Viltrox LAB 135mm F1.8 Review | The Best Lens Under $1000 Ever?

0:00
[Music]
0:10
well it's finally here vro is a little different than a lot of other companies in that they release a lens road map
0:18
that allows you to see upcoming lenses a long way out as a result we have known that their lab series is coming and the
0:25
first of those would be the 135 mm f1.8 la lens that I'm testing here today
0:32
because we've had a lot of time to either build or build anticipations I guess I would say there is a lot of
0:38
expectation that's attached to this lens because vro has proven that they can make ever better lenses and the lab
0:45
series is supposed to be the top of the Heap their Zeiss Otis Series so to speak
0:50
the 135mm f1.8 lab lens is an exceptional lens in fact it may be the
0:56
best lens under $1,000 that I've ever tested before but is it a lens for you
1:01
well we're going to find that out in today's review I'm filming on it at the moment right now just to give you a
1:06
sense of the kind of rendering it can achieve even on a lousy rainy day like this but we're going to dive into all of
1:13
the details and break it down right after a word from our sponsor today's episode is brought to you by Phantom
1:19
wallet the minimalist modern wallet that is now even better with the new Phantom X that is crafted from aluminum right
1:26
here in Canada it is 22% smaller and 35 5% lighter while still making it easy to
1:32
access your cards and money when you need them thanks to their unique Fanning mechanism you could even customize your
1:38
wallet due to its modular design with accessories like a money clip cash holder ID display and even chipolo and
1:45
air tag tracking integration visit store. fanom wallet.com to check out
1:50
their unique sizes Styles and finishes that span from aluminum to Wood to carbon fiber and use code Dustin 15 for
1:58
15% off when you're ready to check out so when your new lens arrives in a
2:05
box this big you know that you're going to be dealing with a large lens and this is in fact the biggest and heaviest lens
2:12
that vrox has ever produced and in fact it is the biggest and heaviest 135 mm lens that I have ever tested it is 93 mm
2:22
in diameter or 3.66 in it is a whopping 145. 7 mm or about 5 and 3/4 in in
2:31
overall length 82mm front filter thread which is common for any kind of 135 mm
2:37
f1.8 lens however the weight here is probably the most significant um kind of
2:44
growth over anything I've tested previously this lens weighs in at 1300 G or right under 46 o so it is definitely
2:52
heavy you are going to feel it that is an an additional 450 G versus the Sony
2:58
135 mm f1.8 GM by the way you will me hear me reference both the 135mm f1.8 GM
3:06
which I've owned for several years along with the samyang AF 135mm f1.8 which I
3:13
also currently have at the moment and I will be doing by the way a direct comparison video between the samyang and
3:19
the vrs in the future so watch for that so why is this lens so big and heavy I
3:26
think that the logic here from what I've understood to this point is that this is essentially going to be very similar to
3:32
I've mentioned zeiss's Otis series already in the intro and the Otis philosophy was is to just let the
3:39
engineers go crazy and to design the very best lenses they could at that particular focal length without really
3:44
being concerned about weight size or price now in the case of the vttr
3:50
obviously price is going to be a consideration in a way that it wasn't for Zeiss and so while this lens does
3:56
qualify for those first few things it's bigger bigger and heavier it definitely isn't more expensive in fact at only
4:03
$899 it is a whopping $1,100 cheaper than what the Sony GM lens is and only
4:10
$1100 more than what the samyang is despite being just a an a whole
4:16
different class in terms of the build autofocus features and even much better optically as we're going to see and so
4:22
uh definitely as far as a value proposition this is a fantastic value but it is big and it is heavy so if that
4:29
turns you off off obviously you're need going to need to look elsewhere now the samyang is actually the lightest lens
4:34
currently in the class and definitely if you're holding them side by side you can definitely tell the extra weight of the
4:40
vtrs at the same time n none of these 135 mm lenses are small enough that
4:46
you're just going to throw them in and forget about them you have to be intentional about bringing them along and so in that sense I don't find the
4:53
vro to be that much more of a burden while it is significantly more heavy it
4:59
doesn't really take up more more room in the bag and it's not like the lightest lenses in the class are super light and
5:05
compact anyway so I mean your mileage may vary uh when it comes to that one
5:11
other thing that I want to deal with here that I is is one of the few negatives that I have to point to is
5:16
that for whatever reason vro went a different direction with the aperture control here than what they did with say
5:22
the 16 mm f1.8 another excellent lens from them that has a very traditional aperture does have the ability to
5:28
declick it but you've got the traditional marked aperture with oneir stop to tents and in this case however
5:35
they elected to have a dedicated aperture ring here but rather than having just marked spots along the way
5:42
they elected instead to just have it all rely on the LED screen for giving you that information and so you have the
5:48
option of having a declick or a clicked but in this case while the clicks are
5:54
nice they feel good indefinite the clicks are not at the onethird stop detents as you might expect they're actually at 1 nth stop to 10 that's kind
6:02
of a weird choice because for one thing the camera bodies that I test on they
6:08
don't even measure in one nth stop and so you can move it to that one nth stop you're still just kind of somewhere in
6:14
between the next one3 stop and also when it comes to the LED screen it doesn't
6:19
show those ninth stops either instead it just shows traditional you know third stop intervals in between the major full
6:27
f- stops it's just kind of a weird choice and I'm not quite sure what the logic was behind it as traditionally you
6:33
can rotate all the way to the left side and you can move past F16 which is minimum aperture and you can move into
6:40
automatic mode if you would prefer to control the aperture from within the camera it's just to me it's kind of a a
6:46
missed opportunity in that a traditional aperture would have been great here and I'm not quite sure what advantage is
6:51
perceived in this different type of approach here now that LED screen is
6:57
useful on a number of levels it does show you as mentioned the aperture information it's also going to show you
7:03
your your focus distance and so it FS kind of a void that is typically missing on mirrorless lenses and that you do
7:09
have a focus distance markings on there so I I do like that part of it and it also becomes handy when you're wanting
7:15
to set your ab Focus parameters which I'll get to in just a second so the
7:22
aperture itself has 11 rounded blades uh it's a great looking aperture it does
7:27
the lens does have pretty good geometry even even wide open just some slight deformation towards the edges but if you
7:32
stop it down to about f2.8 as you can see here you get beautiful specular highlights all across the frame nice and
7:39
round and so that round aperture certainly does pay dividends and I like 11 blade count it's a little bit higher
7:45
gives you just a little bit more circular shape there is a three position Focus
7:50
limiter here on the side of the lens those three options are the full range which I suspect you'll leave it in most
7:56
of the time because AF is really fast as we'll see in just a moment but you also have the option of going at the closer
8:02
range so as little as 70 cm. 7 m up to 2 m or you can choose 1.5 M to Infinity if
8:10
you want to eliminate those close Focus possibilities the uh and as noted the
8:15
LED screen will show you that distance scale you do have a traditional ammf switch here on the side and then you
8:21
have two function buttons now in many lenses that I test the function buttons If you have multiple ones are just
8:27
redundant that's not true here and so so you can assign different functions to the two different buttons here so the
8:33
top function will fill fill whatever your camera assigned value is so in my
8:38
case this is actually selecting different I's for doing I AF and so serves that function the side one
8:46
underneath the ammf switch is actually used for programming your ab focus and so what you can do is if you switch into
8:52
manual focus you set a focus position that you want you can hold that function button down and it will preset that
8:58
distance then you can select a second distance again hold it down and then after that all you got to do is click
9:03
the button and you will immediately go in between those two Focus positions so it is a really Snappy and accurate way
9:09
to get highly repeatable results and it could be a worthwhile way of doing like a focus pull for example particularly if
9:16
you have the opportunity to shoot at a maybe um a a faster frame rate and so
9:22
you can do a slow motion and really have a more slow gradual kind of pull but again an extra function there that some
9:28
of the competing lenses don't have the focus ring itself does move very nicely
9:34
it has nice damping to it it is not linear however and so it is going to be speed dependent so if you focus faster
9:41
it's going to move faster again if you want a repeatable focus pull between one point a and point B use that AB Focus
9:48
that's the better way to handle things it this lens as is standard for vro lenses does have a USBC port at the lens
9:55
mount which you can use for fir more updates but it also has Bluetooth enabled which is unique for vro lenses
10:02
and so you can actually use their app and I was able for example to do a firmware update via Bluetooth just from
10:08
the app and controlling that and and the plan is in the future that there will maybe be some other features that will
10:14
be accessible through that but this is the second of their bluetooth enabled lenses including the uh Nikon Z Mount
10:21
version of the 16mm f1.8 the lens is Thoroughly weather sealed it has a gasket at the lens mount
10:28
it has their HD Nano coating that behaves kind of like a flooring coating on the front element and then there are
10:33
seal points all throughout the lens itself giving you a professional grade of build I will say on the build this
10:40
lens kind of reminds me of being hybrid between a Canon L Series lens and a
10:45
Zeiss Battis lens the btis element is you know around the LED screen but then
10:50
of course the overall casing it's engineered Plastics over metal components obviously this is not a lot
10:57
of plastic because it's very heavy but the build quality and kind of the light
11:02
kind of very very light flocking on there does remind me a bit of a Canon L Series lens the lens Hood itself is a
11:08
cut above your typical vro lens Hood it is thicker it has got a felt lining on
11:13
the inside to keep light from bouncing around it's got that rubberized transition uh at the front which makes
11:19
it very useful for being able to set the lens and Camera like this in a nice stable way and it does reverse for
11:26
storage it does lock into place nice and tight there's not enough actual locking mechanism but bayonets good and precise
11:32
there the only thing I will note is that it because the front Focus ring is also
11:37
rubberized the interior of that is rubberized a bit sometimes when you have reversed it for storage when you pull it
11:42
off the two rubberized surface surfaces want to grab each other it's not a big deal but if you're trying to quickly
11:48
reverse it you may get slowed down there just for a second I do appreciate the fact that it is nice and close fitting
11:54
however cuz that means that it doesn't take up a lot of additional room for storage in your
12:00
bag now the lens does not have lens-based Optical stabilization it will
12:06
rely on the stabiliz stabilization of your camera body one thing I do want to point out for people that are unfamiliar
12:12
with this which unfortunately includes some reviewers and that is that if you tip the lens up and down like this you
12:17
will feel a little bit of a clunking as if something is moving and that's because something is there are floating elements that are part of the optical
12:24
path that allow you to achieve better up close Focus results but you will know that there's nothing actually wrong with
12:30
your lens because if you attach it to your camera and you power it on you will hear those uh those floating elements
12:36
engaged and you can tip up and down and nothing's going to move anymore because now they are actually you know
12:41
electrified and they are being engaged ready to move with Focus so don't worry
12:47
about that it is a lot of high-end lenses feature floating elements like that and as noted the reason for it is
12:53
it allows you to achieve better up close performance this is one of the rare vrox lenses that is really really great up
13:00
close you can focus down to 72 mm and there you can get a 0.25 or a 1 to4
13:07
Times mag or 1: four magnification ratio which is matches the GM is a little bit
13:13
better than what the samyang is and it's not only that it can focus nice and closely but the up close performance is
13:20
noticeably better than what say the samyang is or even the GM outside of the
13:26
included lens Hood you have again kind of a similar element to a Canon L Series lens you've got kind of a Leather Pouch
13:33
here with a padded bottom I don't like it as well as like a nylon case for example like Sigma includes but again
13:40
better than nothing there overall there's you know it's it's big and heavy and there is a questionable ergonomic
13:46
decision around the aperture ring but outside of that this is a really beautifully built lens in your hand this
13:53
feels like a very prograde lens and obviously that's what they're shooting for with the lab series and so if you
13:59
can handle the the size and the weight I this is a lens I think that you're going to find delightful I have used it in the
14:05
rain zero issues the weather ceiling is good on it so let's talk autofocus again
14:11
they're pioneering uh allnew Focus technology in this lab series we have a
14:16
dual not just one but we have dual hyper vcm Focus Motors so those are voice coil
14:21
Motors and what you have rather than the STM Motors that they've relied on the past is you've got as Sony approaches it
14:27
you've got dual motors that are driving autofocus and they are uh higher torqued linear Focus Motors that will allow you
14:34
to just you know quickly move back and forth and you're never going to see any kind of visible steps along the way the
14:40
if you know obviously we've got kind of three tiers here when it comes to autofocus performance the samyang is not
14:46
bad but it is you know represents the lower tier the Sony GM lens is exceptionally good I've used it for
14:52
Shooting Sports fast moving action it is a brilliant lens focusing and much
14:57
closer to the GM level than the the samyang level is going to be the lab series lens now I will always say that
15:04
when you're talking about a Sony G Master lens it's going to be hard for a third-party lens to focus as well or
15:09
better Sony does autofocus with their high-end lenses extremely well but you can see that vro is taking a very
15:16
similar philosophy with the Dual high torque Motors and so as a byproduct the
15:21
focus speed and confidence blows the samyang away and is very similar to what the GM lens is however with the caveat
15:29
thought that on Sony it will be different when this Lens comes to Nikon Z but on Sony you're obviously going to
15:35
be limited by a maximum of 15 frames per second on their Sports bodies that's what they Limited at and so if you're
15:41
like on my alpha 1 I can only shoot 15 frames per second whereas I could shoot 30 frames per second with the G Master
15:47
lens and obviously that's going to be an even bigger disparity when you're talking the new A9 Mark III so just be
15:54
aware of that caveat but this lens is fast enough to keep up with Sports Action in fact I could take it up from
15:59
the hip I took a photo of birds flying overhead it's not an amazing shot but I
16:05
looking at a pixel level focus is nailed and it was just an immediate acquisition uh the focus experience I pulled up from
16:12
my hip took the shot and focus was just right there on it and I found that as you can see here that Focus moving from
16:18
close to distance whether it's indoors or Outdoors it's just extremely quick focus is very quiet it is very confident
16:26
I did need a firmware update I mentioned a firmware update but it was needed on my a7r mark 5 where Focus was not yet
16:32
fully stable remember I've been testing a pre- retail uh lens that had pre- retail firmware on it that firmware
16:39
update however solved all of those problems the alpha one was always stable now the A7 R5 is perfectly stable as
16:45
well autofocus is quick it's confident and I really appreciate what they have done with it here I found that I was
16:52
able to focus confidently in even like a basically dark room and I had a was
16:58
shooting a a a photo that was on a bookshelf and even in near dark conditions it just
17:03
locked right onto the the face of my infant son and able to lock on there and everything was nice and clean I used it
17:11
in a portrait session at a variety of focus distances and I actually used the samyang a little bit side by side let's
17:18
just say that when I took the vro off the camera and put the samyang on I was like I'm thankful I'm not shooting the
17:24
majority of the session with this it's not that I have anything against the saming it served me well but the vro is
17:30
just so much better so much more confident in locking Focus quickly acquiring Focus very stable at different
17:36
Focus distances and out of all the shots I took in the the series I came back and every one of them was perfectly focused
17:43
so kudos to them for designing a really high-end Focus system here now if we
17:49
switch over to the video side of things I really have nothing but positives there either I found that video AF was
17:55
very good in terms of focus pulls good confidence back and forth and uh you know nothing smooth or
18:00
jarring you will see some Focus breathing but it's pretty well controlled remember a long focal length
18:06
tends to exaggerate Focus breathing even more and so I actually think that this is fairly well controlled Focus
18:12
breathing in this instance my hand test where I allowed Focus to go from my hand to my eye and back and forth uh it also
18:19
did well smooth in that and most importantly my real world autofocus for
18:24
video and stills was very good and as you saw in the opening sequence Focus was able to pick up pick me up as I
18:30
walked into frame with no problem and focused accurac accurately there even though it was raining even though there
18:36
was a variety of different textures that were in between the camera and myself so anyway autofocus was fantastic I will
18:43
note the only thing for portrait sessions a lot of people will choose an 85 millim lens over 135 millimeter lens
18:50
even though frankly it's hard to beat the portraits you take with 135 mm but you do have to have more working
18:56
distance and so when I was shooting some of those shots I was 60 70 feet away from my subject that's far enough to
19:02
where you're you're kind of yelling if you need to communicate with them to change poses or do something else and so
19:08
just be aware of that so how about the image quality this is the the part that
19:13
I'm most excited to talk to you about uh you know I have to spend as much time on all the lenses that I review and so I've
19:20
got to take lots of photos with them whether I personally enjoy them or not this is a lens that it was nothing but a
19:26
delight to take photos with because I was was able to get photos that I personally loved with it this is an
19:32
exceptional Optical instrument and I will give you the Deep dive at the end of the video if you want to stay tuned
19:38
for that but right now I'll give you an overview this is an optical design of 14 elements in nine groups four of those
19:44
are extra low dispersion elements the MDF as you can see is exceptionally good
19:50
with just a little bit of a fallof into the corners you can see that at f8 this is literally a Flawless lens it is I
19:56
mean it's it's almost 100% all the way across the MTF chart this is also one of the first
20:03
lenses that I went to I shot my my test chart for vignette and Distortion and
20:09
you can see here that the left and the right image look identical that's because when I went to correct there was nothing to correct for there was that's
20:16
not without any kind of profile helping out this is one of the rare lenses that I really didn't see any venette at all
20:21
and not just on my test chart out of real world shots like this one you can see that there really wasn't any kind of
20:27
vignette in the corners to .2 and so it really is amazingly well corrected I
20:32
also found that fringing was well enough corrected that it was pretty close to being apochromatic levels uh just really
20:39
really well controlled no fringing either the longitudinal variety or of the the lateral style and the corners
20:47
you know this shot for example of just morning dew on some thistles you can see
20:52
that it has that just extreme micro contrast that really reminds me of the recent Sony 885mm f1.4
20:59
uh G Master Mark I lens that I reviewed where it's just you zoom into images and just every little detail is just so
21:05
perfectly delineated there when it comes to the overall sharpness I tested as per
21:11
usual on the 61 megapixel a7r Mark 5 we're examining results at 200% I found
21:17
that the wide open sharpness is amazing in fact this is perhaps the sharpest
21:22
lenses I've ever tested in the center of the frame Center sharpness is impeccably good it was better than the 13 5 mm G
21:29
Master it was better than the samyang it was even better than the 885mm f1.4 G
21:34
Master Mark I in the center of the frame the samyang and the g the GM 135 mm the
21:41
only place they can compete is they're about the same in the corners the vro is is the weakest there but even at its
21:47
weakest it's still competing pretty much on par with them I did find that the 85
21:52
GM Mark I was better in the corners when you it was also better in the mid-frame if you stop this l down to f2.8 it was
22:00
basically the same as the G Master except for in the corners extreme Corners the GM was just a little bit
22:06
better so an amazingly good lens amazing contrast amazing micro contrast other
22:11
thing that I noticed in head-to-head comparisons is that the uh t-stop the so the light transmission is a little bit
22:18
better in the vilr and it consistently comparing in direct test with the samyang consistently metered about a
22:24
third stop faster but allowing for equal levels of bright brightness and so that tells me that the light transmission is
22:31
very very good on the vrs as noted you stop it down to f2.8 and sharpness and contrast improves a bit more so at F4
22:39
and even a bit more at f5.6 very consistent from f5.6 to f8 whereas we
22:44
saw from the MTF it's perfect so landscape images look amazing from this lens great detail great contrast great
22:51
color really really fantastic all lenses are going to be affected by physics to
22:56
some degree and so in this case at f11 you'll see a little bit of of softening by F16 it's going to be softer still due
23:03
to the effects of defraction what I think really sets the vro apart it's is it it's rare to get a
23:09
lens that is just amazingly well corrected really really sharp and high contrast and then also having really
23:16
soft and creamy bouquet it's a very rare combination when a lens can achieve both of those things and probably my main
23:23
critique of the aforementioned Sony 85mm f1.4 GM Mark II is it's an as stunningly
23:29
sharp lens but the bouqu and the overall rendering is is not nearly as amazing to
23:35
me personally the vrox lens manages to achieve similar levels of micro contrast
23:41
but also I found the bouquet quality to be really really nice and so specular highlights look really beautiful in it
23:48
if you've got you know bright highlights there uh you're obviously able to get really close and you have that very long
23:54
focal length and big maximum apture and so you can get beautifully to focus backgrounds but what sets 135 mm lens
24:01
apart is for example when shooting portraits and shooting you know more than full length you can still have a
24:08
pretty amazing subject separation from the background and that is what really makes those images look really really
24:14
special as I've been noting in recent viltrox lenses their Optical glass has improved so much and now I find their
24:20
color to be really really neutral it's not too warm it's not too cool it's kind of the Goldilocks just right and so
24:27
images look really really great I also found that this lens is surprisingly good when it comes to flare resistance a
24:33
lot of times uh telephoto lenses with big Maxim mures and lots of glass they
24:38
tend to struggle a little bit more with Flare but this lens does really really well definitely outclasses the sang in
24:44
that regard and so a really strong performance there and then finally I was able to test the night sky and I found
24:50
that was even very good when it comes to Coma star points are nice and crisp there's no fringing or aberration around
24:57
star points and even right off into the corners still a pretty nice circular shape so overall really fantastic I mean
25:04
obviously there's just nothing to complain about optically when it comes to this lens if vill trox is trying to
25:10
set out to deliver a Zeiss Otis kind of performance I have to say they've pretty
25:16
much done it this lens is exceptionally good so my conclusion is this this is a
25:21
great combination of build features autofocus and Optical performance and
25:26
all of that at a great price ice so yes the lens is big and heavy and if you
25:31
can't get around that then look to some other lens but outside of that there's just not much to complain about as I
25:38
mentioned this is probably the best Optics you can get for under $1,000 and I would say that the lenses
25:44
that I might consider to be optically superior I could probably count on one hand so that makes this lens really
25:52
really amazing it makes me very excited for the scheduled 35 mm 50 mm and 8 5 mm
25:59
f1.2 lenses that are also coming in the lab series and I can't wait to see those
26:04
in the future if you want more information you can check out my full text review which
26:09
is very detailed find that the link in the description down below there's an image gallery where you can see more photos from it also some buying links
26:16
there and if you want a deeper dive into the optical performance stay tuned we'll jump into it together so I'll start with
26:22
a quick caveat that I understand that this is a longer video than usual and so will be this Optical examination this is
26:29
a critically important lens for vtrs and so I want to thoroughly test it in a way
26:34
that you probably won't get in many other places starting here with vignette and Distortion you can see that the
26:40
image on the left and the image on the right they are identical and that is because there was literally nothing to correct there's no Distortion and
26:48
shockingly there is no vignette case in point here's a real world example f1.8
26:54
zero correction and you can see here that all four corners could be bright and in fact are bright
27:01
here there's no vignette there's no need for correction for anything there likewise when it comes to longitudinal
27:07
style chromatic aberration you can see here that we have what is very similar to an AP chromatic performance in that
27:14
you have a pretty perfect transition of just white to black here no fringing
27:19
before after the plane of focus so here are some real real examples where I would just totally expect to see that
27:26
I've seen many times that when there is these kind reflective elements on this
27:31
decoration here that I'll typically see fringing in these bright areas where light is hitting it and you can see it's
27:37
neutral there likewise in the front of the old SLR and the lenses here I'll
27:42
often see fringing in these letters there a big hot bed for that we can see that there's not only no fringing there
27:49
but as we look towards the defocused areas and the bright shiny points again no fringing located there also once
27:56
again here with these lenses prime example of where you can see fringing in the engraved markings as they move
28:03
towards defocus but you just can't see any fringing so really really exceptional there one final real world
28:09
example you can see here bright light coming through this dandelion here and
28:15
you can see just beautifully all the little water droplets here but what you don't see is any kind of fringing
28:20
anywhere in this and also as we look towards the bouquet circles you don't see it there either likewise lateral
28:27
comatic AB orations are essentially perfect there's nothing to see here in any of these transition areas and this
28:33
is again with zero correction so that of course brings us to our examination of
28:38
the contrast and resolution here so at 200% magnification on 61 megapixels we
28:44
jump into the center of the frame and we see a Flawless Center in fact this is one of if not the sharpest Center
28:51
performances I have seen from any lens that I have ever tested before mid-frame
28:56
is also equally exceptional you can just see the detail is just popping everywhere in those textures really
29:03
really amazingly rendered amazing amount of detail and contrast here in a more monochrome and we can see here that it's
29:11
Flawless up here in the left corner we can see a bit of a drop off in the lower right corner and that brings us towards
29:18
the uh extreme corners and we find that they are good but nowhere near as exceptionally good as the center of the
29:24
frame so to put all of this in context we have the Sam AF 135 mm a lens
29:30
considered to be exceptionally good and then we have the vrs here on the left we
29:35
can see in the center of the frame that it's just it's not even a competition the vro just destroying the samyang in
29:42
the center of the frame and doing it by the way while also metering in this case a full stop brighter I don't think the
29:49
difference is quite that extreme from my other examples but anyway it's it's a it's a big difference look here in these
29:55
stamps look at how much detail is there with the St George and the Dragon dep
30:00
depiction you can see over on the left side that by comparison it's just a little bit murky looking we move towards
30:06
the mid-frame and just look through the eyes they look kind of dull here on the samyang look very bright and intense
30:13
there on the vtr's example if we pop over to this other side you can see a similar kind of Truth there and down
30:20
into the corners is the one place where the samyang competes and I would say
30:25
that it is perhaps very slightly better but it's it's not by any kind of
30:31
significant margin at all over on the left side of the frame looking here I would say that again the vrox looks
30:38
better to me than what the samyang does so that just tells you how good this vrox lens is now if I compare it to the
30:44
recent uh Sony 885mm f1.4 G Master Mark I which is I think the sharpest 85mm
30:50
lens I've ever tested one of the sharpest lenses I've tested period we can see that in the center of the frame
30:56
I would still take the vro so you can see that its contrast and detail is just a little bit better even though the GM
31:02
does have an advantage of being stopped down a little bit to f1.8 we can see
31:07
here looking at this Zone as we looked at before they're more similar but again the vro textures just pop a little bit
31:14
more here in the mid-frame it again is very slightly an edge to vro it's
31:20
similar but vro just a little bit better however if we go down to this Zone this
31:25
is where the consistency of that GM Mark I really starts to show up so up here in this upper left corner the two are very
31:32
similar in the lower right corner however the GM is just much better and
31:37
then if we pop down into the extreme Corners themselves you can see that the GM lens is definitely better popping
31:43
over to the left side and you can see that again it's not a huge margin but it is a significant margin the GM is
31:50
definitely better there so for one final comparison the Sony 135mm f1.8 G Master
31:56
now this test is done on the son alpha 1 is that's what I tested the GM on so I retested the vro also on the alpha 1 in
32:04
the center of the frame once again you can see that there is definitely a win for the vro it's just incredibly sharp
32:10
in the center of the frame and it's able to just really pop with all of these textures the micro contrast is just
32:17
exceptionally good now if we look up here in the mid-frame again it's a wind for V TRS GM is very good there but the
32:23
vrox is clearly better and if we uh pop down look at here you can just see more contrast and detail and if we come down
32:30
to this Zone here it's not as dramatically different for the V TRS but you can see that possibly a little bit
32:37
better for the G master and down here in the corner I would definitely choose the G Master performance by a small margin
32:45
not a huge margin but that's the only place that it wins and it's the same over here on the left side in the corner
32:50
contrast and detail is just a little bit better so across 2/3 of the frame the vrox lens is pretty close to peerless
32:57
put all of that in perspective with a few real world shots you can see here that if we punch into 100% magnification
33:04
the amount of just microcontrast and detail is amazing in here you can see the little droplets air droplets um
33:10
moisture droplets from the The Fog that's there in the air and this image here which I made a monochrome you can
33:17
see that the detail in the fur all of that is just beautifully delineated just
33:23
a tremendous amount of resolution that's available there in this shot here also all of these are
33:30
f1.8 by the way you can see that if we go into the textures that make up this dock you can just see that the micro
33:37
contrast is so amazingly good you can just see so many details there even at
33:42
f1.8 this shot really impressed me as well obviously the light's getting lower this is f1.8 and as I zoom into a pixel
33:50
level just the amount of detail of the the stamping in this and the textures in
33:56
the metal just really really impressively good finally a portrait comparison so here on the left side we
34:02
have the lab lens on the right side we have the sammying and so if we punch into a pixel level you can see that just
34:09
the skin textures and the detail that are there the highlights of the skin
34:15
there's just more variation more consistency around the eyes the uh the you can see that the ey lashes are not
34:22
as clearly delineated on the samyang just the overall pop and micro contrast is just not as good and we can see even
34:29
if we look towards the background here that at the same time the lab is also delivering a creamy better def focused
34:36
background and so in just in so many ways it's just delivering a superior performance and obviously I'm very very
34:43
impressed by all of that now stopping down to F2 doesn't make much of a difference but if we stop down to f2.8
34:49
you will see even further uh contrast in the center of the frame it's not as
34:54
noticeable there mid-frame again these zones were already exceptional but if we pan down here to where we started to see
35:01
sharpness start to drop off we can see now that this lower right corner is crisper and you look at the $2 there
35:08
it's very significantly improved there at f2.8 and then down into the corners
35:13
we can see that the corners are looking sharper in the corners you see an even bigger Improvement at F4 and now the
35:20
corners are razor sharp on both sides you can see how exceptionally good they look moving on to f5.6 it's it's mostly
35:28
just more of the same maybe a very slight Improvement a few places in the frame but we've already got just amazing
35:35
sharpness and detail all across the frame again f8 continues mostly the Same by f11 however on the left side here you
35:42
can see that the image is softening some due to defraction and by F-16 which is
35:47
the smallest aperture it is softer still due to defraction though still it's
35:52
still quite sharp um it's just you can tell that the contrast doesn't pop the same way but overall although defraction
35:58
is hitting the image it's still very good now as noted previously those floating elements allow for really
36:05
really great up close performance and you can see we are achieving macro levels of contrast and detail here
36:12
looking really really good in the fibers of the paper you can also see again that um those floating elements allow you to
36:19
have a flatter plane of focus and so you can see we have nice detail right up over to the corners of the frame so a
36:25
really strong performance there so that's going to allow us to have really beautiful up close results the ability
36:31
to just strongly blur out of background and you can see how shallow the depth the field is here that's not in Focus
36:38
this is but you can see the little individual water droplets the sheen on the water surface just gorgeous there uh
36:45
likewise here depth of field is so tiny but in that little bit where there that blade of grass is just turned towards
36:51
here you can see that beautiful micro contrast and detail and also a strongly blurred out background
36:58
again here depth of field is so tiny near minimum Focus look at that just little tiny Zone there but again the
37:05
background just completely blurred out really nice and creamy and then of course if you put more in in focus and
37:12
here with all these water droplets you can just see the beautiful specular highlights and of course magnificent
37:18
detail even though it's strongly back lit and all this light is coming into the image really really gorgeous looking
37:25
bokeh here is at f1.8 you can can see if I toggle back and forth the geometry
37:30
along the edges you're getting a little more deformation by f2.8 you can see that we've got mostly circular
37:36
highlights everywhere really gorgeous looking specular highlights this image is just really gorgeous I was shooting
37:43
through the grass so you can see that there's already a kind of a masking of defocused uh Blades of grass beforehand
37:50
but autofocus nailed that little narrow depth of field on this you can see great
37:55
detail there and then just such a beautifully blurred out background this is cool too because it shows you two
38:01
different perspectives so here of course that detail and contrast is just amazingly good then I can pop to where I
38:08
I focus something differently the bench almost completely disappears other than just a little bit of a frame and then
38:14
the detail here of course on this Lighthouse it's just as equally fantastic flare resistance is also
38:20
really really strong and so here wide open suns in the frame I see maybe a little tiny of kind of veiling in this
38:27
corner but very little to see and then here is this is f11 you can see the
38:32
aperture blades there a little tiny bit of ghosting here but overall just really strong thus you know you just get
38:40
gorgeous looking results you can see a mosquito bugging my model but you can see just great detail skin textures
38:47
beautifully blurred out background and just kind of that cutout look that is just so exceptional and even if you're
38:53
working at long distance and here I was probably 60 to 70 feet away away you can see that we're able to get that crisp
39:00
cutout a great detail on the subject background is still blurred out fairly
39:06
nicely and you can see here that even though this is all kind of transition zone there's no really hard edges there
39:12
the Boke still looks nice even in this more challenging uh type of seam and
39:17
finally getting to the coma here you can see if we take a little bit closer look there's no fringing around the star
39:24
points and so they look very very good and even when we pan off towards the corners there's a tiny bit of deoration
39:31
but overall this is a really strong performance and of course the fact that there is no Venn yet means that you're
39:38
getting an even illumination all the way into the corners for your star points there's no correction on this image
39:44
allowing for a much more even night sky shot than what I typically can get when shooting for Astro so thanks for
39:51
sticking around to the very end and I hope that the Deep dive into the Optics has given you a clear picture as to
39:56
whether or not the vro 135mm f1.8 lab series lens is for you as always thanks
40:04
for watching have a great day and let the light in [Music]

Viltrox LAB 135mm F1.8 Review | The Best Lens Under $1000 Ever?

dustinabbott.net

Sigma 17-40mm F1.8 DC | ART (APS-C Review) The New Cult Classic?

Schneider-KREUZNACH x LK Samyang 14-24mm F2.8 FE Review | Impressive!

Nikkor Z 35mm F1.8 S-Line Review | Still Worthy in 2025?

Video: Caesar Samayoa Spills All on JUST IN TIME

Build an AI-Powered Canva Image Background Eraser & Removal Editor in Browser Using HTML, CSS & JS

OCOOPA 2in1 Magnetic Rechargeable Hand Warmers Review

SYMA Foldable Quadcopter Drone With Camera Review

Sun Visor Extender for Cars Review

silicon valley girl: create amazing product photos with ai: flair ai app

heatcheck: nba finals animation loading

Absolum - Official Animated Showcase Trailer

The Most Expensive Deleted Scenes Filmed

Up next in 10

Viltrox LAB 135mm F1.8 Review | The Best Lens Under $1000 Ever?

dustinabbott.net