Viltrox Pro AF 50mm F1.4 Review | Sharp, Creamy, and Cheap

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[Music]
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There are a few reviews that I look forward to doing more than a new Viltrox Pro series lens. I have come to expect
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that they are going to have a great package of high performance, great build, good autofocus, and of course,
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optical excellence. I've also come to expect that they are going to be big and heavy and that really becomes the
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primary sorting mechanism for these lenses as to whether or not they're going to be attractive to you. It really
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comes down to how much tolerance you have for their weight. In many ways, I think that these Viltrox Pro Series
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lenses are a lot like Sigma's early art series where they were optically fantastic, but you know, big and heavy
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as well. And the people that were interested in those lenses probably would be interested in these today as well. The newest of these is the Viltrox
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Pro AF50mm F1.4. And sure, at this point, we have lots of
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50mimeter lenses on Sony. However, I think that people are still going to find the ProAF 50mm F1.4 intriguing
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because it comes with top-notch build, great HyperVCM autofocus, and a really
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amazing stellar optical performance. all at a price tag of $550 US or even a bit
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less. That means that you're going to save as little as $100 and up to $900
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versus the competition. And of course, that positions this at a pretty sweet place. So, today we're going to dive in
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and just see whether or not this is the new 50mm lens that you should consider buying. By the way, all of these outdoor
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segments I'm going to be filming on the lens so you can get a sense of how it does for tracking during video and also
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how it renders in situations like this. Let's take a look. Today's episode is sponsored by the all-new Phantom Tracker
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and use code dustin20 at checkout for 20% off. That's store.fanomwallet.com
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and use code dustin20 for 20% off. So in disclosure, this lens was sent to me
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from Viltrox for evaluation. As always, however, they have had no input in my
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review process, nor will they see this review before you do. This is a completely independent review. So, let's
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take a look at the build and the design here. So, when it comes to the Pro Series lenses, just so you know, Viltrox
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has kind of two professional lines that they are developing essentially side by side. And so, we have the Pro Series,
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which for full-frame seems to be lenses with an F1.4 aperture. There also the
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Lab series where they're a little bit well, they're bigger, heavier, and more premium. And they tend to have a maximum
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apertures of f1.2 2 with the exception of the 135mm which is a maximum aperture of f1.8.
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These pro series lenses they don't quite have maybe as many features as the lab lenses but they are really beautifully
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built lenses. The body is made out of an aviation grade magnesium aluminum alloy.
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So very high-end material. Um very you know dense and tough but of course also
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it comes at the cost of some weight. This lens like the 85mm f1.4 4 weighs
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exactly 800 g or 28 O. And so that means that it's going to outweigh lenses like
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the Sony 50mm f1.4 G Master which weighs just 516 g. And so that's a big
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difference. Obviously the Sigma 50mm f1.4 art weighs in at 660 g. And so even
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relative to that, we've got an extra 140 g here in the Viltrox lens. The closest
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comparison really in terms of size and weight is actually the uh Sony Zeiss Planar 50mm f1.4 which is roughly the
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same dimensions and it weighs about 20 g less 780 g. So very comparable to the
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pro series lens when it comes to that. So obviously if you're looking to travel
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light the pro series is not for you. That's why the air series exists. This
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lens is 84.6 6 mm or 3.32 in in diameter
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and 111 mm long, 4.37 in. That's roughly
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right under 4 mm more in diameter for the Viltrox than the GM lens. And it is
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about 15 mm longer. And so definitely all around this is a bigger lens. And
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that's why it weighs what it does. Even when it comes to the front filter threads, the GM lens has a 67 millimeter
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front filter thread. We're all the way up to 77 millimeters here for the Pro Series lens. And so obviously, you know,
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that reflects just the bigger size all around. And that does pay off and maybe some other areas optically. But really,
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this lens is about optical performance than it is trying to give you deliver something that is small and light.
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Clearly, Viltrox can do small and light. That's we see that again and again with the Air series. But it seems like when
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they're going to these big maximum apertures that they're they have a different set of priorities for those
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lenses. That's fair. I do prefer the Pro Series approach to uh aperture than what
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I do the Lab series. The Lab series uses that OLED screen and it's just it's a little bit more technical in the things
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you can do, but it's maybe not always as functional than this just traditional setup. And so when it comes to aperture,
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we have the ability to have de uh clicks with one/ird stop to tints all along. What we don't have is an aperture lock
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here. Thankfully though, we do have a nice firm detent between f-16 and
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automatic. So, that I think is is better. It's a little bit more precise than what I've seen previously. You do
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have the ability, however, to declick the aperture and to smoothly rack through the aperture range. That will
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allow you to do things like aperture racking, as you can see here, which just gives you more versatility when it comes
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to the video side of things. When you have it clicked,
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you can hear that those clicks are very uh very well defined and so it's you're not getting stuck on somewhere in
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between an aperture u marking. It is very precise when it comes to
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delineating that. We also have an AFMF switch and we have a custom or function
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button here on the side. The GM has two areas of difference from the Viltrox
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lens when it comes to features. does have a secondary function button at the top and so it's available in the
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vertical position and it does have that iris lock also as another option but
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what we do also have here is an extremely thorough weather sealing which is GM worthy grade and so here although
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I haven't seen the breakdown in terms of a like a cutout yet uh the previous pro
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series lens had 10 different seal points throughout the lens I suspect this is going to be very similar we do have that
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unique kind of orange red colored uh gasket at the back which I actually really like because it gives it something that's
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visually distinct to this particular series and then we have seals throughout including their HD nano coating on the
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front element that like a flooring coating on the Sony lens is going to resist fingerprints makes it a little
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bit more scratch resistant things like that all of that is good inside we have 11 aperture blades and we have pretty
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good geometry it's not perfect all across the frame but as you stop down we get more consistently round uh specular
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highlights all across the frame. On this lens mount, we do have that Viltrox feature that is they've been really
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consistent about, and that is having a USB C port that will allow you to do easy firmware updates to help to keep
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your lens current. All of that is very appreciated. Likewise, we have a nicely
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damped, nice moving manual focus ring here. It is focused by wire as with all
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mirrorless lenses, but because the focus me motor is very reactive, focus moves in a nice linear way without any kind of
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like little chunks of focus or steps, all of that is nice and smooth. No
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built-in image stabilization, but that's true for all the lenses in this class. And if you move the lens back and forth,
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you will feel a little bit of a clunk inside. That is due to having floating
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elements. If you turn the camera on and that is energized, it means that there
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you won't feel any kind of clunk anymore. Those floating elements allow it to perform a little bit better up
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close. Also can help with things like focus breathing a bit as well. Minimum focus distance here is 45 cm and you
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have a resulting magnification of 0.14 times. So right under 0.15 times. So the
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Sigma standard is 0.15 times. The GM is 0.16 times magnification. And so it does
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fall behind both of those by a tiny measure, but probably definitely with the Sigma, not in any kind of meaningful
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way. And just a very slight difference with the G Master lens. The performance
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here is very good up close, which does give you some versatility there. It comes with a lens hood, and it also
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comes with a pouch. I do have one complaint, at least on the copy that I'm reviewing when it comes to the lens
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hood, and that is that while it does click into place, it there's not enough resistance once it's there. And so, it's
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actually not all that difficult to dislodge that. The approach for Sigma and Sony is that there is an actual
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locking button that you can lock or unlock. So far, that's not been the Viltrox procedure, but I have seen
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definitely some Viltrox lenses where the it just bayonets into place with more precision and it holds better than what
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this lens does. So, I'm going to have to give it a little bit of a dock on that front. At the end of the day, however,
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outside of the size and weight, this is a really beautiful build quality and it's also I will also
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lens if you care about the aesthetics. These Pro Series lenses frankly are some of the better looking lenses available,
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period. And so I really do appreciate all of that as well. So build quality pretty fantastic here. So let's talk
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autofocus. Viltrox has moved to their hyper VCM focus motors in their most
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recent pro series lenses. This is a big step forward because these are higher thrust, smoother, quieter in operation.
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It's just a more sophisticated autofocus system. Now, while they have resol reserved the multiple HyperVCM motor
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configurations for the lab series lenses, even a single HyperVCM motors going to be enough to give you autofocus
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that is really better than pretty much everything in the class short of the uh Sony G Master lens that does have dual
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of their XD linear motors uh driving focus there. As you can see here, focus
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isn't exactly instant, but it is very quick in operation. you can see, you know, focus transition from close to far
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and so it's just not that instant back and forth. However, it is moving there very quickly. As you can see, what I
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found is for practical use, it did great. I was able to catch with some
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success catch photos of Nala moving on the fly here, even though she's very
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camouflaged in that situation. So, able to get some good focus results there. For lesser type results, I was able to
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get, you know, great autofocus when it came to things like portraits where focus is just perfect in all of them.
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And frankly, I expect nothing less from lenses at this point because the sophistication of the camera systems on
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Sony is so good. I also found that just for casual shots, uh, you know, family
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type shots, that autofocus was just generally really fantastic. It's sharp. It's very, very quiet. In fact, so quiet
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you can hold it right next to your ear and you can focus back and forth and you kind of question to see whether or not focus is actually happening because it
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is so quiet even in that close proximity. And so if your priority is getting something really smooth and
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sophisticated in its focus, then this is a really great focus motor. I would say
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that if you're going to try to tackle, you know, fast action type stuff. At the end of the day, you're probably better
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served going with the Sony lens for a couple of reasons. It still has the most sophisticated autofocus, the fastest and
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highest thrust, and also of course you're going to eliminate all of the third-p partyy limitations that Sony
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imposes. And so I think for that purpose, if you're shooting fast action, go with the Sony lens. But at this
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stage, I mean, I wouldn't say that there's any advantage to a lens like the Sigma 50mm f1.4 Art, for example. This
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lens is every bit as good, if not better, in the sophistication of its autofocus system. So, compared to
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everything that cost under $1,000, this is right at the top of the class. Now,
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on the video side of things, I think that the HyperVCM focus motor maybe even does a better job. Here on Sony, you can
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see that there is absolutely no problem if I start to approach the camera and focus is tracking me there. If I step
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out of the frame or duck down, you can see that focus uh it does actually move to the background, but then it quickly
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locks back onto me as I re-enter the frame and you're back to very accurate autofocus in no time at all. What's
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more, you can see in the focus pull test that I do that we have a nice smooth
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transition from front to back with those subject. I don't see any kind of visible steps or pulsing, but rather a nice
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confident lock on. And what's more, you can see the focus breathing is actually really quite well controlled. I don't
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see any kind of significant change between the uh the size of objects, whether close or near. And of course,
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that's even shooting at f1.4. You stop down a little bit more and that focus breathing what is there would become
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even less visible. Likewise, in the when I tested going from my hand to my face,
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allowing focus to go back and forth, zero problems in that front as well. It
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made nice transitions back and forth. So, in general, I found I shot actually shot quite a lot of video clips with
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this lens. I shot my, as you can see some of this footage here, you know, shots. Even when they're back lit, focus
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is nice and solid. I also shot a number of my uh YouTube episodes, some of the
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statics sets with this lens. And of course, I couldn't publicly report that because the lens wasn't yet publicly
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available, but I used it for that purpose and it worked just fine in all of those applications. And so, in
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general, I think if you're looking for a nice, stable, and affordable uh 50mm
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lens with a fast maximum aperture and you don't mind a little bit of weight, well, this is a pretty great option. So
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let's dive into the optical performance. We have similar to the 85mm, we have a
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optical design of 15 elements in 11 groups. While that is identical, the optical formulation obviously is
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different. We have three extra low dispersion elements in the design, eight high refractive index elements, and then
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we have one of what is a newer element for Viltrox that I hadn't seen previous to this year, and that is a UA or an
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ultraaspherical element. And so, uh, something new that they're able to grind that is only going to help when it comes
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to their optical performance. So, that leaves only three normal elements in the optical design. It's almost purely
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exotics. And so, that does help with the performance as we're going to see. Taking a look at the MDF shows that we
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have a very, very good performance across the frame except in the far corners. Stop down to f8. It's basically
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a straight line across. Not quite as sharp in the center, but stronger in the corners and the latter half of the
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mid-frame. The Viltrox is better than the Sigma basically all across the frame. Save the corners. And so it is
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it's it's very strong. So wide open, it's definitely stronger than the Sigma. The Sigma does sharpen up more at small
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apertures, however. And so I would say in the places that it matters, the Viltrox is definitely higher performer.
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Even more so, uh there is a huge difference between these lenses when it comes to the performance for uh vignette
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and distortion. The Sigma lens had a really surprising amount of of pin cushion distortion to it. Whereas, while
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the Viltrox has a little bit of barrel distortion, it is minimal and easily correctable. Definitely a difference
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here. It also produces a lower level of vignette. And that is maybe where that larger front element and diameter pays
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off a little bit is that vignette is a little bit lower. When it comes to the GM lens, the GM lens has more
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distortion, not quite as much as the Sigma, but more than the Viltrox, and it has very slightly less vignette relative
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to it in that regard. By the way, I will do a head-to-head comparison between these two lenses since I have them both
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at the same time, and that will be a future episode for you to check out down the road. I also found that the Viltrox
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has really well controlled chromatic aberrations. And so before and after the plane of focus in a variety of
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situations here, you can see that there just really isn't any uh fringe color fringing to see. It's controlling that
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really well. I did see a tiny bit of lateral style chromatic aberration on my chart. However, I couldn't really see it
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out in real world results. So real world, it's not a problem. And so really great results there. When it comes to
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the wideopen performance, even at 61 megapixels and showing the results at 200% magnification, you can see that the
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center of the frame is fantastically sharp. The mid-frame is excellent. And then the corners are softer. Um, not
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bad, but softer relative to the very high metric for everywhere else. I found
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that for real world shooting where it's less emphasizing the corners that the real world performance was excellent.
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Whether it's shooting a portrait shot where you can see great detail there or even a landscape shot, you can see, you
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know, kind of tracking down into the shot even in the draw distance. It's really, really great contrast and detail
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that's being uh performed there. Stopping down to f2, you can see it definitely sharpens up in the center and
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it sharpens up in the corner, though the corners are not yet at their peak performance. They are better at f2.8,
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but I found that kind of best performance for the corners arrives at about f4. And you can see here that f4
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definitely looks better. Real world landscape shots shot in that range, you know, f4 to f8, they look fantastic.
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Great detail all across frame. Great contrast, great color. This is a fantastic lens for that maybe secondary
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application, but at small apertures, it really looks beautiful and really great performance there. Defraction is going
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to start to show up at f11 and be a little bit more pronounced by the minimum aperture of f-16.
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Where I really love this lens is the combination of having that great sharpness and contrast on the subject,
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but then what I consider to be a more pleasing rendering than actually either the Sigma or the Sony G Master lens. I
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love this G Master lens and I like the bokeh from it, but I like the bokeh from the Viltrox more. So, it is just
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smoother, a little bit more artful and more creamy. It at least to my eye, it is more attractive. I would say that
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probably the best other bokeh producing lens would actually be the Samyang 50 mm
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f1.4 series 2 lens. It's not nearly as sharp as Vtrox lens, but it also has
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really beautiful rendering. But, you know, some lenses I just instinctively like the look the drawing or the
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rendering from the lens. Uh the the images just appeal to me personally on a visceral level. And that is certainly
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true of this Viltrox lens. I just feel like of the available 50mm f1.4 options
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on the Sony platform right now, it is really really great. And I would say the only rendering I like better maybe is um
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the G Master 50mm f1.2 which has that extra little bit of f1.2 specialness to
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it. I also was really pleasantly surprised with flare resistance and you can see here that shooting at f1.4
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before into an extremely brightly backlit situation. I had very good performance. Likewise with landscape
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shots or videos with bright sun in the frame. I had very low flare issues. And
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in fact, I would say that what I like is that at f1.4, even though it's not like perfectly resistant to the sun, what
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happens there is visually pleasing in my eye. It's artistic and def definitely not destructive. And so I again the
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rendering from this lens is really great. I found colors to be really uh
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special whether it's shooting outdoors and autumn season. So, there's some great outdoor colors, but also when I
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was shooting p uh people pictures uh indoors, I just felt like again like there's that special sauce there that's
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in the lens that I don't see in all modern lenses. And so, again, it's big and heavy, but man, it sure is nice
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optically. And if that is your priority, I mean, this is a huge bang for the buck right here. So, in conclusion, I mean,
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there's really not a whole lot to complain about when it comes to really any of these Pro Series lenses, but I
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think particularly of this 50mm f1.4. I liked the Pro AF 85mm f1.4 a lot. And if
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anything, in subsequent months of using it since my review, I've liked it even better. I can tolerate the weight, I
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feel like, and I really love the results that it gives. In many ways, though, I think I like this 50mm f1.4 even better.
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And that's saying something because I have long loved my Sony G Master 50mm
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f1.4 which really is a fantastic lens and it does still take the win in some
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ways when it comes to autofocus and then obviously to have such a great uh you know optical performance in a much
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smaller package. At the same time though, if I were just looking head-to-head and just in terms of pure
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image quality, particularly when I consider the overall rendering, I would probably go with the Viltrox Pro AF50mm
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f1.4. I think it really strikes a beautiful balance for an F1.4 lens
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between that sharpness and contrast and then just beautiful rendering from it. And the fact that it's also such a very
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good video lens means that frankly I could do everything that I do with that
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G Master lens with this Viltrox lens and I wouldn't miss a beat when you consider
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that there's a $900 difference between the two. I think that's a pretty compelling argument for the Viltrox at
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the end of the day. Obviously, we are very fortunate to have so many very good
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options available to us at different price points, but I suspect that even with a fairly full market, this uh
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Viltrox lens is going to come in and it's going to sell very well for the simple reason that it is just the best
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bang for the buck that frankly we may have ever seen before. When you measure the combination of the optical
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performance, the autofocus performance and then the build and feature set. This is a beautifully professional-grade lens
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as the name suggests but at a you know a moderate consumer grade kind of price
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and we are very very fortunate to live in a day when such lenses are available to us. Now if you want more information
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you've got a couple of options. you can check in the description down below and you've got link to my full text review
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that is on the newly revised and updated dustinbott.net. So go and check that out. There are some buying links there.
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And if you want a deeper dive into that optical performance with a few more comparisons along the way, well stay
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tuned with me right now. I'm going to jump into that and share it with you. Okay, we'll start by taking a look at vignette and distortion. You can see
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there is a very mild amount of barrel distortion there. However, it is a very linear style barrel distortion. none of
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that complex mustache pattern. And so you can see I used about a plus three
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plus four to correct for it. No issues there. A nice clean correction. There is some vignette largely concentrated in
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the corners. I needed a plus 62 to correct for it. I'm not going to show it yet here because I'm going to do more comparisons later on with the GM lens.
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The GM lens, however, does have both more distortion and more complex distortion and very slightly less
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vignette. I will however briefly show you the results from the Sigma uh 50mm
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f1.4 art and you can see it has massively more distortion and also a lot
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more vignette and so definitely the Viltrox could get by really without relying on any kind of corrections
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whereas the Sigma is definitely going to lean into that. Here on my chart there is minimal amount of longitudinal style
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chromatic aberrations. I actually see a little bit more before the plane of focus. If I look at something threedimensional like my dad's old SLR,
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you can see that there's no fringing problems here anywhere. Neither on the specular highlights. Looks nice and
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clean overall. So, no problems there. Speaking of those specular highlights, just quickly take a look. This is f1.4,
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f1.2, you can see we are getting close to having circular shapes across, but you can very slightly see the 11
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aperture blades. And then by f2.8, it's circular everywhere. However, I've seen
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a better job of masking the shape of the uh the actual aperture blades than what we're seeing here. There's a bit of the
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lateral style chromatic aberrations. This is f8 here and at a very high level of magnification. However, I didn't
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really see any issues in real world shots and so I'm not concerned at all. So, when it comes to resolution and
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contrast, here is on the Sony A7R Mark II 61 megapixels and here we are at 200%
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magnification. The center of the frame is chef's kiss. Good. High contrast,
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great detail, super crisp, looks awesome. Mid-frame also looks fantastic
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as we pan down. Looking good. Looking very consistent from here to here. And really, it's not until we get towards
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the very edge of the corner that you start to see some softening there. Overall, however, a really nice result.
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We'll quickly put that in perspective versus the Sigma. One caveat, the Sigma results I'm going to show you are from
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the Sony Alpha 1. This was before I had the A7R Mark II, so it's at slightly
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lower levels of magnification, so it won't look quite as big on frame. However, that aside, you can see that in
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the center of the frame, the Viltrox has an easy win. It's just crisper. It has better contrast. The textures pop better
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in the mid-frame. Let's pop to the other side where we have apples to apples. You can see that it's less of a big margin,
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but look at the text. It's much inkier, kind of faded looking here on the Sigma. Likewise, as you look at the textures in
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the 50 here for the Peso mark, you can see that they're just cleaner looking here on the Viltrox lens. And if we pop
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down into the corner here on the right side, this is the place where I would give Sigma the lens or the wind. It's
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clearly more crisply defined there in the corners than what the Viltrox is. To put that all into perspective, even at
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higher ISO in a dim room, you can see great detail here in contrast at f1.4.
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Here's an f1.4 landscape shot. And if we go down into the the area of focus here,
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you can see drawing right out there. You've got really crisp delineation, lots of detail that's captured. None of
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those textures are turning to mush. Here's another f1.4 landscape type shot. And you can see here in the area of
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focus, super crisp looking. And we can see that that detail is really holding off in the plane of focus off here
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towards the edge of the frame as well. Very impressive. I also thought this was great um just moving on the fly here.
28:01
And so you can see this couple obviously they're in motion focuses here on the bribe. You can see that even at high
28:07
ISO, you can see lots of grain there from that. You can see the detail is holding up really nice and crisp there.
28:14
Finally, for a portrait shot here, we can see that if we punch into f1.4 four and at 100%. Great detail and contrast.
28:22
Skin tones look good. This lens is awesome at f1.4. So, what happens if we stop on down? Here's f1.4 on the left,
28:28
f2 on the right. You can see that in the center of the frame, f2 is now just off the charts good. I mean, it's pretty
28:34
much perfect. Likewise, the midframe, you're you're not going to get a whole lot better than that. That's really
28:40
really awesome. Down here, we're seeing a brighter result in the corner. Um, but it's not necessarily a whole lot sharper
28:47
as of yet. You can see over on this side as well, it's consistent. I mean, we've gotten we're getting a bit better
28:52
contrast, but the detail is not really popping great yet. That contrast does help. And u, but we are seeing
29:00
consistency in terms of our performance. From f2 to f2.8, we can see a little bit
29:05
more improvement, but I would say it's at f4 where I think that these corners are really starting to pop. And you can
29:11
see that all of the contrast and detail looks really great there. So the results all the way through f8 are going to look
29:17
about equally good. Here at f11, you'll see a bit of kind of a backsliding due
29:23
to defraction. Still very usable. F-16 is slightly softer. Continuing that
29:28
trend where there's just a little bit less contract or contrast due to the effects of defraction. Here's a quick
29:33
look at our minimum focus distance and maximum magnification. We can see here that contrast and detail are good, but I
29:40
don't find it as exceptional as what some of these lenses have been. Um, it's good, but the contrast isn't quite as
29:46
good up close, I would say, as it is a little bit further out. Here, for example, at f1.4, a little bit further
29:52
away. I mean, look at how much the textures just boom, pop right off the page there. Looks really fantastic. And
29:58
of course looking towards the defocused area. Even though this is not necessarily a an amazing ratio for a
30:04
50mm lens because the background is still relatively in focus, it's still blurring it out nicely. You can see the
30:11
colors are really great. And here again, we're shooting into the sun yet colors and contrast are holding up. Bokeel
30:17
looks really nice. It's really impressive. Here's a another shot where I think that it just shows off the best
30:23
things about this lens. great detail and contrast on our plane of focus, but the outfocus is really soft and creamy
30:30
looking for a 50 millimeter lens. Uh, you know, in some ways this feels a little bit more uh f1.2ish. It's not
30:37
quite that level, but really really soft focus background. Again, here's a lot of
30:42
backlight in the subject and yet you holding up and where this could be just loaded with CA. And as we look towards
30:49
defocused, it's just just transitions really creamy to the background. Another shot here. Again, the sun's right there.
30:56
You see a little bit of prism right there, but that's no problem. Contrast and detail look great even in a strongly
31:03
back lit situation. But again, look at how soft and creamy all of this looks. Very, very impressive. This image I
31:09
love. It's to me it just kind of screams autumn, uh, which is a season I personally love. You can see again
31:15
there's a little bit of this prismatic and there's a little bit of a ghosting artifact there, but to me the image just
31:21
feels warm and vibrant. Um, and even this I like. And so, as you can tell,
31:26
I'm not really turned off by that. And then when I'm shooting at smaller apertures into the sun, sometimes lenses
31:32
kind of fall apart when they're at stopped down a bit. You can see here that despite two areas of of focus where
31:39
the sun is is super bright and it's this image doesn't really convey because it it underexposes because the sun is so
31:45
bright. But you can just see that there's that intense sun. But look, there's no ghosting artifacts down here.
31:51
Contrast is holding up pretty great really all things considered. So thanks for sticking around until the very end.
31:57
I hope that this optical deep dive has helped you to determine whether or not this is the lens for you. As always,
32:03
thanks for watching. Have a great day and let the light in. [Music]

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