to/3HrY64d Amazon Canada: https://amzn.to/3qG1p18 Ebay: http://bit.ly/DustineBay Into the AM Clothing: https://bit.ly/intotheAMda and use code DUSTIN10 for 10% off Make a donation via Paypal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/dustinTWI ============================= Table of Contents: ============================= 0:00 - Intro and Concept 1:26 - Build and Design
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0:00
Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott, and I'm here today with a follow-up review of the Viltrox 40-millimeter
0:15
F-2.5 STM lens, in this case, in Sony E-mount. Now, I reviewed the Nikon-Z-mount version three or four
0:23
months ago and drew some comparisons to the Nikor 40-millimeter F2, lens that's available
0:29
there. But here on Sony, it's a little bit of an interesting transition in that while there are
0:34
so many lenses on Sony, there is actually a less direct competition for this lens than what there
0:40
is on Nikon. Because of Nikon having that unusual 40mm F2 lens, it's relatively affordable. But in
0:49
this case, what we are getting is a full frame normal prime lens, normal meaning that approximates
0:55
the normal range of vision for the human eye. And so it makes it
0:59
makes very relatable type images. We've got accurate autofocus. We've got a very useful angle of view
1:05
And we've got a lens that costs less than 160 US dollars. So obviously a real bargain lens
1:12
that actually has a nicer build quality than what you're typically going to find for a nifty 50
1:19
and delivers higher performance as well. So is this a lens that's worth considering on Sony
1:24
Well, let's dive in and let's find out together. So if you're familiar with either the 40
1:30
F2.8 or the APSC specific 56mm F1.7, then you pretty much have an idea of
1:38
identically how this lens is going to be built because it follows that blueprint very, very closely
1:43
This is a lens that is 65 millimeters in diameter, and that diameter is just a little bit narrower
1:50
because Nikon Z mount is so much wider. So there's actually three extra millimeters of
1:55
diameter on the Z mount version because it flares out near the lens mount to a
2:00
accommodate that wider lens mount diameter. Sony's E mount is considerably narrower. I think the difference is something like 55 millimeters versus 46 millimeters, something like that. So it's nearly a 10 millimeter difference between the two. And so as a byproduct, we have a narrower lens mount and thus a narrower lens here. And that just happens to be the widest portion on the lens barrel. So that's 2.5 inches in diameter. The length remains identical
2:29
right around 59.5 millimeters or 2.2 inches. The weight, because of being a little bit narrower
2:37
near the lens mount, is actually down from 180 grams to 167 grams, so 13 grams less
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and that's 5.9 ounces in overall weight. So we have got a truly compact, lightweight lens here
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It has a 52-millimeter front filter thread to it, and it does include a lens hood
2:58
Lens hood is fairly shallow. It's basically identical, in fact, to what you're going to find for the 20mm F2.8
3:05
And I have only one critique of this particular lens hood, and that is that it just doesn't bayonet into place with any kind of precision
3:13
So it's just easy to knock off kilter because it doesn't actually lock in any way there
3:19
So it bayonets on fine, but it doesn't click into that final and proper position with any kind of definitiveness
3:26
Thus, it's easy to move it. So one critique there, there's also a linge pouch that is included. But to be fair, the fact that a lens pouch and a lens hood is included at this price level of lens is impressive as well
3:41
There's not a lot going on on the lens barrel itself. We have basically just the manual focus ring that is there, but there are no switches, no aperture ring, nothing like that
3:52
The manual focus ring is fairly well executed. It's damp fairly well. It's nice and warm
3:58
wide, it has a good feel to it, so no complaints on that front. The overall build here is
4:03
plastics, engineered plastics. However, there's a difference in degree of engineered plastics
4:10
to where some lenses feel cheap, almost like they'll flex if you squeeze them and others feel very
4:15
tough and durable. This falls into the latter category. I've noted in using these lenses that
4:22
they actually feel tough, like they are well made, even though the housing is made out of plastic
4:27
rather than some kind of metal. And of course, the weight savings that are there
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is part of what is the appeal of the package here. Inside, we have seven aperture blades
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I will note that there is, sometimes I see this with Viltrox's cheaper apertures
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and that it's not fully symmetrical and that all the blades don't kind of line up quite perfectly
4:49
Aperture works fine, however, it's not any kind of high-in aperture experience here
4:54
As is a typical feature for Viltrox lenses, there is a USBC port on the lens mount that allows you to do firmware updates to make sure that the lens stays current
5:04
and it allows them to also future-proof your lens to make sure it's going to work even as new camera bodies are introduced
5:12
Our minimum focus distance here is 34 centimeters, maximum magnification is 0.14 times
5:18
So roughly in the average range for a 50-millimeter lens, obviously this is a little bit wider at 40 millimeters
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but in that category there, it is roughly average, not good, not poor, somewhere in between
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Up close performance is pretty good. Again not exceptional but pretty good there There is no weather ceiling at the lens mount not expected at this kind of price level There is however an HD nano coating on the front element
5:45
that will help a bit with fingerprints and then also just having some protection value
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So, again, no bells and whistles, but the lens is for this price
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feels like it is well made and has some value to it there. How about autofocus
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Autofocus comes via the STM Focus motor, and this is a lead screw type STM focus motor
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and while obviously there's some very, very minor differences between the Nikon and now the Sony versions physically
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I'm typically more interested in seeing if there's any kind of difference in the performance
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when it comes to autofocus. That tends to be the biggest area of differentiation
6:23
between these multiple mounts of the same optical lens. And so in this case, I found that I felt like speed
6:31
was maybe just a little bit faster on Sony than what it was on Nikon. The lens is quiet in operation. There's just the tiniest light
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little clicking sound if you're listening up close, but overall autofocus sound is very quiet. And as you
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can see here, I feel like focus speed is really pretty good. It's not instant, but you can see
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focus transitions are nice and quick, very nice and quick outdoors. You can also see that the lens
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does a good job of continuing to track the eye. And so they've got the Sony Focus algorithm
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down well here and I found that I had very good focus precision throughout my test with the lens
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and no issues there. Now, on the one thing I will note is that I had great autofocus accuracy
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when the subject was still. When Nala started to move, I felt like my accuracy dropped some
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And you can see in this shot that, and I saw this in a few shots that focus on her body is
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actually more at the shoulder level rather than being on her face or the eye where it should be
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And so the focus motor is maybe not as reactive as what I would like it to be
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And while focus speed for normal shots seem fine, it's in that moment where it's not able to make those really quick adjustments
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quite as effectively as what you might like. On the video side of things, focus pools look fairly good here
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They're confident moving back and forth, no issue there. And it's something that often lenses do well on Sony anyway
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and that is the case here. As I found with the Z-Mount version, however, I was less than impressed with when it came to my hand test
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What I found is that just sometimes, again, the focus wasn't reactive enough
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So the hands out of the way, the face is exposed, and it's just not making that transition
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Sometimes even having left it for a while by the time my hand comes back, it's already, it's just maybe starting to make that adjustment
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And so it throws it off again. Interestingly, at the same time, I was reviewing the new Viltrox 56mm F1.7 on Sony E-mount
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It was first released on Fuji X mount. It's an APSC lens. And I had no such issue with the focus transitions there for my hand test
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It was actually more reactive and faster. It seemed like the focus motor was just a little torqueier in its performance than what I'm
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finding here on this particular lens. Now, on the positive flip side of that, I found that when doing
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focused transitions, just kind of moving the camera from one subject to another, I found that
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those were actually nicely damped. It wasn't like this all of a sudden release and suddenly
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moved to another subject, but a nice, damp, more cinematic pull towards another subject. And so
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I actually give it good marks in that regard. And the other thing, considering that I didn't feel
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like I had an amazing result with stills and tracking Nala, I had a sequence in video where she was just
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coming towards me and I wasn't ready, so I was quickly backing up and trying to film at the
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same time. And I was surprised actually at how good focus remains during this video clip. And so
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again, there's pros and cons there. This, again, this is a lens that's under $160, so you
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shouldn't expect top tier performance in any area. But I feel like overall, autofocus works quite well
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here. And there's not really much to complain about other than it being a little less reactive than what I would
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like. So finally, let's talk optics. Now, this is the same optical design as what we saw
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when we reviewed it on Nikon Z mount. It is an optical design of 10 elements in six groups, with
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half of those being exotic elements, which is somewhat surprising for such an inexpensive lens
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The MTF chart looks good, but not great, but in reality, it feels like real world results are
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just a little bit better, and part of that is because that contrast, I think, is fairly good
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Now I'll give you a quick overview of optical performance, and you know the drill, if you want the deep dive into the optics
10:29
We'll do that at the very end of the review. So as far as what I found during my test, I found that when it comes to vignette and distortion
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distortion pattern is identical to what I saw on Nikon. And so it's so minimal that it really doesn't need correction
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I used a plus one to correct the tiniest amount of barrel distortion
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What differs here, which has been the case when I'm reviewing third-party lenses on multiple
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camera mounts, that there's actually less vignette on Sony than what there is on Nikon
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And so on Sony, I only saw about one and a half stops of vignette here, about a plus
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43 to correct, whereas I was more like a plus 77 to correct on a Nikon
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And so definitely less vignette. And that's the one optical difference. I think it has something to do with the mount diameter or flange distance Somewhere there lenses tend to have less vignette on Sony typically Now I also found that there is minimal amounts of longitudinal chromatic aberration That fringing before or after the plane of
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focus. Also, I felt like there was minimal lateral chromatic aberration in the corner of the frame
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So, again, good results in both of those metrics. Now, I'm testing at higher resolution point on Sony
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than what I did on Nikon. There being 45 megapixels on the Z8, on the A7,000
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R Mark 5, which I did my formal optical test on. That's 61 megapixels. So obviously more demanding
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was the lens able to handle the higher resolution point? And I think the answer is largely yes
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I felt like it looked really good on Nikon, but it really doesn't look much worse here on Sony
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And so that means that we see a good center performance, even at 200% magnification as I'm showing
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in these crops. Midframe looks really strong and corners are actually quite good
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And so again, that's a pretty strong performance for a lens like this wide open on such a demanding platform
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I also found that if you stop down just that little bit from F2.5 to F2.8, it's not a radical improvement, but contrast is noticeably better
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And so if you're looking for a little extra contrast boost, just stop it down a little to F2.8 and you'll find that there
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You see a more market overall performance improvement at F4, and that first full stop of stopping down
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You get really excellent sharpness all across the frame. It gets even a bit better still at F5.6 through F8
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At F11, you'll start to see a little bit of diffraction. And F-16, it's a little more noticeable
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but frankly, it's far from the worse than what I've seen, and so not a bad performance there
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The bocaque quality, bocet is a subjective metric. And so for me, I find that there is a little bit more of the outline
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than what I would like. It has almost a bit of that bubble bocha quality to it. Now, some people
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love that look. And if you happen to be one of those people, you might really love what you get
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off of this lens. For me, I prefer less outlining and just a softer, creamier overall performance
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But at the same time, again, for a budget lens, the bouquet quality is not bad. It's not jarring. It's not
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ugly or particularly nervous. But there is more outlining on some of the edges than what I would
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particularly like. Flair resistance overall is good. There's minimal amounts of ghosting or veiling
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but one thing that I will see is that at certain angles, and it's a really unique angle
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you will see a bit of kind of a flashing effect. Frankly, I find it actually quite cinematic looking
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and I could use it to positive effect, but again, I just want to point it out because you may or may
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not appreciate that. Overall, however, I don't think that there's any kind of glaring optical
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flaw here, which is impressive, again, and such an inexpensive lens. So my conclusion is this. This is
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a great bang for the buck lens. And here on Sony, you consider
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that Sony's own 40mm F2.5G, yes, it's superior lens in terms of
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the build quality and the feature set that's there. Optically, they're not radically different, but the
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Sony cost around $600, whereas this at $160 is a great value
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I would say that a closest this competing lens in my mind, I really do like the Samyang AF 45mm F1.8
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I prefer the rendering from the Samyang overall. I think that the bocette in my eye is more pleasing
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But to be fair, the Samyang cost roughly $350, whereas this is $160
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The Viltrox is better built and has better autofocus. So, I mean, there's obviously some give and take there
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I will say this. The images don't look cheap out of this lens. Thus, that makes it a pretty strong value in my mind
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A good bang for the buck lens overall. If you want more information, you can check out my full text review that is linked in the description down below
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There's also links there to an image gallery and some buying links if you'd like to purchase one
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Beyond that, if you want a deeper dive into the optics, let's do it
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Okay, well, we'll start by taking a look at vignette and distortion. As you can see here on the uncorrected image on the left side, this is a raw image right out of camera
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see that distortion is so negligible that you really don't need to correct it at all
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I did dial in a plus one. There's the tiniest bit of barrel distortion there, but obviously it's not really much of an issue
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As noted previously, Vignette is significantly reduced on Sony eMount. And so in this case, I needed only a plus 43 to correct for the corner Vignette
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There will be correction profiles available, however, for those of you that don't want to do a manual correction
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In many cases, however, you probably don't need to do a whole lot of correction, You can see here that there is a little bit of green fringing after the plane to focus
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Very little magenta before the plane to focus. Overall contrast at our kind of demarcation line looks good
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So overall, this isn't a major issue on this lens. Neither is lateral climatic aberrations
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I can, if I look really, really close, I can maybe see the tiniest bit of magenta fringing on the inside of the line there
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But you can see there's really nothing there to worry about at all. black and white transitions are nice and clean. So here's the test chart. This is shot on 61
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megapixels Sony A7R Mark 5. We'll look at these results at 200% in the center of the frame
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Strong results. You can see good detail, good contrast, nothing to complain about there
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You can see that fine details on these stamps holding up very nicely As we look towards the midframe Midframe stands out as being actually quite strong here Very good midframe performance As we pan down you can see that there not a huge variation
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between upper left side and lower right side of this bill. A lot of times if a lens is going to
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fall off a cliff towards the corners, I can really see it in this bill. I don't here. And so we can
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see as we go right down to the corner that the corner performance looks very good. This is at F2.5
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wide open. And we can also see left side looks good. Upper left side looks good. And then upper right
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side also looks good. So we see a consistency in centering here as well. So that adds up to good
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real world wide open response. This is F2.5. You can see crisp contrast, good detail there on
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Nala's face. Likewise here in the shot of these leaves here, you can see that the detail in the
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contrast looks good there. You can see that tiny bit of fringing there, but as you look towards
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the bouquet, nothing really standing out in terms of strong fringing there. So again, pretty good
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nice and clean. Now, that mild bit of stop down from F2.5 to F2.8 does yield a little bit of fruit
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when it comes to your overall contrast. You can see that the contrast between the dark and
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then the light areas here, just a little bit more noticeable than they are at F2.5. The text there
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looks a little bit crisper, as you can see. And if we look here towards mid-frame, again
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it's just a little bit cleaner looking, popping down into the corner
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You can see the same thing there that not only is there have been a little bit of lifting of vignette, but also it's just a little bit better contrast between the light and the shadow areas
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Now, stopping on down to F4 makes a really noticeable improvement in the corners to where the
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corners look really crisp now. Outstanding performance there. We pop over to this side just for a
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quick verification. We can see that yes, you can see the details are really just popping off the page there
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really, really strong contrast in detail. Now, not a huge difference from F4 to F5.6, but you can see that
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the contrast has popped up even a little bit brighter, and so just a little bit stronger overall
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performance. So at landscape apertures, you will see very good results. Here's a case in point here
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100% magnification. If we zoom in, you can see that there's lots of detail and
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all the various textures there. And we can see that it is consistent off towards the edge that we see good detail
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whether we're looking in the center of the frame, but then also if we're looking right off to the very edge
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detail and contrast looks very good. Now, by F11, diffraction is going to start to play a role
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but you can see that F11 still looks really quite good. An F-16 is softer, but it's not soft or mushy by any stretch of the imagination
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I would say in most cases still, usable here. Now we can see here that magnification is not super high, but if we look in at where
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our focus was, which is on the text here, you can see that it looks nice and crisp, and as we look
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elsewhere, we can see that the plane of focus is relatively flat, though right off here in the
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corners you can see it is losing some of that contrast in detail, but overall, not a bad up-close
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performance. So as noted, bocette is subjective. I'm just going to give you some examples and let you
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draw your own conclusions. You can see in this particular shot, there is going to be some of the
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typical geometric deformation towards the edge of the frame, a little bit of clipping. I probably am
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least favorable towards this look that I see sometimes where it's almost like a little bit of a
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cone shape. I don't love that, but overall the bouquet is pretty decent looking there. In this shot here
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you can see up close that the background is fairly strongly blurred out, and so reasonably soft here
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if it's a little less blurred out as we've got in this shot you can see that there's definitely a little bit more of the outlining now you either like that look or you don't like that look detail looks great that's no problem and the bouquet is is okay in my opinion but not exceptional another shot here shows a lot of that kind of bubble bocale look I'd rather like this image because it kind of works with it but not everyone is going to work quite as well here for example a little bit more edging than what I would like and a little bit bit
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busier background in this shot here again this is one that i don't mind as much the transition
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zone it's a little jittery but not too bad and you can see definitely that circling of the
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the specular highlights up there but again it's not looking too bad detail looks great on the
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subject so i mean those are the redeeming qualities now when it comes to flare overall i didn't
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really see any what i would say significant issues so here there is this doesn't necessarily look
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like it but the sun was very very bright in the shot i don't don't see any ghosting artifacts. You will see a bit of that veiling effect that I pointed to here
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And here you can see almost like some beams of light that are coming down into the image
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Again, I actually think this is rather artistic. So I doubt too many people will be turned off by it
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Here you can see that a bit of flashing effect. But frankly, this is an effect that I actually have
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added in post many times. And so I'm not adverse to it, but I do want you to see that
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You can definitely see the kind of bubble boquel look. But again, in this overall shot, to me
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it kind of works. Overall, however, no fatal flaws in this, a pretty strong optical performance
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So hopefully the optical deep dive is giving you a good feel
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of whether or not this is the lens that is going to suit your needs. As always, thanks for watching
22:30
Have a great day. And let the light in