Viltrox’s series of small, lightweight, and yet surprisingly high performing lenses is called the “Air” Series. We’ve seen 20mm F2.8 and 40mm F2.5 full frame lenses along with a truly excellent series of APS-C lenses, including the 25mm F1.7, 35mm F1.7, and 56mm F1.7. The AIR lenses have all been pretty uniformly excellent, combining great optics with small, lightweight (howbeit very simple) designs and equally low price tags (all under $200). Viltrox is back with yet another AIR series lens, and this is another full frame option. While the 20mm may still stand as the most useful lens for travel, the new Viltrox AF 50mm F2 AIR is easily the best performer yet in the series, and is very possibly the sharpest “nifty-fifty” style lens that has even been made. It seems to best even the impressive Sigma 50mm F2 DG DN from their iSeries, a lens I thought was very impressive. There’s no question the Sigma lens has a much higher degree of build quality and functionality, but at a price tag more than 3x higher than the sub-$200 AIR 50mm, I suspect that Viltrox will have another best seller on their hands. It is the new lightweight 50mm to grab (just 205g)? Find out my thoughts by watching the video review, reading the text review, or just enjoying the photos in the galleries.
Thanks to Viltrox for sending me a review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the Sony a7RV and the Sony Alpha 1.You can find the product listing page for the Viltrox AF 50mm F2 AIR here.
I probably don’t need to say much about the 50mm focal length at this point. I have probably reviewed more 50mm lenses than any other. It would be easy to ask the question, “Do we even need another 50mm lens?” The short answer might be “no”, but I suspect there will always be room for a lens like the AIR 50mm, as, shockingly, it is one of the sharpest 50mm lenses that I’ve tested.
The AIR lenses are great! Much like Samyang’s “Tiny series”, these lenses are for those who don’t care about bells and whistles and just want a lightweight, high performing lens. This won’t be the series for those looking for aperture rings, buttons, or rings, but if you want a light, tough, high performing lens at a great price, then grab a Viltrox AIR series lens!
Keywords: Viltrox, Viltrox AIR 50mm F2, Viltrox AF 50mm F2 AIR, AIR, Viltrox AF, Viltrox 50mm, Viltrox 40mm F2.5, 20mm STM, AF, Alpha 1, a7RV, Review, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Portrait, #viltrox, #letthelightin, #viltroxAF250, #DA, #viltrox50air, #carrylesscapturemore, #viltrox50air, #viltroxAIR250
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Viltrox’s series of small, lightweight, and yet surprisingly high performing lenses is called the “Air” Series. We’ve seen 20mm F2.8 and 40mm F2.5 full frame lenses along with a truly excellent series of APS-C lenses, including the 25mm F1.7, 35mm F1.7, and 56mm F1.7. The AIR lenses have all been pretty uniformly excellent, combining great optics with small, lightweight (howbeit very simple) designs and equally low price tags (all under $200). Viltrox is back with yet another AIR series lens, and this is another full frame option. While the 20mm may still stand as the most useful lens for travel, the new Viltrox AF 50mm F2 AIR is easily the best performer yet in the series, and is very possibly the sharpest “nifty-fifty” style lens that has even been made. It seems to best even the impressive Sigma 50mm F2 DG DN from their iSeries, a lens I thought was very impressive. There’s no question the Sigma lens has a much higher degree of build quality and functionality, but at a price tag more than 3x higher than the sub-$200 AIR 50mm, I suspect that Viltrox will have another best seller on their hands. It is the new lightweight 50mm to grab (just 205g)? Find out my thoughts by watching the video review below or reading on in the text review.
Thanks to Viltrox for sending me a review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the Sony a7RV and the Sony Alpha 1.You can find the product listing page for the Viltrox AF 50mm F2 AIR here.
I probably don’t need to say much about the 50mm focal length at this point. I have probably reviewed more 50mm lenses than any other. It would be easy to ask the question, “Do we even need another 50mm lens?” The short answer might be “no”, but I suspect there will always be room for a lens like the AIR 50mm, as, shockingly, it is one of the sharpest 50mm lenses that I’ve tested.
For example, here is the Sony 50mm F1.4 GM (my favorite 50mm lens) at F2 compared to the AIR 50mm in the center of the frame:
But here is something absurd: check out the corner comparison!
Oof! The Viltrox AF 50mm F2 AIR is SHARPER than the $1300 GM lens in the corners. In fact, all told, the tiny little 50mm Viltrox is the sharper of the two lenses. It’s absurdly sharp for a sub $200 lens…and it’s a full frame, autofocusing, full functional lens.
Now, to be clear, this is not a BETTER lens than my 50mm GM. It might be sharper at wide apertures, but it doesn’t have anywhere near the quality of rendering, feature set, or build quality, but the very fact that I’m even having this conversation is absurd. I’ll hit some of the weak points of the AIR 50mm in this review, but if we are just talking about sharpness, this lens is just silly sharp. Here’s a deep crop from a photo taken in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district:
Before jumping into the review proper, there is one matter that needs to be cleared up. Viltrox has an existing 50mm F1.8 lens, which I reviewed here. That lens has exactly three things going for it: it has a metal build, very slightly brighter maximum aperture, and does have an aperture ring. Beyond that, you need to forget about that lens. It costs about twice as much, isn’t nearly as sharp, doesn’t have as good of autofocus, and the optical glass and color aren’t nearly as good as this cheaper lens. What’s more, the older 50mm F1.8 weighs 340g (+135g), is physically larger (+22mm in length), and I would argue that the AIR lens is better made despite being pastics rather than metal. I won’t be surprised to see the older APS-C F1.4 and FF F1.8 series phased out in the near future.
The AIR lenses are great! Much like Samyang’s “Tiny series”, these lenses are for those who don’t care about bells and whistles and just want a lightweight, high performing lens. This won’t be the series for those looking for aperture rings, buttons, or rings, but if you want a light, tough, high performing lens at a great price, then grab a Viltrox AIR series lens. Sound interesting? I suspect so, so let’s dive in a little deeper into the details.
Viltrox AIR 50mm F2 Build and Handling
The theme for the AIR series is “Carry Less, Capture More”. Sometimes Chinese expressions get lost in translation to English, but I think this one works. The key attribute of the AIR series that makes me personally want them in my kit is how easy they are to throw into the bag and bring along while knowing that I’m still going to get great optical results. Initially I was far more excited by the notion of their PRO and LAB series of higher end lenses, but Viltrox has won me over with just how good these AIR lenses are. Many of my images in this review were taken on a recent trip to Japan, and while I had both a new LAB lens along with a new PRO lens to test, it was the AIR 50mm that went on the trip with me. Why? Because it is small and light.
As noted, the Viltrox AF 50mm F2 eschews the heavier metal casing typically used for the earlier Viltrox lenses and embraces a more conventional, lightweight design in polycarbonates (engineered plastics). I wouldn’t call the build high grade here, but what I can say is that nothing about the plastics feel flimsy. It doesn’t have the feel of the early Samyang Tiny series lenses but instead feels tough and durable; its the kind of lens that feels like it could survive some falls (not that I intentionally dropped it!)
As noted in the intro, The new AIR 50mm is much more compact than the earlier 50mm F1.8 lens, only 65mm in diameter (2.6″) and 56.5mm in length (2.2″). It weighs only 205g (7.23oz), which is a bit heavier than the Sony FE 50mm F1.8 (186g), but this makes sense as the Viltrox is actually the better made lens (and hugely optically superior as well). The three full frame AIR series lenses look extremely similar.
That makes for a very compact profile on your camera. The lens is very small and lightweight on my Sony full frame bodies (Alpha 1 and a7RV), but would also be a great fit on the smaller cameras like the a7C series.
Up front we have a 58mm filter thread, which is a small but relatively common filter size. The front of the lens fascia has a variety of information imprinted on it and has a classic profile. I’m a fan of having some lens information on the front fascia, as I feel it adds character to the lens.
It seems like Viltrox has switched from the more confusion sensor dimensions they previously had on their lenses (43.3mm) to just including the term “full frame” there instead.
There is an included lens hood made in high quality, thick plastics. It bayonets into place precisely and stays locked there.
A lens pouch is also included. The pouch doesn’t add a lot of protection value, but, like the hood, at least it is included. There are many more expensive lenses that include neither a pouch or a hood.
This inexpensive series is set apart from most of Viltrox’s lenses in that there is no aperture ring in the design. There are no switches, either. The only feature on the lens barrel is a wide manual focus ring. The manual focus ring has a nice amount of damping and moves smoothly. All manual focus aids (including automatic magnification of the focus area) will work with the Viltrox, and I appreciate the fact that manual focus speed is improved to where you can make larger focus changes with one twist of the wrist, particularly if you move faster (this is a non-linear focus ring). The manual focus experience on Sony is good.
The Viltrox AIR 50mm has 9 blades in its aperture iris. The blades do a very reasonable job of maintaining a circular shape as the aperture is stopped down. Here’s an image taken at F8:
We have an important Viltrox standard in the form of a USB-C port on the metal lens mount that allows you to connect the lens to a computer and update the firmware directly. The firmware update process is very simple; just unzip the upgrade folder, drag the firmware update file to the folder that shows up when the lens is attached to the computer, and the update is done in seconds.
With a few exceptions, Viltrox lenses have generally not been very good when it comes to minimum focus distance and maximum magnification, and I would love to say this lens is an exception to that rule, but that’s unfortunately not the case. If I can give any credit, it is that the 51cm MFD is slightly better than the 55cm on the older 50mm F1.8. That very slightly improves maximum magnification from 0.10x to 0.11x, but that is unfortunately still considerably below the 50mm average of 0.15x. Here’s what that looks like:
You can get a blurred out background if you get closer to subjects, but not a high level of magnification.
Viltrox’ more expensive lens series have weathersealing, but the budget AIR series does not. The AIR 50mm does have a HD Nano multilayer coating with water-resistant and antifouling coating on the front element.
Though the AIR series is short on bells and whistles, the Viltrox AF 50mm F2 AIR, like other lenses in the series, feels sturdy and well made. It is lightweight, will balance easily on a wide variety of camera bodies and sizes, and doesn’t really feel “cheap” in any way.
Viltrox AF 50mm F2 STM Autofocus for Stills
The Viltrox AF 50mm F2 AIR, like other AIR lenses, utilizes a lead-screw type stepping focus motor (STM) that makes for fast and quiet focus changes. Focus felt silent unless I put my ear up next to the barrel, and even then I could hear very little focus noise other than a slight click from the aperture blades at first. Focus speed is well above average for a budget lens. In my focus tests I found that focus changes were fast and accurate, and even while doing the tests I felt a sense of surprise at how snappy focus felt.
That made it a great street lens, easily able to quickly nab focus even at night. Daytime focus was effortless.
The Canon booth at CP+ in Tokyo had basketball players on a court, and I found it easy to shoot action sequences there.
The Sony booth had breakdancers doing their moves, and again I found it extremely easy on Alpha 1 to track the action with the AIR 50mm and get perfectly focused results.
Easier work like portraits was obviously effortless.
Frankly I never really thought about focus at all, which is just what I want in a lens like this.
I could get the shots I wanted without any issue, and that’s what matters to me.
Focus for Video
Video AF was actually surprisingly strong. Not only are focus pulls smooth and well damped, but focus breathing is quite low as well, making for a more cinematic feel to focus changes.
My hand test went very well, with successful transitions from my hand to my eye and back. The low focus breathing helped to keep the shot looking relatively cinematic. It’s worth noting that the footage also looked very sharp and with good subject delineation.
Here’s a grab from a video clip, shot at F2:
Real world shots that should be fairly static were just that. They locked on a subject and didn’t bounce around and pulse. In another clip where a woman walked up an alley towards the camera, focus moved smoothly with her and was consistently well focused.
Overall I would say that focus is excellent.
Viltrox AF 50mm F2 Image Quality
The Viltrox AF 50mm F2 AIR has an optical design of 13 elements in 9 groups. Seven of these are exotic elements, including three ED (extra-low dispersion) element and 4 HR (high refractive index) elements. The MTF looks excellent, with basically a flat line until the very edge of the frame, but even there it is only a mild drop on the sagittal plane.
It would be hard to overemphasize how sharp this lens is, even at F2. I was repeatedly impressed when I zoomed into images at just how much detail was there.
This is a lens that can easily handle even the highest resolution sensors on Sony, which is really pretty mindblowing from a sub-$200 lens.
We’ll work through the chart results by first looking at distortion and vignette. The AIR 50mm shows a tiny amount of pincushion distortion and moderate amount of vignette.
I used a -2 to correct a bit of pincushion distortion, and vignette required around +50 correct (right under two stops). That’s really quite good for such a compact lens, and shows why Viltrox was probably smart to make an F2 lens rather than an F1.8 lens. This shot, for example, was shot at F2 and you can see that the corners don’t look bad (no corrections).
Likewise distortion is low enough that I doubt you will ever see it in real world images…even without correction.
Viltrox seems to have discovered the formula for largely eliminating fringing in their lenses. The 50mm F2 shows almost no longitudinal chromatic aberrations. Fringing is pretty much perfectly corrected.
Lateral Chromatic Aberrations usually show up along the edges of the frame as fringing on either side of high contrast areas (like bare branches framed at the edge of images). Again, there is no evidence of any fringing.
I also didn’t spot any issues in real world results, with branches in images looking clean of fringing.
So how about resolution and contrast? All chart tests done with the a7RV (61MP) using a tripod and a two second timer. Here’s a look at my test chart:
And here are the crops (at roughly 200% magnification) from the center, mid-frame, and extreme corner at F2:
We see here what the MTF chart suggested. There’s a very consistent performance across the frame, with the corners really not all that far behind the center performance. Centering is excellent in the copy that I tested, with even results in all four corners. Here’s a handheld, real world shot at F2, showing oustanding sharpness all across the frame.
The balance across the frame that the AIR 50mm shows even at F2 is so incredibly rare. You can see from the comparison below that the result from the mid-frame (left) is only a tiny bit sharper and more contrasty than the upper left corner result (right).
So with such an impressive wide open result, is there even any room for improvement when you stop the lens down? Turns out the answer is yes, though not in an extreme way. Stopping down F2.8 does give a bit of contrast boost. It’s not huge, but I could see it all across the frame.
Corners are also very mildly improved, with better contrast and slightly more detail.
Stopping down to F5.6 gives a tiny bit more sharpness and contrast in some spots, while other places look pretty much identical to F2.8.
Bottom line is that very few lenses at any price point are sharper than this. It’s pretty incredible just how sharp the AIR 50mm is.
Landscape apertures look great, with great contrast and delineation of fine details, as you might expect. Here’s a look at Yohohama Harbor at F5.6.
Diffraction will show up as usual at smaller apertures, with some softening by F11 and more obvious softening at F16.
This is a lens that repeatedly made me smile when I looked at images at 100% magnification. It’s actually pretty hard to believe that these sub-$200 lenses are so good.
I’ve been noting the improvement to Viltrox colors over the past two years since they switched suppliers for their optical glass. Once again I’m very happy with the color rendition from the lens, which feels neutral in color balance, nicely saturated, and with good contrast levels in the colors.
Images accurately captured what I saw and I thought they looked great.
The challenge for lenses with good natural contrast (particularly those that aren’t huge to give the engineers space to try to do everything well) is that the bokeh quality suffers. That’s partly the case here, as there were moments where I thought bokeh looked a little busy.
In most shots I thought rendering (if not exceptional) looked pretty good.
I don’t think the bokeh is great, but neither is it terrible, either.
This shot, for example, has the foreground mostly blurred out, and I think it works well here.
And, where the AIR 50mm shines is obviously in the ability to have great contrast and subject delineation.
Flare resistance is actually pretty great. You can see in this shot there is bright evening sun, but without any ghosting or veiling.
The image above was shot at F5.6, but I found that flare resistance was actually pretty consistent across the board. The flare response at F2 and then at F11 looked pretty much identical.
There was no veiling in this shot. Contrast was perfect.
The bottom line is that there has never been a better lens optically at this kind of price point. I love the idea of having a lens that is priced like a nifty fifty but pretty much performs like a GM lens. It’s crazy! This lens feels like it belongs on a camera like this:
The Viltrox AF 50mm F2 AIR was just a fantastic lens to take on a trip. It is obviously incredibly sharp, but also it focuses great, is small and lightweight, and clearly the “risk factor” feels lower when you are travling with a sub-$200 lens vs a lens that costs $1000+.
And the lens just takes great pictures. No, the rendering is nothing like the magical 50mm F1.2 GM, but who expected that anyway? The sharpness is like that lens, however, and the overal rendering good enough that you really could use it professionally if you were on a tighter budget.
The APS-C lenses in this series (25mm, 35mm, and 56mm F1.7 lenses) have all been impressively good, but I’ve never been as impressed by an AIR series lens as much as the Viltrox AF 50mm F2 AIR for the simple reason that it is a full frame lens. Engineering a full frame lens is much more difficult, and the fact that Viltrox has done it so impeccably here really is mindblowing. This lens is absurdly good for the money, and makes me wonder just what Viltrox is going to do with the Pro 50mm F1.4 and LAB 50mm F1.2. Can’t wait!
Keywords: Viltrox, Viltrox AIR 50mm F2, Viltrox AF 50mm F2 AIR, AIR, Viltrox AF, Viltrox 50mm, Viltrox 40mm F2.5, 20mm STM, AF, Alpha 1, a7RV, Review, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Portrait, #viltrox, #letthelightin, #viltroxAF250, #DA, #viltrox50air, #carrylesscapturemore, #viltrox50air, #viltroxAIR250
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Viltrox’s series of small, lightweight, and yet surprisingly high performing lenses is called the “Air” Series. We’ve seen 20mm F2.8 and 40mm F2.5 full frame lenses, the excellent 35mm F1.7 and 56mm F1.7 APS-C lens, and now we have a wider compliment to the two other APS-C lenses in the form of the Viltrox AIR 25mm F1.7 that I’m reviewing today. Viltrox has done enough in this series already that I’m really excited for each new release, and while I have liked the two full frame lenses, it is the now three APS-C lenses that have really shined. Their optical performance is much, much stronger than what their price tags suggest. It’s not very typical that a brand’s cheaper lineup of lenses (these F1.7 AIR lenses) exceeds the performance of their more expensive F1.4 lenses (23mm, 33mm, and 56mm F1.4 lenses), but that is absolutely the case here. The F1.4 lenses I’ve mentioned were reasonably good lenses, but they came during the era before Viltrox really gained confidence as a lensmaker (and, I believe, switched suppliers for their optical glass). I expected the new AIR 25mm to be a decent lens, and it hasn’t disappointed. It’s another very strong lens that can be had for a budget price of just $179 USD (or less, if you use the coupon code!). Is it worth checking out? Find out my thoughts by watching the video review, reading the text review, or just enjoying the photos below.
Thanks to Viltrox for sending me a review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the APS-C mode (26MP) of my Sony a7RVcamera.
Much like Samyang’s “Tiny series”, this lens is for those who don’t care about bells and whistles and just want a lightweight, high performing lens. This won’t be the series for those looking for aperture rings, buttons, or rings, but if you want a light, tough, high performing lens at a great price, prepare to be delighted with the new AIR 25mm.
It’s a sweet little lens, and you can get more details by visiting my reviews linked above.
Keywords: Viltrox, Viltrox AIR 25mm F1.7, AIR, Viltrox AF, Viltrox 56mm, Viltrox 25mm F1.7, 25mm F1.7 AIR, 35mm, 56mm, F1.7, STM, AF, Fuji X-H2, APS-C, Sony a6700, ZV-E10 II, a6400, a7RV, Review, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Portrait, #viltrox, #letthelightin, #viltroxAF1756, #DA, #viltrox35air, #carrylesscapturemore, #viltrox25air, #viltroxAF1725
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Viltrox’s series of small, lightweight, and yet surprisingly high performing lenses is called the “Air” Series. We’ve seen 20mm F2.8 and 40mm F2.5 full frame lenses, the excellent 35mm F1.7 and 56mm F1.7 APS-C lens, and now we have a wider compliment to the two other APS-C lenses in the form of the Viltrox AIR 25mm F1.7 that I’m reviewing today. Viltrox has done enough in this series already that I’m really excited for each new release, and while I have liked the two full frame lenses, it is the now three APS-C lenses that have really shined. Their optical performance is much, much stronger than what their price tags suggest. It’s not very typical that a brand’s cheaper lineup of lenses (these F1.7 AIR lenses) exceeds the performance of their more expensive F1.4 lenses (23mm, 33mm, and 56mm F1.4 lenses), but that is absolutely the case here. The F1.4 lenses I’ve mentioned were reasonably good lenses, but they came during the era before Viltrox really gained confidence as a lensmaker (and, I believe, switched suppliers for their optical glass). I expected the new AIR 25mm to be a decent lens, and it hasn’t disappointed. It’s another very strong lens that can be had for a budget price of just $179 USD (or less, if you use the coupon code!). Is it worth checking out? Find out my thoughts by watching the video review below or reading on in the text review.
Thanks to Viltrox for sending me a review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the APS-C mode (26MP) of my Sony a7RVcamera.
Like the 35mm focal length, 25mm is a slightly oddball focal length on APS-C, landing at a 37.5mm full frame equivalent after you account for the 1.5x crop factor of Sony E (tested here), Fuji X, or Nikon Z APS-C cameras. It’s a little tighter than the standard 23mm focal length (34.5mm full frame), but not a tight as 27mm, which approximates the 40mm full frame focal length that is steadily growing in confidence. I’m wondering if Viltrox found the market somewhat confused by their having two 56mm lenses (the 56mm F1.7 was the first in this APS-C AIR series), and so they’ve chosen to release the 25mm and 35mm lenses with slightly different focal lengths from their previous 23mm and 33mm F1.4 lenses, which continue to be sold. The most obvious autofocusing 25mm alternative is the Zeiss Batis 25mm F2, a premium lens that has a slower maximum aperture but a huge price tag (MSRP is $1349). But that lens is a full frame (not APS-C lens, making it not really a direct competitor, either. Most other autofocusing 25mm lenses tend to be for Micro 4/3rds, which makes sense, as the 2x crop on that system makes those standard 50mm equivalent lenses.
To clear a bit of the confusion relative to the older F1.4 lenses: the AIR series of lenses have smaller maximum apertures (F1.7 rather than F1.4), have a slightly downgraded build (no aperture ring, plastic housing rather than metal), but are actually better lenses in terms of autofocus and optical performance. Viltrox has improved their optical glass, the smoothness and effectiveness of their autofocus motors, and has generally become much more competent in their optical designs. The AIR lenses are also smaller, lighter, and cheaper, which has led to them being quite popular.
Much like Samyang’s “Tiny series”, this lens is for those who don’t care about bells and whistles and just want a lightweight, high performing lens. This won’t be the series for those looking for aperture rings, buttons, or rings, but if you want a light, tough, high performing lens at a great price, prepare to be delighted with the new AIR 25mm.
Sound interesting? I suspect so, so let’s dive in a little deeper into the details.
Viltrox AIR 25mm F1.7 Build and Handling
The first thing to note is the slightly unusual maximum aperture value. Similar lenses are going to be F1.8, not F1.7, but I like this move as it sets the lens apart and gives it a small but real advantage over F1.8 lenses. F1.8 is 2/3rds of a stop slower than F1.4, while F1.7 is 1/2 half stop slower. That also means that this lens has a full half stop advantage over a lens like the Fuji 23mm F2. That’s a reasonably useful improvement, giving some additional light gathering and that slightly larger maximum aperture will also mean slightly larger and softer specular highlights, which helps close the gap a bit with F1.4 lenses. It’s worth noting that the Fuji lens also costs $450, which makes for a hard sell when you can get this one for $175.
As noted, the Viltrox AF 25mm F1.7 eschews the heavier metal casing typically used for the earlier Viltrox lenses and embraces a more conventional, lightweight design in polycarbonates (engineered plastics). I wouldn’t call the build high grade here, but what I can say is that nothing about the plastics feel flimsy. It doesn’t have the feel of the early Samyang Tiny series lenses but instead feels tough and durable; its the kind of lens that feels like it could survive some falls (not that I intentionally dropped it!)
The new AF 25mm F1.7 is extremely compact, only 64mm in diameter (2.6″) and 54.4mm in length (2.15″), making it pretty much identical in size to the 35mm and 56mm F1.7 lenses. It weighs only 170g (6oz), which is 1g less than the 56mm and identical to the 35mm. The 25mm and 35mm F1.7 look more like twins because of having the same lens hood design, but if you take that away, all three of these APS-C lenses look extremely similar.
That makes for a very compact profile on your camera. I don’t actually own a Sony APS-C camera (I use the excellent 26MP mode of my a7RV), but the Air 25mm is definitely light enough to be a great match even for a compact ZV-E10 II model.
Up front we have a 52mm filter thread, which is a small but relatively common filter size. The front of the lens fascia has a variety of information imprinted on it and has a classic profile. I’m a fan of having some lens information on the front fascia, as I feel it adds character to the lens.
There is an included lens hood that is essentially identical to the one included with the 35mm F1.7. It’s a little larger than the one included with the 56mm F1.7. It has high quality, thick plastics and feels like higher quality than the one with the 56mm. It also bayonets into place more precisely and stays locked into place better.
A lens pouch is also included. The pouch doesn’t add a lot of protection value, but, like the hood, at least it is included. There are many more expensive lenses that include neither a pouch or a hood.
This inexpensive series is set apart from most of Viltrox’s lenses in that there is no aperture ring in the design. There are no switches, either. The only feature on the lens barrel is a wide manual focus ring. The manual focus ring has a nice amount of damping and moves smoothly. All manual focus aids (including automatic magnification of the focus area) will work with the Viltrox, and I appreciate the fact that manual focus speed is improved to where you can make larger focus changes with one twist of the wrist, particularly if you move faster (this is a non-linear focus ring). The manual focus experience on Sony is good, though I suspect it will be a little rougher on Fuji.
The Viltrox AF 25mm has 9 blades in its aperture iris. The blades do a very reasonable job of maintaining a circular shape as the aperture is stopped down. When stopped down far enough, an 18 bladed sunstar will emerge.
We have an important Viltrox standard in the form of a USB-C port on the metal lens mount that allows you to connect the lens to a computer and update the firmware directly. The firmware update process is very simple; just unzip the upgrade folder, drag the firmware update file to the folder that shows up when the lens is attached to the computer, and the update is done in seconds.
We’ve got a mild regression from the 35mm AIR when it comes to magnification. Whereas the AIR 25mm can focus a bit closer (30cm) than the 35mm (33cm), the much shorter focal length results in lower level of magnification at that focus distance. Maximum magnification is only 0.11x, which is definitely on the low side for a 35mm(ish) lens. Here’s what that looks like:
The previous Viltrox 23mm F1.4 could also focus as closely 30cm, but because of the shorter focal length it delivered a lower 0.10x magnification. You certainly won’t be able to do any “macro” work with the AIR 25mm, but you can certainly get close enough to blur out of a background.
Viltrox’ more expensive lens series have weathersealing, but the budget AIR series does not. The AIR 25mm does have a HD Nano multilayer coating with water-resistant and antifouling coating on the front element.
Though the AIR series is short on bells and whistles, the Viltrox AF 25mm F1.7, like other lenses in the series, feels sturdy and well made. It is lightweight, will balance easily on a wide variety of camera bodies and sizes, and doesn’t really feel “cheap” in any way.
Viltrox AF 25mm F1.7 STM Autofocus for Stills
The Viltrox AF 25mm F1.7 STM, like other AIR lenses, utilizes a lead-screw type stepping focus motor (STM) that makes for fast and quiet focus changes. Focus felt silent unless I put my ear up next to the barrel, and even then I could hear very little focus noise. Focus speed is well above average for a budget lens. In my focus tests I found that focus changes were fast and accurate, and even while doing the tests I felt a sense of surprise at how snappy focus felt.
I’ve got the benefit of reviewing the AIR 25mm on Sony, while I reviewed the AIR 35mm on Fuji, and there’s no question that autofocus is more sophisticated on the Sony side of things. That makes the AIR 25mm feel like the better focusing lens, though I suspect that if I had both lenses side by side on the same platform, I would find focus very similar. During the sequence of focus going back and forth during my tests, I snapped this shot on the fly, and it is perfectly focused.
General purpose shooting produced a lot of well focused results.
I tracked Nala walking towards me, and while I don’t think autofocus is GM-level in that situation, focus did keep up sufficient that images look properly focused.
For just getting street style shots where you need to pull focus quickly of people in motion, I saw zero issues. I took this shot (at F1.7) as a snap split second photo, and got a well focused end result.
I would categorize autofocus for stills as being rather excellent (at least on Sony). I have no hesitation in endorsing the behavior of this lens.
Focus for Video
Video AF was mostly very good. My focus pulls were smooth and without visible steps. Focus moved in a nicely linear fashion (no negative evidence of a stepping motor). What I didn’t like was an occasional micropulse on my foreground subject where focus did a little rack beyond proper focus and then settled back. Focusing breathing wasn’t non-existent, but it is quite low.
My hand test went pretty well, with successful transitions from my hand to my eye and back. The low focus breathing helped to keep the shot looking relatively cinematic. It’s worth noting that the footage also looked very sharp and with good subject delineation.
Real world shots that should be fairly static were just that. They locked on a subject and didn’t bounce around and pulse. I did shoot a shot of Nala, however, where I moved in towards her, and for whatever reason you can see some focus micro pulses taking place. The screenshot above shows that focus was actually good, and focus definitely didn’t need to make microadjustments all the time.
Overall I would say that focus is solid for both stills and video.
Viltrox AF 25mm F1.7 Image Quality
The Viltrox AF 25mm F1.7 has an optical design of 12 elements in ten groups, which is slightly more complex than the 35mm. Five of these are exotic elements, including one ED (extra-low dispersion) element, 2 HR (high refractive index) elements, and two aspherical element as a part of the design. The MTF looks excellent – sharper than the 35mm and slightly softer than the 56mm. There are very few lenses in this focus length range at any price that are giving this good of an optical performance (or better).
What’s interesting is that all of these APS-C AIR lenses are really producing image quality that is just about as good wide open as it is stopped down, with the F1.7 and the F8 MTF charts largely mirroring each other. This is actually a surprisingly sharp lens. It’s not hard to produce beautiful, highly detailed images with this lens, like this very cool (cold!) image of the Canadian Parliament library.
I shot at F2.8 to minimize any imperfections or smudges as I was shooting through glass and didn’t want the glass to be in focus. If I take a deep crop from that image, I can see good detail.
Before we jump into an evaluation of the optical performance, let’s take a quick look at the full frame coverage of the lens. I can’t do that when I’m testing the AIR lenses on Fuji, but since we are on Sony E-Mount for this one, it is an easy test. Here’s a full frame image:
So, it doesn’t cover the entire full frame image circle. You can see some “hard vignette” in the corners where light is completely blocked from the sensor. But what we can also see is that the AIR 25mm is covering the majority of the full frame image circle. In fact, if I do a bit of cropping, I come up with this:
You can see that the resulting full frame crop is still much wider than the APS-C image circle. The APS-C crop from the image is 26MP (6240 x 4160), but I can still get a usable 45MP (8288 x 5525) out of the full frame image. And frankly, there are some scenes where I can even get away with the hard vignette on the full frame image, like this:
A mild crop gives me this image:
That’s 48MP, which is great, and, what’s more, I think the AIR 25mm is actually doing a pretty good job of resolving that whole crop. Here’s a deep crop of the lower right corner of that image.
You could argue that the final 5% doesn’t look amazing, but I would say that it looks good enough. It does well enough in this situation that I could see taking this lens on a trip when I need to travel light and treating it basically like a 28mm full frame lens (after the crop) along with its more typical APS-C function.
Cool!
We’ll work through the chart results by first looking at distortion and vignette. The 25mm F1.7 does well in the distortion department but slips a bit with vignette.
I used a +4 to correct a small amount of barrel distortion. That’s not bad at all for a wide(ish) prime. Vignette required a +65 to correct (under 3 stops), though it is fairly linear and largely “works” for portraits, creating a natural vignette that draws the eye to the subject. I rarely found the need to correct the vignette in real world images, even though I was reviewing a prerelease copy before the time that any correction profile existed. This shot, for example, was shot at F1.7 and I saw no need for vignette correction.
Likewise this image from the National Art Gallery has received zero distortion correction, and yet the lines all look pretty good in a real world image.
Viltrox seems to have discovered the formula for largely eliminating fringing in their lenses. The 35mm F1.7 shows very low amounts of longitudinal chromatic aberrations. Fringing is well corrected, leaving very little fringing in my tests.
Real world results also look clean. You can see that contrast is good and there is only a minimum fringing in highly reflective surfaces and edges.
Lateral Chromatic Aberrations usually show up along the edges of the frame as fringing on either side of high contrast areas (like bare branches framed at the edge of images). There are minimal amounts of fringing on either side of the black/white transitions.
I also didn’t spot any issues in real world results, with branches in images looking clean of fringing.
So how about resolution and contrast? All chart tests done with the APS-C mode of my a7RV (26MP) using a tripod and a two second timer. Here’s a look at my test chart:
And here are the crops (at roughly 200% magnification) from the center, mid-frame, and extreme corner at F1.7:
We see here what the MTF chart suggested. There’s a very consistent performance across the frame, with the corners really not all that far behind the center performance. What’s more, while the recent TTArtisan AF 23mm F1.8 showed a really inconsistent centering result (at least in my copy), I actually found the centering in the Viltrox excellent, with all four corners performing at a similar level.
That leads to some impressively sharp wide open results, with a lot of detail and contrast even at F1.7.
This lens has no problem with Sony’s 26MP resolution, and I would say that it is strong enough to handle Fuji’s 40MP APS-C sensor as well, as I’ve found both the 35mm and 56mm AIR lenses to be solid on that platform.
Stopping down F2 does give a bit of contrast boost. It’s not huge, but I could see it all across the frame. I wanted to share the corners, as this is probably where I’m most impressed. I rarely see corners this good on such an inexpensive lens.
Stopping down to F2.8 shows another incremental improvement, though as the MTF suggests, a lot of the lens performance is available right from F1.7.
Landscape apertures look great, with great contrast and delineation of fine details. It was extremely cold during my primary review period, so I was out in a lot of weather at -20 or colder. You can almost watch the ice form on the river in real time at that temperature. This image shows great detail in the middle of the frame but also in all of the fine details in the bare trees in the upper left corner.
Diffraction isn’t quite as militant on a 26MP sensor as it is on the Fuji 40MP sensor, but you will still definitely see a softening effect at F11, and particularly at F16, though image quality never gets terrible.
This is a lens that repeatedly made me smile when I looked at images at 100% magnification. It’s actually pretty hard to believe that these sub-$200 lenses are so good.
I’ve been noting the improvement to Viltrox colors over the past two years since they switched suppliers for their optical glass. Once again I’m very happy with the color rendition from the lens, which feels neutral in color balance, nicely saturated, and with good contrast levels in the colors.
Even the deep Arctic cold days where it is cold, very bright, and colors can be a bit garish with lesser optical glass didn’t prove to be an issue here. I thought the colors in this shot looked exactly as they should considering the scene.
The challenge for lenses with good natural contrast (particularly those that aren’t huge to give the engineers space to try to do everything well) is that the bokeh quality suffers. A 25mm F1.7 APS-C lens isn’t going to crush backgrounds, but I actually found the bokeh pretty decent here. Specular highlights looked pretty good, with some lemon shape towards the edges but overall looking pretty decent.
If you want consistently round specular highlights, just stop down a bit. F2.5 makes for pretty good circular shapes across the frame.
This image shows a reasonably soft background without any jitteryness.
This shot looks good, too, with a typical room background looking fairly soft (and Nala looking very cute!)
I shot this chess set particularly for bokeh, and I would conclude that there is bit more outlining than I like, but frankly for a budget lens that also happens to be very sharp, that’s actually pretty great.
Changing the focus point gives you a bit of a look at foreground bokeh.
That looks okay, but what is actually very impressive is the microcontrast. I’m very impressed with how detailed the crop looks here.
Very crisp edges, low fringing, and a subject that really stands out even under high magnification. Impressive!
Flare resistance seemed better to me than what I saw with the 35mm. One of the earliest images I shared in the review showed a bit of a soft glow due to window lighting coming into the shot of Nala sleeping on a chair, but with direct sun coming through a window in the first shot of this series I saw no issues. I also saw very little ghosting or veiling in other very bright, direct sun images.
That’s 100% better than what I saw from the recent TTArtisan AF 23mm F1.8.
I also found that coma was fairly well controlled. The low fringing helps star points to look clean (no purple fringing), and there isn’t much comatic distortion near the edges of the frame.
Bottom line is that there really isn’t any particular areas of weakness for the Viltrox AIR 25mm, which is pretty insane in a $175 lens. If you want to see more images, visit the image gallery here.
Conclusion
I’m loving the Viltrox AIR series. These are lenses that are so easy to just grab and bring along because they are so compact and light, and yet the kind of image quality I’m getting doesn’t feel like I’m skimping on quality. The Viltrox AIR 23mm F1.7 gave me lots of images that I really enjoyed.
The AIR 25mm F1.7 has been a blast to use, with a great (though unique) focal length, great autofocus, and really great looking images.
The fact that all of these AIR lenses can be had for well under $200 each is an even bigger bonus, and so far I’ve been very impressed with the 25mm, 35mm, and 56mm lenses alike. This is a great walkaround lens, perfect for capturing the varied moments that life brings. It would be discrete enough for street, sharp enough for landscapes, and is just generally a lot of fun to use. I wouldn’t hesitate to buy this lens for my Sony, Fuji, or Nikon APS-C camera…particularly if you are using one of the small, light bodies and want lenses to match.
Pros:
Lightweight, compact design
Lens feels tough and well made
Well executed, smooth manual focus ring
Lens hood is improved
USB-C port for firmware updates
Good focus accuracy
Pretty good video focus
Outstanding sharpness from F1.7 on
Nice bokeh
Fairly low distortion
Good color rendering
Good flare resistance
Good coma performance
Fantastic price to performance ratio
Cons:
No weather sealing or features
Is 25mm a focal length APS-C shooters are looking for?
Keywords: Viltrox, Viltrox AIR 25mm F1.7, AIR, Viltrox AF, Viltrox 56mm, Viltrox 25mm F1.7, 35mm, 56mm, F1.7, STM, AF, Fuji X-H2, APS-C, Sony a6700, ZV-E10 II, a6400, a7RV, Review, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Portrait, #viltrox, #letthelightin, #viltroxAF1756, #DA, #viltrox35air, #carrylesscapturemore, #viltrox25air, #viltroxAF1725
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
The Godox V100 is in many ways an update to their first round head flash (the V1) that they released in 2019. This is a modernized and vastly improved flash unit that thoroughly impressed me. This is one the best value premium flashes I’ve ever seen at roughly $350, and well worth your consideration. You can get my full thoughts and demonstrations in my video review, or look at a summary of my findings in this article.
Thanks to Godox for sending me a review sample. As always, this is a completely independent review. All thoughts and opinions expressed here are my own.
This is the first on camera flash unit with a power output of 100Ws, which is truly impressive. We are now getting into the territory of Godox’s off camera AD series (the AD100), and to have all of the additional controls and options here (TTL, command unit, etc…) in addition to having the receiver capabilities of the AD series makes this an amazing value.
Lets start by looking at the long list of upgrades from the V1:
Upgrades from the V1
Improved airflow for cooling (motorized)
Improved modeling light – brighter and now have kelvin control
New bare bulb head (with modeling light)
Group color indicator – better visual indications (red light)
I’ve gotten a lot of use from the V1 flashes over the years, and the V100 is a really solid upgrade. Great power output, good battery life, and ever improving TTL performance. Godox flashes work great, and the V100 seems to work better than ever, with more thoughtful features, better usability, and more power. A LOT of flash for $349, and a better option than something like the AD100 series if you need on camera flash at times or TTL for a command unit.
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
We now have a name for Viltrox’s series of small, lightweight, and yet surprisingly high performing lenses – the “Air” Series. We’ve seen 20mm F2.8 and 40mm F2.4 full frame lenses, a really excellent 56mm F1.7 APS-C lens, and now a companion to that lens in the form of the new Viltrox AF 35mm F1.7. I’m delighted to see this lens, as I really liked the 56mm, and this is arguably an even more useful focal length. Fuji has two 35mm options already: the 35mm F2 (which I reviewed here), and the 35mm F1.4 (which I haven’t reviewed). Their most recent lens in this general vicinity is the excellent 33mm F1.4 LM WR lens which I reviewed here. I’m a big fan of the 33mm F1.4, which has beautiful rendering, but it also retails for a a whopping $799 USD, which is, of course, out of the range of many buyers. The Viltrox provides a much cheaper alternative at just $179 USD while still delivering a lens with a lot of great qualities. Is it worth checking out? Find out my thoughts by watching the video review below, reading the text review, or by enjoying the photos in the gallery below.
Thanks to Viltrox for sending me a review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the Fujifilm X-H2 camera.
35mm is a slightly oddball focal length on APS-C, landing at a 52.5mm full frame equivalent. It stands to reason why the 33mm (49.5mm) is more conventional, as it is delivering that typical 50mm “normal” angle of view. That extra 3mm is hardly likely to make much of a difference. This is a great focal length that gives a very normal, relatable point of view.
In Viltrox’s earlier days they released an F1.4 series with a 23mm, 33mm, and 56mm option. This new series is going to naturally provide a bit of confusion, as the newer lenses have smaller maximum apertures (F1.7 rather than F1.4), have a slightly downgraded build (no aperture ring, plastic housing rather than metal), but are actually better lenses in terms of autofocus and optical performance. Viltrox has improved their optical glass, the smoothness and effectiveness of their autofocus motors, and has generally become much more competent in their optical designs. There’s also the fact that the new 35mm F1.7 is 17mm shorter and weighs a full 100g less, which is a core part of why the “Air” series has proven so popular.
Much like Samyang’s “Tiny series”, this lens is for those who don’t care about bells and whistles and just want a lightweight, high performing lens. Add in the fact that, like the 56mm F1.7, this new lens is one of the least expensive lenses that can fully resolve the extremely demanding 40MP sensor. It’s sharp even at F1.7, has nice bokeh, and can produce extremely nice images.
Sound interesting? Perhaps the photos below will help you decide.
Keywords: Viltrox, Viltrox AF, Viltrox 56mm, Viltrox 35mm F1.7, 35mm, 56mm, F1.7, STM, AF, Fuji X-H2, Fujifilm, Fuji X-T5, X-S20, Full Frame, Review, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Portrait, #viltrox, #letthelightin, #viltroxAF1756, #DA
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
We now have a name for Viltrox’s series of small, lightweight, and yet surprisingly high performing lenses – the “Air” Series. We’ve seen 20mm F2.8 and 40mm F2.4 full frame lenses, a really excellent 56mm F1.7 APS-C lens, and now a companion to that lens in the form of the new Viltrox AF 35mm F1.7. I’m delighted to see this lens, as I really liked the 56mm, and this is arguably an even more useful focal length. Fuji has two 35mm options already: the 35mm F2 (which I reviewed here), and the 35mm F1.4 (which I haven’t reviewed). Their most recent lens in this general vicinity is the excellent 33mm F1.4 LM WR lens which I reviewed here. I’m a big fan of the 33mm F1.4, which has beautiful rendering, but it also retails for a a whopping $799 USD, which is, of course, out of the range of many buyers. The Viltrox provides a much cheaper alternative at just $179 USD while still delivering a lens with a lot of great qualities. Is it worth checking out? Find out my thoughts by watching the video review below…or just keep reading.
Thanks to Viltrox for sending me a review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the Fujifilm X-H2 camera.
35mm is a slightly oddball focal length on APS-C, landing at a 52.5mm full frame equivalent. It stands to reason why the 33mm (49.5mm) is more conventional, as it is delivering that typical 50mm “normal” angle of view. That extra 3mm is hardly likely to make much of a difference. This is a great focal length that gives a very normal, relatable point of view.
In Viltrox’s earlier days they released an F1.4 series with a 23mm, 33mm, and 56mm option. This new series is going to naturally provide a bit of confusion, as the newer lenses have smaller maximum apertures (F1.7 rather than F1.4), have a slightly downgraded build (no aperture ring, plastic housing rather than metal), but are actually better lenses in terms of autofocus and optical performance. Viltrox has improved their optical glass, the smoothness and effectiveness of their autofocus motors, and has generally become much more competent in their optical designs. There’s also the fact that the new 35mm F1.7 is 17mm shorter and weighs a full 100g less, which is a core part of why the “Air” series has proven so popular.
Much like Samyang’s “Tiny series”, this lens is for those who don’t care about bells and whistles and just want a lightweight, high performing lens. Add in the fact that, like the 56mm F1.7, this new lens is one of the least expensive lenses that can fully resolve the extremely demanding 40MP sensor. It’s sharp even at F1.7, has nice bokeh, and can produce extremely nice images.
Sound interesting? I suspect so, so let’s dive in a little deeper into the details.
Viltrox AF 35mm F1.7 Build and Handling
The first thing to note is the slightly unusual maximum aperture value. Similar lenses are going to be F1.8, not F1.7, but I like this move as it sets the lens apart and gives it a small but real advantage over F1.8 lenses. F1.8 is 2/3rds of a stop slower than F1.4, while F1.7 is 1/2 half stop slower. That also means that this lens has a full half stop advantage over a lens like the Fuji 35mm F2. That’s a reasonably useful improvement, giving some additional light gathering and that slightly larger maximum aperture will also mean slightly larger and softer specular highlights, which helps close the gap a bit with F1.4 lenses.
As noted, the Viltrox AF 35mm F1.7 eschews the heavier metal casing typically used for the earlier Viltrox lenses and embraces a more conventional, lightweight design in polycarbonates (engineered plastics). I wouldn’t call the build high grade here, but what I can say is that nothing about the plastics feel flimsy. It doesn’t have the feel of the early Samyang Tiny series lenses but instead feels tough and durable; its the kind of lens that feels like it could survive some falls (not that I intentionally dropped it!)
The new AF 35mm F1.7 is extremely compact, only 64mm in diameter (2.6″) and 54.7mm in length (2.15″), making it pretty much identical in size to the 56mm F1.7. It weighs only 170g (6oz), which is 1g less than the 56mm.
That makes for a very compact profile on your camera. I happen to be using the larger X-H2 body, but the small size will be even more compelling on Fuji’s more compact cameras.
Up front we have a 52mm filter thread, which is a small but relatively common filter size. The front of the lens fascia has a variety of information imprinted on it and has a classic profile. I’m a fan of having some lens information on the front fascia, as I feel it adds character to the lens.
There is a lens hood included that bayonets into place with more confidence and precision than the 56mm lens. It locks completely into place when mounted, and won’t be knocked off kilter by little bumps. It’s also considerably larger than the very compact hood included with the 56mm, and just feels more robust and better made in general.
A lens pouch is also included. The pouch doesn’t add a lot of protection value, but, like the hood, at least it is included. There are many more expensive lenses that include neither a pouch or a hood.
This inexpensive series is set apart from most of Viltrox’s lenses in that there is no aperture ring in the design. There are no switches, either. The only feature on the lens barrel is a wide manual focus ring. The manual focus ring has a nice amount of damping and moves smoothly. All manual focus aids (including automatic magnification of the focus area) will work with the Viltrox, and I appreciate the fact that manual focus speed is improved to where you can make larger focus changes with one twist of the wrist, particularly if you move faster (this is a non-linear focus ring).
The Viltrox AF 35mm has 9 blades in its aperture iris. The blades do a very reasonable job of maintaining a circular shape as the aperture is stopped down. When stopped down far enough, an 18 bladed sunstar will emerge.
We have an important Viltrox standard in the form of a USB-C port on the metal lens mount that allows you to connect the lens to a computer and update the firmware directly. The firmware update process is very simple; just unzip the upgrade folder, drag the firmware update file to the folder that shows up when the lens is attached to the computer, and the update is done in seconds.
One area of improvement over the 56mm is that the minimum focus distance is 33cm (0.33m) and provides a higher magnification level of 0.13x. This is only very slightly bested by the 0.14x of the Fuji 35mm F2. Here’s what that looks like:
The previous Viltrox 33mm could only focus as closely as 40cm and delivered just a 0.10x magnification, so this is certainly improved. You certainly won’t be able to do any “macro” work with it, but you can certainly get close enough to strongly blur out a background.
While some Viltrox lenses have started to come with weather sealing, this inexpensive 35mm lens does not have it. It does have a HD Nano multilayer coating with water-resistant and antifouling coating on the front element.
Though the AIR series is short on bells and whistles, the Viltrox AF 35mm F1.7 does excel in one key area: it is very compact and lightweight. And while there aren’t any special features, the lens feels sturdy and well made. As I noted in the intro, this is a lens designed for a specific market, and I feel like Viltrox has made the right choices in order to give us a functional lens that at the same time is extremely inexpensive.
Viltrox AF 35mm F1.7 STM Autofocus
The Viltrox AF 35mm F1.7 STM utilizes a lead-screw type stepping focus motor (STM) that makes for reasonably fast and definitely quiet focus changes. Focus felt silent unless I put my ear up next to the barrel, where I could hear some very light whirring during major focus changes. Focus speed is about average for an X-mount lens. There are some obvious steps (howbeit rapid ones) from this particular stepping motor during significant focus changes. I noticed focus speed far less in normal work where it’s rare to go from close to distant all the time. More minor focus changes happen fast enough that it didn’t stand out.
I’ve reviewed about four Viltrox lenses on both Fuji and then Sony, and in every case I’ve found AF more snappy and appealing in general on Sony. But even here on Fuji, I’ve had good focus accuracy overall. I had good success locking onto a variety of subjects, up to and including portrait work. I didn’t do formal portraits during this review cycle, but I did shoot a number of casual portraits during autumn hikes, and always got accurate focus on the eye.
General purpose shooting produced a lot of well focused results.
Ferrari the cat followed my wife and I on an evening walk, so I turned to take an extended burst of photos as he came towards us. As per usual with most non-sports lenses on Fuji, autofocus was initially fine, but as Ferrari continued to move closer and closer, focus remained a bit behind him, and its not until he stopped and looked to the side that autofocus caught up.
This is part Viltrox, yes, but also a big part on Fuji, as even some of the best of their current cameras (like my X-H2) just aren’t matching what I see from other brands in terms of autofocus. This lens should be fine if you’re doing event, general purpose, or portrait work, but if you are looking for a lens fast enough to keep up with young children or animals moving around, look elsewhere.
Video AF is also a mixed bag. Focus pulls are rather unimpressive. They aren’t fast, and there is some obvious stepping in the process. This is quite different from what I saw on Sony with the AF 56mm F1.7 lens, so at least part of this is the nature of Fuji’s video AF, which is a fair bit behind what I see on Sony and Canon. As per usual on Fuji, I also had issues with responsiveness on the touchscreen to try to change focus subjects.
My hand test was also a mixed bag, as while transitions from my hand to my eye and back were sometimes smoother, I also had moments where focus racked too far (past my head), and had to pull back to my face after the obvious rack.
Real world focus transitions could be smoother, but was very much shot dependent. I fully anticipate better autofocus results on Sony and Nikon based on past experience. Overall, autofocus performance is roughly average from what I’ve come to expect from lenses from Fuji. I went back and looked at my results from the premium Fujinon XF 33mm F1.4 WR with a linear focus motor, and the results in the video tests were no better.
Viltrox AF 35mm F1.7 Image Quality
The Viltrox AF 35mm F1.7 has an optical design of 11 elements in nine groups. What’s surprising in such an inexpensive lens is how many of these are exotic elements. There is one ED (extra-low dispersion) element, 2 HR (high refractive index) elements, and one aspherical element as a part of the design. The MTF looks excellent, though just a hair softer than than the 56mm F1.7.
All of this adds up to yet another Viltrox lens that is punching well above its weight class optically, which is important, as the 40MP Fujifilm X-H2 is the most demanding sensor for lens performance of any platform that I test. It’s not hard to produce beautiful, highly detailed images with this lens.
We’ll work through the chart results by first looking at distortion and vignette. The 35mm F1.7 does well in the distortion department but slips a bit with vignette.
I used a -3 to correct a tiny bit of pincushion distortion, though for portrait work you probably don’t want to correct that (a bit of pincushion distortion is flattering). Vignette required a +75 to correct (3 stops), though it is fairly linear and largely “works” for portraits, creating a natural vignette that draws the eye to the subject. These results were very consistent with what I found from the 56mm F1.7. A correction profile does exist in Lightroom for RAW images already. The linear nature of the vignette means that even uncorrected images don’t look bad.
Viltrox seems to have discovered the formula for largely eliminating fringing in their lenses. The 35mm F1.7 shows very low amounts of longitudinal chromatic aberrations. Fringing is well corrected, leaving very little fringing in my tests.
Real world results also look clean.
Lateral Chromatic Aberrations usually show up along the edges of the frame as fringing on either side of high contrast areas (like bare branches framed at the edge of images). There are minimal amounts of fringing on either side of the black/white transitions.
I also didn’t spot any issues in real world results, with branches in images looking clean of fringing.
So how about resolution and contrast? All chart tests done with a Fujifilm X-H2 (40MP) using a tripod and a two second timer. Here’s a look at my test chart:
And here are the crops (at roughly 200% magnification) from the center, mid-frame, and extreme corner at F1.7:
We see here what the MTF chart suggested. There’s a very consistent performance across the frame, with the corners really not all that far behind the center performance. To put this performance in context, here’s a look at the premium Fuji XF 33mm F1.4 WR stopped down to F1.8:
I see some contrast and detail advantage for the Fuji in the center, with results about equal in the corners (and in the midframe, which is not shown here). Certainly the inexpensive Viltrox lens delivers quite a competitive result for costing many times less.
In real world images wide open contrast isn’t flawless in the way a lens like the Viltrox Pro AF 75mm F1.2 is, at least on Fuji’s 40MP APS-C sensor, but I suspect it would be on 26MP sensors from Fuji or Sony. Even on 40MP, however, results look really solid.
Stopping down F2 does give a bit of contrast boost, but without a radical improvement. I see a bit more at F2.8, then at F4. Peak performance comes at F5.6-F8:
Real world results in this aperture range are nice and crisp, with good detail and contrast.
On a high resolution body like my X-H2, diffraction comes early, so while F8 still looks as good as F5.6, by F11 you will see some softening of the fine details due to diffraction, and by F16 (minimum aperture) the image is considerably softer.
I suspect that no one is going to be disappointed by the amount of sharpness you can get from the AF 35mm F1.7, particularly for the price tag.
My chief objection to early Viltrox lenses was that I didn’t really love the quality of the optical glass. Colors felt a little “cheap”, but their optical glass has improved by leaps and bounds, and these days I would consider color rendition from the optical glass a strength for the company, even when we’re talking about these inexpensive little lenses.
It’s autumn in Ontario, Canada, where I live, and that means that colors are naturally rich and beautiful. Fuji cameras also have great color science, and that all makes for a winning combination.
Here’s another that shows rich, vivid colors.
One area where I do prefer the more expensive Fuji lens is in the rendering and quality of the background blur. The Viltrox is fairly good, but the Fuji has a really pleasing rendering that I found very appealing. Here’s a look at the specular highlights from the Viltrox.
I found the overall bokeh rendering pretty good at a variety of distances, though not quite as creamy as the Fuji lens.
Stop down a bit and you can get fairly round specular highlights across the frame even near the edge of the image.
Flare resistance is a bit of a mixed bag despite the robust lens hood. Flare resistance head on is fairly good, with only minimal ghosting and veiling, but there are points with the sun right out of frame where you’ll see some flashing and loss of contrast.
It’s largely fairly artistic, however, so I have no major objections.
I also found that coma was fairly well controlled. The low fringing helps star points to look clean (not purple fringing), and there isn’t much comatic distortion near the edges of the frame.
All told, this makes for a pretty compelling “nifty-fifty” style lens for Fuji, and at a great price. If you want to see more images, visit the image gallery here!
Conclusion
Viltrox didn’t have a “name” for these new lightweight, compact lenses when they started selling them, but now they do. The “Air” series has proven to be a hit with a winning formula of light weight, low price, and surprisingly strong optical performance. I was a fan of the Samyang “Tiny” series for similar reasons, but the “Air” lenses typically only cost about 50% of what the Samyang lenses did.
The Viltrox AF 35mm F1.7 has generally been a lot of fun to use. It’s a great focal length, doesn’t have any meaningful flaws, and can easily produce images that I really like.
The fact that this lens can be had for well under $200 is an even bigger bonus, and the 50mm(ish) focal length is beloved for a reason. This is a great walkaround lens, perfect for capturing the varied moments that life brings. Lenses like this are great for APS-C owners who want that perfect mix of small, light, cheap…and high performing. Kudos to Viltrox for making yet another lens that I’ve immensely enjoyed using.
Keywords: Viltrox, Viltrox AF, Viltrox 56mm, Viltrox 35mm F1.7, 35mm, 56mm, F1.7, STM, AF, Fuji X-H2, Fujifilm, Fuji X-T5, X-S20, Full Frame, Review, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Portrait, #viltrox, #letthelightin, #viltroxAF1756, #DA, #viltrox35air, #carrylesscapturemore
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
The Godox AD200 Pro II is an update to Godox’s Popular AD200 Pro “pocket” flash that blends portability with relatively high power (200Ws output) that I reviewed in 2019. The new MK II version has a lot of key upgrades to make the flash more versatile and more easily controllable, and comes at the same price of $349 USD as the previous model. It is worth buying, or even upgrading to? That’s what I explore in the video review. You can also look at a summary of my findings in this article.
Thanks to Godox for sending me a review sample. As always, this is a completely independent review. All thoughts and opinions expressed here are my own.
The AD200 Pro II has the SHAPE of an on-camera flash, but will require a flash trigger to control – optimized for use with Godox’s new X3 triggers but will work with older triggers, too. I did two portrait sessions using Nikon for the first time with a Godox setup, utilizing the Nikon Z8 with the Nikkor Z 50mm F1.4 for one, and then the Z8 with the upcoming Laowa Tilt/Shift 55mm F2.8 Macro for another (an amazing lens, by the way!). I also tested the AD200 Pro II with an older X-ProS trigger and the Sony Alpha 1 along with the Sirui Aurora 85mm F1.4 lens. Here are some photos from these shoots:
The results were what I’ve come to expect from Godox. Good power, reliable triggering, and lighting that just generally works. But that was true of the AD200 Pro as well, so what has actually changed?
Upgrades from AD200 Pro
Improved airflow for cooling (motorized)
Improved modeling light – brighter and now have kelvin control
New bare bulb head (with modeling light)
Group color indicator – better visual indications (red light)
I’m still not sure I would call this a “pocket flash”, but the AD200 Pro II has a vastly improved interface and functionality. If you are already familiar with working with the existing AD200 Pro, I’m not sure an upgrade is warranted as this is still the same flash and output at heart…and your existing modifiers may not work. But this remains a great option if you are starting fresh, as it not only competes on output and price, but now the AD200 Pro II is also competitive with its feature list and handling as well.
Keywords: AD200 Pro II, AD 200, AD200, Pro, II, Godox, Pro II, Portrait, Macro, Woman, X3, Godox X3, Nikon, Canon, Sony, Fuji, Dustin Abbott, #DA, #letthelightin, #dustinabbott, Demonstration, Test, Photography, Solar Power, Portable, Camping, Hiking, Video Lights, Back up Power, Coupon Code, Discount, Coupon
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
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Viltrox AF 35mm F1.2 LAB FE Gallery 
