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Viltrox Pro AF 75mm F1.2 STM Definitive Review (on 40MP Fuji X-T5)
Jul 16, 2023
Photographer Dustin Abbott shares a detailed review of the first lens in Viltrox's Pro Series - the Viltrox Pro AF 75mm F1.2 STM. Reviewed on the new 40MP Fujifilm X-T5 | This video is sponsored by Fantom Wallet. Visit https://store.fantomwallet.com and use code DUSTIN15 to get 15% off | Read the Text Review: https://bit.ly/ProAF75da | Visit the Image Gallery: https://bit.ly/ProAF75pics | Purchase the Viltrox Pro AF 75mm F1.2 @ B&H Photo https://bhpho.to/3PjhRjD | Amazon https://amzn.to/3SCa4iv | Viltrox https://bit.ly/ProAF75buy (use code DUSTINABBOTT for 10% off) | Amazon Canada https://amzn.to/3v7wai5 | Amazon UK https://amzn.to/3BS3Vrm
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Table of Contents:
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0:00 - Intro and Concept
2:30 - Build and Design
6:20 - Autofocus
Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:00
Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott and I'm here today to give you my definitive review of the brand new
0:15
Viltrox Pro AF 75mm f1.2 STM lens. This is the first lens in a new upscale series from Viltrox
0:25
and it really doesn't surprise me at all to see Viltrox getting to this place
0:30
They have really progressed as quickly in their lens design and development
0:34
as any lens maker as I've ever seen before, and they really are becoming a force to be reckoned with
0:39
This lens really seems to solve a lot of previous Viltrox shortcomings
0:43
and is going to be a very competitive lens, starting here on Fuji, where I've done this review on the brand new Fuji X-T5
0:50
40 megapixel APS-C sensor, highest resolution APS-C sensor I've ever used. And so it definitely
0:57
gave the lens a good optical test, which by the way, I'll give you a little bit of a newsflash
1:02
It passed without any problems at all. But beyond that, they have also are upgrading in terms of some
1:08
of the features that I've been looking for, including weather sealing and an AF-MF switch
1:14
just a little more upscale build, but they're still really competitive with their pricing coming
1:18
it at $549. So at least on paper, that adds up to a winning combination. So today we're going to
1:25
give you our detailed breakdown of handling and features. We're going to look at the autofocus
1:30
performance in detail, and then a really deep dive into the image quality from the lens and give you
1:35
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So as noted, there are some build upgrades here. This is, by the way, as you can see, it is not a small lens
2:31
This is the largest Viltrox lens to this point, though I will note that as far as the weight goes
2:37
it's really not much more than the very first Viltrox lens that I reviewed
2:41
which was a manual focus 20 millimeter f1.8 but we do have a large lens here that is 87 millimeters
2:47
in diameter or 3.42 inches and has a 77 millimeter front filter thread which is large but very common
2:55
and share with a lot of other lenses the lens is 101 millimeters in length or about four inches
3:00
it weighs in at 670 grams or right over 23 and a half ounces and so it is a substantial lens and
3:09
it's going to be heavy for some. So for someone like myself, you know, a full-time photographer
3:14
I didn't notice the weight of the lens really at all. I had my wife shoot with it just doing a
3:19
little portrait shoot of me and she complained about the weight of it. And so again, it's going
3:24
to be your mileage may vary depending on how comfortable you are with slightly larger lenses
3:29
but that certainly is going to be the trade-off here. The reason for that weight comes from a
3:34
couple of things. First of all, this is all metal and glass in construction. The only thing
3:38
plastic here is the lens hood, which is kind of surprising because, you know, about half the time
3:44
Viltrox provides a metal lens hood, the other half they seem to provide a plastic one. Maybe in this
3:49
case it was one of the ways that they kept the price down a little bit more, and so that's the
3:53
only plastic thing here, but everything else is really, you know, very nicely made, and of course
3:58
if you look in the front there is a ton of glass in there, a lot of optical glass, which as we're
4:03
going to see is improved optical glass. A couple of things stood out to me as being changed. First
4:08
of all in terms of the physical appearance. It is a familiar design, but now we have a Pro badge
4:13
instead of some kind of the meaningless letters that are there sometimes. And then on the other
4:17
side, there's a new Viltrox badge that I've not seen before. Aperture is fairly typical for a
4:22
Viltrox lens in that we have a stepped aperture ring here with one third clicks, and you can go
4:29
all the way to one side and click over into an automatic mode where you can control it from
4:33
than the camera. There is no de-click option here, and so if you're looking for that for video
4:38
unfortunately, you're out of luck. The manual focus ring here is made of metal as everything
4:43
It is ribbed, has a nice grip. It moves very nicely. The damping is good. The weight feels
4:48
good to it. However, there is a little bit of a feeling of some stepping when you're trying to do
4:53
very fine tuning, precision manual focus, and so that did detract from it a little bit. I just felt
5:00
like I would move more than just a linear movement. It would be more of like little tiny jumps
5:06
And so the stepping motor became a factor as a part of that, unfortunately. But I was still able
5:12
to do reasonable manual focus pulls, as you can see in this shot here. If we look inside, there
5:17
are 11 rounded aperture blades. And that used to be a real Viltrox weakness, just they were kind of
5:23
lopsided the blades Fortunately here that really not the case at all And so we keep a nice circular shape as we begin to stop the lens down Certainly a highlight for me personally there And so that is largely preferred
5:35
Also, as noted, this does now have weather sealing. And I think there are some internal seals because there is a gasket here
5:42
I haven't seen a map of inside, but they say that it is dust and moisture sealed
5:47
And they also talk about an anti-fouling coating on the front element
5:51
probably something similar to flooring. And so that makes it both resistance to water and then oils from fingerprints makes it easier to clean
5:58
And so definitely moving upscale in terms of our overall build here
6:02
And one thing that has been retained, which I think is a great feature
6:06
and that is a USB-C port on the lens mount that allows you to do firmware updates
6:11
right through a computer onto the lens itself. So when it comes to the build here, it is a very nicely made lens and it handles nicely
6:18
And I always love having that AF-MF switch. To me, it remains the single most logical way to control that function
6:26
Now, speaking of autofocus, this has a lead screw type STM motor
6:31
Now, you know, many manufacturers are finding as they move a little bit more upscale, a
6:35
little more daring with their lens designs, that they need more torque than what just
6:39
the basic STM loader or maybe even a single linear type motor can provide
6:45
You know, I think the Viltrox is going to have to come to that same conclusion because
6:49
while this lens autofocus is fairly good for the most part, if you're doing minor focus changes
6:55
it's snappy, it's relatively quiet, focus is smooth. But what I do miss out on seeing is that
7:02
I find that major focus changes are not as fast as what I would like. You can tell that the lens
7:08
needs a little bit more torque. And you can see as I shift from subject to subject, there's a little
7:12
bit of lag there. I could also see that, for example, if I did my hand test and you can just
7:18
see that it takes a little while before focus moves off my hand back to my eye and vice versa
7:24
Likewise, when I did video focus pulls, I saw a fairly smooth transition, but I also saw a little
7:29
bit of pulsing before it settled. And that also can be a kind of evidence of not enough torque
7:35
And so it's not just the speeding up end, it's also the braking end and coming to a stop at the
7:39
proper place without any kind of need for further movement. So I think that is the area that needs
7:45
improvement. Now on the plus side, the focus accuracy was actually really good from the lens
7:51
I got very good IAF focus results. And for example, the shot of Ferrari, you can see even at F1.2
7:56
how beautiful the eye is focused. And then from my portrait session, even though my wife is not
8:02
at all familiar with Fuji when it comes to their focus systems, that I was, because IAF worked well
8:09
we were able to get well-focused results. And so at F1.2, F4, I had her shoot at a variety of
8:14
large apertures, F2, you know, we had really good focus results. And as you're probably getting a
8:20
preview, this is a very sharp, high contrast lens. And so when it comes to autofocus, the one area
8:26
where I would say, forget about it, for portraits, no problem. For most general purpose photography
8:31
no problem. For weddings, you know, I wouldn't be 100% confident. I would like to see a little
8:38
bit more torque for that. But definitely for sports, if you have moving action, and so in this
8:43
case, as you can see, this even Nala just walking towards me, I wasn't able to nail focus consistently
8:49
enough, which makes me question a little bit, for example, of a bride walking down the aisle
8:54
Now, if you're using this for wedding work and you're using it for pose stuff or very small
8:58
movements, no problem. But I wouldn't use this personally for my critical shots of a bride coming
9:03
up the aisle or something to that effect. So at the end of the day, some mixed, really the only
9:08
place I find any kind of mixed bag for this lens really is when it comes to the autofocus. Because
9:13
as we're going to see, the image quality is exceptional. And I knew it'd be exceptional
9:17
from the moment I saw the MTF that showed incredible sharpness and contrast in the center
9:22
of the frame with only a slight dip at the edge of the frame and then at F8, perfect performance
9:28
And so we'll dive now into the image quality and see if it lives up to those fabulous MTF charts
9:34
So let's start by taking a look at vignette and distortion here. So first of all, as you can see
9:39
from the uncorrected raw image on the left. There is no issue at all with distortion. It is
9:45
basically completely free of distortion. You can see, however, there is some serious darkening
9:50
towards the corners, some fairly heavy vignette. We'll take a look at manual corrections. So in this
9:55
case, I've done nothing to distortion because there's no need for it, but I have dialed in a
9:59
lot of a vignette correction, about three and a half stops, and moved the midpoint over to get a
10:05
clean result. Now, interestingly, there is a correction profile here that I don't think does
10:11
enough work, but as you can see, it definitely helps. I think the vignette would need to be
10:17
cranked up a fair bit. And so for my chart test, I don't necessarily love the end result. However
10:23
if we take a look at a real world image at F1.2 with snow in the corners, which usually to me is
10:30
where vignette shows up the heaviest. In this case, I think that the profile without any tweaks
10:35
to it has actually done quite a good job. And you can see that the corner looks very neutral
10:39
I don't know that I often see Viltrox lenses getting profile corrections like this
10:44
so it's really pleasant to see this end result. Byproduct is that I don't think that real-world vignette
10:49
is going to be an issue because the camera profile seems to be doing a good job of taking care of it Likewise there a very very good control here optically of any kind of longitudinal chromatic aberrations And so you can see very very little fringing This is a near
11:04
apochromatic result. You know, as a byproduct, we have got, you know, really, really crisp resolution
11:10
and dark lines there. Taking a look at some real world examples here, you can see that even on the
11:15
bokeh, there is a little bit of fringing there, but basically the only kind of fringing that you're
11:19
going to see when looking at it, you know, at 100% magnification. Like here, I see very little. And
11:25
we'll also just take a look at the bokeh quality. There's only a little bit of an inner line there
11:30
For the most part, this is a really, really clean and geometry, not too bad. You know, it goes cat
11:34
eye towards the edge of the frame, but overall, as we saw earlier, a pretty good result. So the
11:40
combination of really, really doing a great job of controlling chromatic aberrations on tunal
11:45
chromatic aberrations and then you know having very high resolution and contrast is that this
11:50
is a near apochromatic performance here where I mean the pop at f1.2 that is just spectacular
11:57
and and as you can see moving off towards defocus we don't really see any kind of fringing here at
12:02
all it is very very nice transitions even on these bright shiny objects here's another f1.2 shot of
12:09
my wife's glasses there just sitting on a side table. But you can see once again
12:14
what an amazing job it does of just producing really, really crisp detail and very high contrast
12:20
even at F1.2. And we can see here, this is a place that's begging for chromatic aberration
12:25
And there is just a tiny, tiny bit of fringing there. Overall, a really spectacular result on
12:31
that front. Likewise, when it comes to longitudinal chromatic aberration, we can see here stop down
12:36
to about f8. Very often on my chart when I'm stopped down you can really see a lot of fringing
12:41
on either side from lateral chromatic aberrations. This is completely neutral here. A really strong
12:46
performance. This applies in the real world too. This is the kind of scene that is just begging
12:50
for lateral chromatic aberrations. You know bright contrast, the snow there and there's just no
12:56
fringing that is there. You can see this turkey trying to get away from me because I was getting
13:00
too close. And anyway just a really really fabulous real world result. So this is my first review on
13:06
the new Fuji X-T5, which has a 40 megapixel APS-C sensor, which is the highest resolution
13:11
that I've ever seen by a fairly good margin on an APS-C sensor
13:15
Despite that kind of torture test and showing you the results at 200%, you'd see in the center
13:20
of the frame, this is just a fantastic result. Amazing detail and contrast
13:25
Mid-frame looks fantastic. Very, very high resolution. Very high contrast. And down here in the corners, even though there is a, you know, it's not completely perfectly resolved here
13:37
Actually, it's almost like there's a little dip here because the very edge of the frame looks just fabulous
13:41
So stopping down to F1.4 gives us a little bit of boost in the corner and I would say a little bit more contrast
13:47
Moving on to F2, and by F2, our corners are looking really, really crisp, you know, resolved very nicely
13:53
And we've kind of lost a little bit of that slightly nervous quality that was there before
13:57
We can see a pretty huge uptick here over on the left side
14:01
You can see how crisp everything looks here on Sir Winston there
14:05
So past F2, it's going to be more about depth of field. I think we're pretty close to tapping out the top of the potential for resolution here
14:15
And so if we look back here, I mean, back in the familiar territory, I mean, it looks fabulous
14:19
But in some ways, I think F2 actually looks a hair better than F2.8. Likewise, moving on to F4, I just don't see any greater improvement myself
14:27
So F2 is kind of a killer aperture here if you're wanting performance across the frame
14:32
Now, if we step down into the very corner, you know, there's, I would say, a little bit further improvement there
14:37
But for the most part, you're going to get, you know, fairly even performance from F2 through about F8
14:44
with the corners looking the best at F5.6 and F8 in terms of just general consistency
14:50
Now by f16, our minimum aperture, you can see that diffraction is starting to just soften some of the contrast
14:57
It still looks actually fairly good, but we can just see, particularly if we look in the center of the frame where it is so awesome wide open
15:04
that you're losing a fair bit due to diffraction by f16. So again, I would probably use somewhere around f8 if you're using like the new X-T5 as an upper limit
15:13
and then f11 on some of the lower resolution bodies. This plays out really, really nicely for portrait work
15:20
Here we have it F1.2. So first of all, just take a look at the general rendering of the lens
15:24
You can see that the transition to defocus, the colors, everything is really, really nice
15:29
Skin tones look very good. And you can see that even at F1.2, there is wonderful detail
15:35
And so this is a very compelling portrait lens. Here is F1.4, and in this case, I've played with the tone curve a little bit for a certain look
15:43
but you can see just how much detail is there at F1.4
15:48
When you're shooting in kind of the general area where you're going to shoot portraits, that kind of two-thirds of the frame
15:53
this is an amazingly crisp lens, but it also has really, really nice bokeh
15:58
The shot I alluded to earlier of Ferrari, you can see at F1.2
16:02
Depth of field is very, very shallow here, but you can see, number one, how well-focused it is on the eye
16:07
But then you can just see how great of detail and contrast is there. I mean, you can see the door reflected there
16:12
in his eye. Just a tremendous amount of detail that is captured
16:16
Now in shooting landscapes on a shot like this, obviously depth of field is going to
16:21
affect where focus is going to be But you can see that even at f1 we got lots of wonderful detail here And even as we resolve towards the distance it doing an amazing job Here in the foreground
16:33
obviously things are out of focus, but I mean, it's capturing a tremendous amount of detail across
16:38
the frame, even at F1.2. If you stop on down to like F5.6, as we've got here, you can see the
16:44
images. It just pops. I mean, it's, you know, it's drawing beautifully off into the distance there
16:50
Beautiful contrast, really, really nice color, and that detail is just consistent right from edge to edge
16:57
Now, as noted, minimum focus distance remains a Viltrox weakness, and so you can't get particularly close, right under 90 centimeters
17:05
and here we can see that it's only a 0.10 times magnification
17:11
However, it is boosted by the fact that the lens is just so good optically
17:16
and so plane of focus seems to be fairly flat here, and we can see really good detail and contrast
17:22
which means that the lens is still useful. I just wish it had a higher magnification level
17:27
I was very impressed with the bokeh from the lens considering how sharp and high contrast it is
17:32
And so you can see here that, you know, obviously the subject really pops at f1.2
17:36
And even though this distance-wise has the potential of being a very busy scene
17:40
the rendering is quite nice. And if we go to, you know, easier subjects
17:45
again, we can see the detail where focus is, is really great
17:49
And then the bleed off, you know, the transition towards defocus, just really, really nice
17:54
You know, here's a more optimal situation. And so, again, detail and contrast, everything is really crisp in that transition, no kind of haze or blur towards the edges
18:04
But then in this situation, we've been able to completely blur out the background, very nice and soft
18:09
Here, again, you can see some of the snowflakes in the air being rendered as bokeh
18:14
It just looks really, really nice, very soft and creamy. now in times past I have found Viltrox colors sometimes to not be my favorite to process just
18:23
a little bit you know a little bit go garish a little bit more easily the optical glass here I
18:28
think is definitely improved and so as a byproduct here you can see compared side by side with a
18:34
Fuji lens the new 30 millimeter f2.8 macro you can just see that really the colors are quite
18:39
consistent between the two lenses and I would say that I would call the Fuji colors ever so
18:44
slightly richer but you know truth be told they are very very similar and of course the you know
18:49
the Viltrox is easier easily the sharper of the two lenses at f 2.8 but I think that color and I
18:56
just speak kind of generally I found like colors were easier to process skin tones were good I was
19:01
just happy with the end results finally a quick word on flare resistance now for real world flare
19:06
you know like for example this morning shot there's no ghosting artifacts here obviously no problems
19:11
there. And this backlit image with bright sun in the frame, again, I don't see any issues
19:18
maybe a tiny bit of veiling here, but this also could just be some defocus. You can see that it's
19:23
held up really well against that backlight condition. However, if I shine a flashlight
19:29
like a high-powered flashlight into it, as with most lenses, it's going to react in extreme ways
19:35
And here is a, you know, this is a maybe a little bit more typical as I moved around and tried to
19:40
find some ghosting blobs. You can see I got a couple of little ghosting blobs here, but overall
19:45
I think for most, you know, not extreme real world work, you're probably not going to have too much
19:50
of a problem with flare. And so as you can see, optically, this lens is a real treat, which makes
19:55
it a real treat as a lens. At this price point, this is very, very strong optical performance
20:01
And that near apochromatic performance makes this feel like much more expensive glass that I've used
20:07
in the past. And again, it speaks to me of how they have upgraded the optical glass that's used
20:12
in the Pro Series. It makes me very excited about what is yet to come from Viltrox in their new Pro
20:17
Series, but I'm also excited about this lens itself. I really love this focal length, about 115
20:22
millimeters. I feel like this is an underutilized range for lens makers, the 100 to slightly over
20:28
100 millimeter range, because, you know, it's a little bit more compression than what 85 millimeter
20:34
option offers, but it's not as long as 135 millimeters, which can feel restrictive sometimes
20:40
To me, this is a real sweet spot that I think more lens makers should explore
20:44
and I'm really glad that Viltrox has done that here. At $549, if you have a Fuji camera and
20:50
you're looking for a great portrait lens, frankly, I haven't seen a better portrait lens from Fuji at
20:56
this point that I would recommend over it. And I personally would take this over either the 56
21:00
millimeter F1.2 or the 90 millimeter F2 because I just feel like it's a more appealing package
21:06
overall. And of course it comes in at hundreds and hundreds of dollars cheaper. At the end of
21:10
the day, that makes the new Viltrox Pro AF 75 millimeter F1.2 a real winner. I'm Dustin Abbott
21:19
If you look in the description down below, you can find linkage to my full text review. You can
21:24
also find links to my image gallery and check out more photos. There are buying links there
21:28
some of which are just being populated because this is a brand new lens. But there's also links to follow myself or Craig on social media
21:35
to become a patron or get channel merchandise. Check out Let the Light In TV, our sister channel, for more great reviews there
21:44
Thanks for watching. Have a great day. And let the light in