Sony’s mirrorless E-mount has reached a saturation point with more lenses available than possibly any lens mount before, so finding an actually unique lens can be hard to do. That’s not true for today’s review, however, as Sony is releasing a genre-busting lens that builds on the foundation set by last years FE 28-70mm F2 GM, which I reviewed here. The Sony FE 50-150mm F2 G Master goes from normal to telephoto while maintaining a maximum aperture of F2, making it a genuinely unique lens unlike any released on any platform before. The most similar lens we can point to is Tamron’s 35-150mm F2-F2.8, which has been my most used lens since it’s release in late 2021. The 50-150 GM is a more extreme instrument in every way, however, from aperture to size and to price…a whopping $3899 USD ($5499 CDN!!!) Who is this beast for, and is it worth buying? I’ve explored that in the video review and text review. Enjoy the photos from the lens in the gallery here.
Thanks to Sony USA 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 along with the Sony Alpha 1 that serve as my benchmark cameras for Sony lenses. You can visit the product page for the 50-15mm GM here.
Unlike the Tamron, the 50-150 GM is a constant aperture zoom. The Tamron does start at F2 at 35mm, but as a variable aperture zoom has closed to F2.2 by 50mm, and reaches the smallest maximum aperture of F2.8 by 85mm. After 135mm the 50-150mm F2 actually becomes Sony’s fastest lens as Sony has never released a 200mm F2. It’s pretty impressive that a zoom lens trumps all of the existing prime lenses in this regard.
And Sony’s goal is for this lens to be a replacement for a number of high end primes. About the only way you can justify the price is by looking at it as a replacement for 50mm, 85mm, and 135mm primes…with 150mm as a bonus! One of the key phrases in Sony’s press briefing on this lens was that it would have “prime-like resolution”. It definitely can make pretty pictures!
This is also a beautiful lens that oozes premium quality. If you are a lens lover, it is definitely temptation for acquisition. You can decide if that’s a sound decision by checking out the reviews!
Keywords: Sony 50-150mm, Sony 50-150 GM, 50-150 F2, Sony FE 50-150mm F2 GM, 50-150mm, GM, Sony 50-150 GM Review, Sony 50-150mm Review, Sony FE 50-150mm F2 GM Review, Full Frame, Review, Sony Alpha 1, Sony a7RV, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, let the light in, weathersealing, #letthelightin, 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.
Sony’s mirrorless E-mount has reached a saturation point with more lenses available than possibly any lens mount before, so finding an actually unique lens can be hard to do. That’s not true for today’s review, however, as Sony is releasing a genre-busting lens that builds on the foundation set by last years FE 28-70mm F2 GM, which I reviewed here. The Sony FE 50-150mm F2 G Master goes from normal to telephoto while maintaining a maximum aperture of F2, making it a genuinely unique lens unlike any released on any platform before. The most similar lens we can point to is Tamron’s 35-150mm F2-F2.8, which has been my most used lens since it’s release in late 2021. The 50-150 GM is a more extreme instrument in every way, however, from aperture to size and to price…a whopping $3899 USD ($5499 CDN!!!) Who is this beast for, and is it worth buying? We’ll explore that in both the video review and text review here.
Thanks to Sony USA 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 along with the Sony Alpha 1 that serve as my benchmark cameras for Sony lenses. You can visit the product page for the 50-15mm GM here.
Unlike the Tamron, the 50-150 GM is a constant aperture zoom. The Tamron does start at F2 at 35mm, but as a variable aperture zoom has closed to F2.2 by 50mm, and reaches the smallest maximum aperture of F2.8 by 85mm. After 135mm the 50-150mm F2 actually becomes Sony’s fastest lens as Sony has never released a 200mm F2. It’s pretty impressive that a zoom lens trumps all of the existing prime lenses in this regard.
And Sony’s goal is for this lens to be a replacement for a number of high end primes. About the only way you can justify the price is by looking at it as a replacement for 50mm, 85mm, and 135mm primes…with 150mm as a bonus! One of the key phrases in Sony’s press briefing on this lens was that it would have “prime-like resolution”. It definitely can make pretty pictures!
This is also a beautiful lens that oozes premium quality. If you are a lens lover, it is definitely temptation for acquisition. But should you? Let’s take a closer look…
Build and Handling
This is a big lens, but Sony has actually got perhaps the best track record out there among any lens maker for being able to produce smaller than expected lenses. This lens is the same length as the 70-200mm GM II (200mm, or 7.87″). What’s more, unlike the Tamron 35-150mm, the Sony is an internally zooming lens, so the length will stay consistently the same regardless of focal length. You can see that Sony is thus much longer when the Tamron’s zoom is retracted, but at 135mm the Tamron is essentially the same length.
The lens is 102.8mm (4.04″) in diameter by 200mm (7.87″) in length. That gives us a rather large 95mm front filter thread.
The lens hood has a sliding door to allow for more easy access to rotating filters.
I sometimes find this a little gimmicky (the hood is actually quite shallow here), but I do think it is perhaps justified here because a lens with an F2 aperture is far more likely to be used with filters. Using an ND filter in portrait (flash sync) or video work (shutter speed control) won’t be unusual, and a variable ND filter would need rotating just like a circular polarizer.
You can see that the hood itself is quite small for this size of lens, which to me speaks of Sony having great confidence in the coatings of the lens and not worrying much about flare resistance. We will see if that is justified in the image quality section.
The 50-150 GM weighs in at 1340g (47.27oz), which is more than the 70-200mm GM II (36.86oz), but less than 70-200mm GM 1 (52.20oz).
That weight is with the tripod foot removed, so expect another 80g (according to my scale) for the tripod foot if attached. That foot can be easily removed by loosening the knob pictured below, depressing a release button, and sliding the foot off.
You might have noticed from the picture above that I’ve had to add a QR (quick release) plate to the tripod foot. The foot itself is has a standard 1/4″ and 3/8th” holes for attaching quick release style plates, but the foot is not natively Arca-compatible. I don’t know why this remains the case, but I find it very limiting as it means I have to always add a plate before mounting onto a tripod.
Loosening a tension knob on the collar will allow you to freely rotate the lens to your desired position. There are no detents at the cardinal positions, but there are etched dots at those locations to allow you to line up at the 12, 3, and 9 o’clock positions (the 6 o’clock position is where the foot mount is located).
The 50-150 GM has Sony’s typically robust approach to features and controls. The fact that this is a constant aperture lens allows them to take a more prime-like approach to aperture control. We’ve got a manual aperture ring that can either be clicked or declicked. When clicked the action is on the firm side, with one third stop detents and marked full aperture stops from F2 to F22. There is an extra firm clip between F22 and A (Automatic).
There is an Iris Lock that will allow you eliminate the transition from manual to automatic aperture control, allowing you to either lock into the manual aperture ring if you don’t want to inadvertently bump into automatic mode or to lock out of the aperture ring if you prefer in-camera control.
There is also an option to delick the aperture on the right side. This will allow you to smoothly rack through the aperture without stops, and is particularly useful when shooting video. I was able to do smooth aperture racks without visible steps. Both the declick and iris lock switches are not particularly visible when you are holding the camera, but they probably also aren’t switches you’ll be using on a regular basis.
In between the zoom and manual focus rings there is a slim section of lens barrel that has the other switches and custom buttons. There is an AF | MF switch along with an ON | OFF for Full Time DMF (Direct Manual Override), which allows you to directly override focus in any focus mode (not all Sony cameras naturally allow for this, but this switch will guarantee that operation on all bodies).
There are Custom/Focus Hold buttons in three positions (top, bottom, left side) which will allow for one to be close at hand in either landscape or portrait orientation shooting. These buttons are redundant, with only one function assigned to them through the camera body.
The zoom ring is the first of the two rings, and the advantage of an internally zooming lens is immediately felt. That will keep the balance consistent and allow you to make quick changes to focal length. The rotation of the zoom ring is about 80°, and I actually would have liked it to be even smaller. I was able to successfully zoom in and out during video recording, however, which is not something I can typically do (handheld) with many zoom lenses.
That opens up a tertiary main purpose for a lens like this, as while its usefulness for portrait and wedding photographers is obvious, an internally zooming lens like this with such a fast maximum aperture makes this a very compelling sports lens – particularly for court sports like basketball, tennis, badminton, etc… This is particularly true considering that the blazingly fast autofocus has no problem keeping up with action.
The manual focus ring is near the front of the lens. Both rings have a ribbed and rubberized grips surface. The manual focus ring is well executed, with a fairly light action that nonetheless has decent feel. It is linear to allow for more repeatable focus pulls. My only complaint is that the position feels “far” to reach for. It isn’t a naturally ergonomic position, but I’m sure that a photographer would develop the muscle memory over time.
This is a high end, professional grade lens, so it comes with a thorough weather sealing that starts with a gasket at the lens mount, has internal seals throughout at the ring and switch positions, and has a fluorine coating on the front element to resist moisture and fingerprints.
On an unfortunately negative note, a close look at the rear of the lens also shows that the rear element is very close to the lens mount, leaving no room for use with teleconverters. That’s very unfortunate, as the usefulness of this lens could have really been extended by that compatibility. 210mm at F2.8 would have been handy (1.4x), and 300mm at F4 arguably even more so (2.0x).
It seems to me that modern lens designers are not getting enough criticism over marginalizing teleconverters in mirrorless lenses.
As with many modern zooms, the minimum focus distances varies on the wide and telephoto ends. You can focus as closely as 40cm (1.32ft) on the wide end and 74cm (2.43ft) on the telephoto end. In theory the magnification is very slightly higher on the wide end (0.20x, or a 1:5 magnification ratio), but the difference between the wide and telephoto end is marginal at best:
There’s some pros and cons to shooting at either position. Sharpness and contrast is a little better at 50mm, but the plane of focus is flatter at 150mm and the compression will make the background more out of focus. In some cases it might be preferable to have a wider angle of view (if you want more in the frame), while in other cases it might be preferable to have the tighter framing at 150mm to further isolate the subject.
It is definitely easier to shoot at the longer working distance available at150mm, however, as the shorter MFD means that you’ll be quite close to your subject and can risk shading it with the lens.
There is eleven rounded blades in the aperture iris. The lens does an excellent job of retaining a circular shape when stopped down (F2, F2.8, and F4 shown here).
A second unfortunate missing ingredient is Sony’s OSS (Optical Steady Shot). Lenses like the 70-200mm elements always come with lens based stabilization, but Sony decided to go without here. Perhaps the logic is that it would have added more weight and expense to a lens that is already have and expensive, but Sony’s camera based stabilization is definitely less effective at longer focal lengths. Fortunately 150mm isn’t too bad, however, and the camera stabilization in either my Alpha 1 and a7RV worked reasonably but not exceptionally well. We used the lens for shooting Easter events in our church and got mixed results at 1/60th and 1/100th second. I suspect the lens would have benefitted from lens based stabilization.
Overall this is a beautiful made lens that has that “special” feel you sometimes get from premium lenses. That price is going to be the most daunting aspect of the design, as while the 50-150 GM feels unquestionably superior to the Tamron 35-150mm in build and features, it also costs more than twice as much.
Autofocus for Stills
Pairing a Sony telephoto lens with a Sony sports camera is generally a delight. Sony is the best lens maker in the business (in my opinion) when it comes to designing and executing focus systems that deliver consistently excellent results no matter how challenging the optical design. In this case they have employed four of the premium XD linear focus motors, which assure that focus is nearly instantaneous. It’s pretty amazing in a lens with this large of optical elements, as that’s a lot of glass to move. This is designed to maintain real-time tracking up to 120FPS (a9III) and up to 240FPS movie tracking.
I think there’s a compelling case to be made for the Tamron 35-150mm as an alternative for weddings or events, but nothing is going to compare to a native Sony lens like this for action or sports. I fired off 150 quick frames in some bursts of Nala early in the morning, and despite her blending into the still dried grasses from winter, focus immediately picked her up (from frame 1) and tracked her perfect in every frame. I just don’t see focus that good from third party lenses…ever.
What’s more, Sony does favor its own lenses by capping burst speed with third party lenses at 15FPS. A Sony lens like this will be able to achieve the maximum burst rate of the camera and with sufficient focus speed to match it.
Focus is silent, split second fast, and deadly accurate.
It was a flawless companion for portrait work, even when I used a lot of layers to shoot through to soften the shot (Sony’s SH Profile used here).
Focus was perfect at any focus distance for portrait work.
The zoom ratio allows you to really change up your framing and move from full length to tighter shots.
It was a beautiful lens for taking photos of a new (grand) nephew.
Focus was effortless in a church setting as well.
Autofocus is one of the single greatest strengths for this lens, which is impressive in a lens with an unprecedented focal length/aperture combination.
Great job, Sony.
Autofocus for Video
Sony has worked hard at making their lenses (and cameras) to be equally good whether doing photo or video work. This is another excellent lens for video work. I tested focus pulls at both 50mm and 150mm, and while the focus speed is a bit slower on the telephoto end, it is still excellent.
Focus breathing is extremely well controlled even with Sony’s “Focus Breathing Compensation” turned off. At 50mm I can’t see any at all, and only a tiny amount at 150mm. This is a clear area of advantage over the Tamron. What’s more, what tiny bit of focus breathing is there can be easily eliminated with Sony’s focus breathing compensation in cameras (which only applies to Sony-branded lenses).
My hand test went fine, with focus easily moving from my hand to my eye and back.
I shot some 4K120 footage on my Alpha 1 during a portrait shoot, and focus was perfect as my model moved fluidly through a long series of poses.
Focus for either stills or video is excellent.
Image Quality Breakdown
As expected, this is fairly complicated optical design with 19 elements in 17 groups. This includes a variety of exotic optical elements, including 2 XA (extreme aspherical), 2 aspherical, 3 ED (Extra-low dispersion), and 2 Super ED elements. You can see a very impressive MTF chart on both ends of the zoom range from F2 on.
One would expect a lens like this to be impressively sharp, and that’s exactly what we find.
The 50-150 GM shows a fairly typical distortion pattern for a zoom covering this many focal lengths, with some barrel distortion on the wide end which turns to pincushion distortion midway through the zoom range.
It all remains impressively mild for such a large aperture lens, however, with a +8 to correct the barrel distortion at 50mm, a -4 to correct a bit of pincushion distortion at 100mm, and a -6 to correct slightly higher pincushion distortion at 150mm.
Vignette remains impressively low throughout the zoom range, requiring only about a stop of correction in the corners at any point. This shot, for example, has had zero corrections.
Vignette is just not an issue. Most likely you’ll end up adding vignette to portraits!
I saw a minimal amount of longitudinal type chromatic aberrations before and after the plane of focus on my test charts at on either end of the zoom range.
I also didn’t see any problems in real world shots, either. There’s the tiniest amount of fringing, but not enough to negatively impact the image. The same proved true with specular highlights, which don’t any fringing in the ring around them.
I didn’t really see any lateral style chromatic aberrations near the edges of the frame either on my chart or in real world results.
So how about sharpness and contrast? I did these tests on my Sony a7RV and its 61MP sensor. Crops are shown at roughly 200% magnification (as always) to highlight strengths and weaknesses. Here’s a look at the test chart:
And here’s a look at the 200% level crops from the center, mid-frame, and lower right corner:
Unsurprisingly, the image quality is excellent. Yes, there is some fade into the corners, but they still look quite good.
For some perspective we can look at the Tamron 35-150mm, which is competitive with the 50-150 GM in the center of the frame but considerably weaker at F2 in the corners.
The GM lens is clearly more consistently sharp and higher contrast across the frame.
When a lens is this sharp to begin with, often further gains when stopping down will be minimal. I don’t see any noticeable difference (even at 200%) in the center or midframe, but you can definitely see some improvement in the corners.
There is a bit more to be seen in the corners by F5.6.
Landscape images are just as sharp as you would expect, with excellent detail and contrast across the frame (here at F5.6).
As per usual, expect to see a little softening at F11 due to diffraction but much more obvious impact by the minimum aperture of F22, which I would avoid if possible.
At 70mm (the next marked position on the zoom ring) the detail has not increased but the contrast has (which you can see from the strong moiré pattern). The midframe also looks a little sharper.
Stopping down a bit at 70mm achieves incredible resolution and contrast all across the frame.
Portrait shots even at F2 are very sharp, however, and have good contrast.
At 100mm I feel like there is slightly less contrast but perhaps a bit more detail.
The corners easily favor 100mm, however, and look extremely impressive for F2:
You can see how good the lens is at 100mm, F2 in this real world shot:
Moving on to 150mm shows an uptick in contrast to something akin to what we saw at 70mm.
The center shows well compared to 100mm, though the corners are slightly softer.
That’s still a great performance, however. The Tamron isn’t far behind in the center (though at F2.8 rather than F2), but the Sony wins in the corners.
F2.8 boosts the corners a bit, and then even more by landscape apertures.
But for real world work, the lens is plenty sharp even at F2…and even on the fly!
Detail is crisp, and contrast is strong.
The last two shots give us a segway into our next topic of discussion – the bokeh and rendering. The quality of the bokeh is good but not what I would call great. I feel in many ways similar to my thoughts at the end of the 85mm F1.4 GM II review. The sharpness and contrast I saw are exceptional, but it feels like Sony’s design is a little weighted in that direction. It is possible to correct a lens to the place where the rendering isn’t quite as pleasing.
Here’s where I think the Tamron has a bit of revenge. First of all, the out of camera rendering from the Tamron produces a more pleasing image (to my eye).
Part of that was the color balance, though even if I equalize color balance I find the Tamron colors to be a little richer.
But though the GM has a full stop advantage (F2 vs F2.8 at 150mm), and thus the background is less in focus, I find the more difficult areas like transition zones to be handled more artistically.
Everything flows together more organically in this crop, and that advantage only deepens if you stop the 50-150 GM down to F2.8 and the depth of field advantage is lost.
I think there is a little too much outlining of defocused objects, and that draws the eye a bit.
In this layered shot I find that the foreground bokeh looks pretty good, but the background looks fine but not exceptionally good.
If we take another shot from the burst with Nala we can see that the short grass is the transition zone looks fairly busy.
As as typical, however, if you can set up a shot with a more favorable ratio of distance to the subject and then from the subject to the background, you can get a more pleasing looking rendering.
It looks nice here.
This is perhaps an area where a prime lens might take the win over a zoom. I thought that specular highlights have good geometry (there is some cat-eye shape in the corners, but most of the frame has nice, circular highlights). But rendering is more than just the specular highlights, and while the 50-150 GM is far from bad, it also isn’t exceptional in this area.
Bokeh is subjective, however, so your opinion may vary from mine.
One area of weakness for the Tamron is surprisingly also an issue for the Sony, and that’s flare resistance. While things aren’t perfect at 50mm, they aren’t bad whether wide open or stopped down (F11 shown here).
There’s a bit of a ghosting pattern, but contrast holds up pretty well. I also think the sunstar is fairly interesting in the second image.
But things get much, much worse on the telephoto end even when the hood is being employed.
We are not only losing some contrast, but, far worse, we have a fairly dominant flare pattern that would be hard to ignore or compose out of. I know that Sony has amazing coatings (as does Tamron, for that matter), so this must be one of the challenges of engineering this type of lens.
The lens arrived to me late due to a shipping mix-up, so I haven’t had as much time as I would like to test the flare resistance further, but I do hope to do some head to head comparison with the Tamron to see which is worse in this area. Check out my YouTube channel where I will post that video at some point in the near future.
This is a very strong lens optically and excels in most of the technical categories (flare resistance aside). The main area that I’ve critiqued it is more of a subjective observation, but I think that’s warranted in a les that costs so much. Check out the image gallery if you would like to see more images.
Conclusion
There’s no question that a lens like the Sony FE 50-150mm F2 G Master is a huge technical achievement. It manages to do something that no zoom lens has done before (on full frame) and has managed to do it in a very livable kind of way. Yes, it is big and heavy, but no more than the first generation 70-200mm F2.8 GM. It’s lighter as an F2 zoom than what many of the 70-200mm F2.8 zooms from the DSLR era were.
I feel like the single best market for this lens might be those who shoot courtside sports. To be able to get 30FPS (or even 120FPS on the a9III) while tracking across the full sensor is a pretty unbelievable experience. Settings like that perhaps need less artistic rendering and need more of the technical brilliance that the 50-150 GM brings. It could be the best court sports lens ever released. I also think it would be amazing as an event/wedding lens where you can use that bright aperture in dimmer venues and get shots harder to achieve with an F2.8 zoom.
And while it is a a great portrait option, I’m not sure that I would personally choose it for that alone, as I feel like I can get equally good if not nicer rendering from an 85mm F1.4 type lens. You may value the versatility of the zoom for your portrait work, however, and the ability to effortlessly reframe in a variety of ways without moving could be extremely valuable. What is certain, however, is that the Sony FE 50-150mm F2 GM is the kind of lens you only get when a system has reached a certain point of maturation and a lensmaker feels the freedom to experiment a bit more. So if you’ve got a spare $3900 USD sitting around, you may just be able to get your dream lens. Happy shooting!
Pros:
The first F2 zoom to go from 50-150mm with a constant F2 aperture
Has the kind of premium design that reminds you of the $10,000 telephoto primes
Beautiful build quality including robust weather sealing
Excellent handling (internal zoom helps balance)
Good feature set allows you to stay out of the menus
Incredible autofocus performance – quiet, fast, and accurate
Pair it with a Sony sports camera and get amazing tracking
Strong, consistent optical performance across the zoom range
Keywords: Sony 50-150mm, Sony 50-150 GM, 50-150 F2, Sony FE 50-150mm F2 GM, 50-150mm, GM, Sony 50-150 GM Review, Sony 50-150mm Review, Sony FE 50-150mm F2 GM Review, Full Frame, Review, Sony Alpha 1, Sony a7RV, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, let the light in, weathersealing, #letthelightin, 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’ve known that Viltrox’s LAB series was coming for about two years, and I, for one, was very excited for the series. Viltrox has proved to be capable of doing very serious optical engineering, and, put simply, the LAB series was proposed as being Viltrox’s “G Master”, “L Series”, or “S-Line” equivalent lineup of premium lenses. Of those, the LAB lenses are probably most like Nikon’s S-Line lenses where the engineers have clearly been told not to worry about size, weight, or cost, and just deliver the best optics at that particular focal length possible. The LAB lenses may not be expensive (they are actually tremendous value!), but they are among the largest and heaviest lenses in their class, and are definitely optically superior. I was very impressed by the optics of the first LAB lens – the AF 135mm F1.8 LAB FE – that I reviewed here. It was optically amazing (besting great lenses like the Sony 135mm F1.8 GM and the Samyang AF 135mm F1.8), had great autofocus, and struck an amazing balance between sharpness and rendering. But I also knew that Viltrox had a trio of F1.2 LAB lenses on their roadmap, including 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm F1.2 options, and I was very excited about those as Sony has relatively few high end F1.2 options available. The Viltrox AF 35mm F1.2 LAB is here, and it is another landmark lens. And, at a price tag of $999 USD, it is a pretty huge value (and if you use code DA3512LAB5 at checkout at Viltrox, you can get an additional 5% off!). Find out more in either the video review, the text review, or just check out the photos in the gallery.
Thanks to Viltrox for sending me a review copy 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 listing for the AF 35mm F1.2 LAB FE here.
I love 35mm lenses. I love the focal length for general purpose shooting, and, more importantly for this particular application, for environmental portraiture. The advantage of a wider focal length is the ability to add context to a shot. To include the room, or the setting, or the environment along with the subject. But the downside is that the depth of field increases, and you often lose the ability of really isolating your subject from the background. A 35mm F1.2 lens restores that ability, however. At a distance of the 3 meters (close to ten feet), a 35mm F1.2 lens has a depth of field of about 50cm (20 inches). With an F2 aperture, that depth of field nearly doubles, at F2.8, it nearly triples. In other words, a fast maximum aperture is very necessary to create a shallow depth of field with a wider focal length. By contrast, an 85mm F2.8 lens has a depth of 21cm. You could stop down to F6.7 and still have the same depth of field at that distance as a 35mm lens at F1.2. For portraiture I might argue that a fast maximum aperture is more important on a wide angle lens than it is on a telephoto. Bottom line is that you couldn’t get shots like this on a slower 35mm lens:
And, despite being at F1.2, you can see from the deep crop that the image is sharp and crisp on the subject (despite the intense backlighting), and there is a nice separation of the subject from the background.
Nice, indeed. There are going to be a lot of people interested in this 35mm LAB on both Sony and eventually Nikon when it arrives there. Check out the photos from this lovely lens below.
Keywords: Viltrox AF 35mm F1.2 LAB FE, Viltrox AF, LAB, Viltrox LAB, #LAB, #LAB35, #explorebeyond, Viltrox 35mm, Normal, Full Frame, F1.2, f/1.2, Hyper VCM, Viltrox LAB 35mm F1.2 FE, Viltrox LAB 35mm Review, Viltrox AF 35mm F1.2 FE Review, Sony a7IV, Sony Alpha 1, Sony a7RV, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, let the light in, weathersealing, #letthelightin, 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’ve known that Viltrox’s LAB series was coming for about two years, and I, for one, was very excited for the series. Viltrox has proved to be capable of doing very serious optical engineering, and, put simply, the LAB series was proposed as being Viltrox’s “G Master”, “L Series”, or “S-Line” equivalent lineup of premium lenses. Of those, the LAB lenses are probably most like Nikon’s S-Line lenses where the engineers have clearly been told not to worry about size, weight, or cost, and just deliver the best optics at that particular focal length possible. The LAB lenses may not be expensive (they are actually tremendous value!), but they are among the largest and heaviest lenses in their class, and are definitely optically superior. I was very impressed by the optics of the first LAB lens – the AF 135mm F1.8 LAB FE – that I reviewed here. It was optically amazing (besting great lenses like the Sony 135mm F1.8 GM and the Samyang AF 135mm F1.8), had great autofocus, and struck an amazing balance between sharpness and rendering. But I also knew that Viltrox had a trio of F1.2 LAB lenses on their roadmap, including 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm F1.2 options, and I was very excited about those as Sony has relatively few high end F1.2 options available. The Viltrox AF 35mm F1.2 LAB is here, and it is another landmark lens. And, at a price tag of $999 USD, it is a pretty huge value (and if you use code DA3512LAB5 at checkout at Viltrox, you can get an additional 5% off!). Find out more in either the video review below or by reading on in the text review.
Thanks to Viltrox for sending me a review copy 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 listing for the AF 35mm F1.2 LAB FE here.
Sigma was actually the first to bring an F1.2 autofocusing lens to the Sony FE platform back in 2019. I reviewed that lens here. It was optically impressive (extremely sharp!), but was also very large and quite expensive. It weighed a whopping 1090g (2.4lbs) and cost about $1500 USD. A lot of its thunder was stolen when Sony released their FE 35mm F1.4 GM lens (my review here) in 2021. It was (and is) an amazing lens, and while it isn’t quite as bright (F1.4 vs F1.2), it is amazingly compact, weighing only 525g. It was the 35mm lens that I added to my own kit, and I’ve not regretted that decision. The 35mm LAB is more like the Sigma than the GM in size, however, though fortunately they have managed to trim the size a bit. The 35mm LAB weighs 920g (-170g vs the Sigma) and is about 15mm shorter. Still a big lens, but it will have a couple of sales advantages vs the Sigma. One is the fact that it is smaller and lighter, but also the Sigma actually ended up being MORE expensive than the premium Sony lens (since Sony doesn’t have a 35mm F1.2 GM lens), whereas the LAB lens will be significantly cheaper. And, unlike Nikon’s new 35mm F1.2 S Line lens, the LAB 35 is actually significantly smaller than the LAB 135mm!
I love 35mm lenses. I love the focal length for general purpose shooting, and, more importantly for this particular application, for environmental portraiture. The advantage of a wider focal length is the ability to add context to a shot. To include the room, or the setting, or the environment along with the subject. But the downside is that the depth of field increases, and you often lose the ability of really isolating your subject from the background. A 35mm F1.2 lens restores that ability, however. At a distance of the 3 meters (close to ten feet), a 35mm F1.2 lens has a depth of field of about 50cm (20 inches). With an F2 aperture, that depth of field nearly doubles, at F2.8, it nearly triples. In other words, a fast maximum aperture is very necessary to create a shallow depth of field with a wider focal length. By contrast, an 85mm F2.8 lens has a depth of 21cm. You could stop down to F6.7 and still have the same depth of field at that distance as a 35mm lens at F1.2. For portraiture I might argue that a fast maximum aperture is more important on a wide angle lens than it is on a telephoto. Bottom line is that you couldn’t get shots like this on a slower 35mm lens:
And, despite being at F1.2, you can see from the deep crop that the image is sharp and crisp on the subject (despite the intense backlighting), and there is a nice separation of the subject from the background.
Nice, indeed. There are going to be a lot of people interested in this 35mm LAB on both Sony and eventually Nikon when it arrives there. Let’s dive a little deeper into the build…
Viltrox LAB 35mm Build and Handling
As noted, this time Viltrox has the advantage that the 35mm LAB isn’t the largest and heaviest lens in the class…but that doesn’t mean it is small or light. It is 89.2mm (3.5″) in diameter and 121.8mm (4.79″) in length. It has a common 77mm front filter thread up front and weighs in at 920g (32.45 oz). It has a great aspect when viewed from the front.
The compact size of the 35mm F1.4 GM while still being high performing is going to continue to be one of the most compelling arguments for the Sony lens (particularly for those who feel that F1.4 is bright enough for them). It is only 96mm in length (-25mm) and weighs just 524g (-396g!) However, a more apples to apples comparison might be the new NIKKOR Z 35mm f/1.2 S, which is 150mm in length (+29mm – wow!) and weighs 1060g (+140g). It also costs $2800! So there is at least one lens that will make the 35mm LAB feel at least a bit svelte…though it isn’t the compact little Sony below.
Viltrox has demonstrated that they are capable of producing small, lightweight lenses with good optics, but that’s not the point of the LAB series. I feel like they are probably most similar to those Nikon S-Line F1.2 lenses, which eschew trying to keep the lenses small and light (and optically compromising to achieve that) and instead focus on just making as good of optical instruments as they can. The downside of this philosophy is that it results in some beefy lenses.
Viltrox has persisted in a few of their LAB design cues from the LAB 135mm, and I don’t love all of them. The most notable of those is the approach to aperture control.
Some of Viltrox’s other lenses have (and will have) a more traditional approach to aperture similar to either Sony’s GM series or Sigma’s better DN prime lenses. This is a marked aperture ring that can either be clicked or declicked. For some reason Viltrox left that tried and true approach for a new approach more dependent on the LCD screen. The first ring on the lens is for aperture, but it is an unmarked ring that relies on the LCD screen to show you the selected aperture.
That being said, I’ve recently spent time with the Nikon Z-mount version of the LAB 135mm, and then also Nikon’s own 135mm 1.8 S Plena. I realized that my perceptions of Viltrox’s design strategies with the LAB series were being influenced by first reviewing these lenses on FE. Some of the design philosophy around the “aperture ring” makes more sense on Z-mount, as the standard there is that the customizable control ring can be used for aperture but can also be used to control other things, like exposure compensation, ISO, etc… On Sony we don’t have the options to change the function of the control ring, so it has to function like an aperture ring, so on Sony (at least), I would prefer a more traditional aperture ring.
You still have the option to have the ring either clicked or declicked, but in the clicked mode it has clicks at every 1/9th aperture stop rather than the typical one third aperture stops. I assume the logic is to provide more precision, but frankly it is wasted when A) Sony cameras only register one third stops and B) the LCD screen shows only one third stops between the full stops like F2 and F2.8. In real life it just feels like too many clicks, and I don’t enjoy it. It also makes the amount of rotation needed to go from F1.2 to F16 just too long. A more traditional aperture control setup would have been preferable all around. You can still rotate all the way to the left and move into automatic mode, and I suspect some people will probably prefer to just control aperture from within the camera. You do have the option to turn the clicks off as well via a switch on the left side of the barrel.
In theory, when you turn the clicks off you can smoothly move through the whole aperture range without defined stops. This (in theory) allows for smooth video aperture racking and has become an expected pro-grade feature on modern lenses. I find two problems with this on the 35mm LAB. The first is that the weight is still a little heavy on the aperture ring even when it is declicked (clicks are very definite in clicked mode). This makes moving smoothly (and slowly) when racking through the aperture (to allow the exposure to change in a non-obvious way) challenging. The second issue is that even when declicked, the aperture does not move in a completely linear fashion. I can still see a bit of visible steps when racking. The best lenses do a pretty good job of simulating a true manual aperture ring, but the 35mm LAB falls a bit short of that lofty goal. It’s far from the worse that I’ve seen, but also far from the best.
The iris itself has 11 aperture blades, and these make for a reasonably well rounded aperture iris when stopped down. It’s not until fairly small (F4-5.6) that I start to see the shape of the blades.
Now to that LCD screen. The LCD functions in many ways like those found on the Zeiss Batis lenses, though with some improvements. The screen itself is nice and bright, allowing for good visibility even in bright conditions. It solves the problem of a distance scale (something missing on most mirrorless lenses), as it gives you a large font telling you the precise focus distance along with a distance scale above that. The bottom part of the screen gives you a readout of the current aperture. It also gives you some information related to the function buttons however, with the Fn icon lighting up when the first Function Button is depressed, and then the A or B function lights up when you are presetting focus distances.
I’ve even noticed that this time they are showing you a depth of field scale if you are in manual focus mode that increases as you change the aperture by extending a yellow bar along the distance scale.
There’s actually a lot of useful information on the LCD screen once you get familiar with how it is all being displayed, though I’m sure a lot of people will still find it somewhat of a gimmick.
On the left side of the screen you will find an AF | MF switch along with two FN (function) buttons. The top one functions like the typical function button, performing whatever function you have that button programmed to in camera. The second button works by default as the main control for A-B focus. When in manual focus mode you can preset the focus position(s) by long pressing the FN 2 button, and then access the focus changes by short pressing it. You also have the ability to change the function of both function buttons through the Viltrox app.
Viltrox continues with a trend that other lens makers are now imitating by including a USB-C port in the lens mount that allows you to do firmware updates right to the lens. I’m a fan of this approach, as it eliminates the need for a separate dock or lens station for firmware updates, and I find the process a little more intuitive than doing firmware updates through the camera. This allows Viltrox to future proof their lenses and continue to improve them through firmware. You also have the option to connect to the Viltrox app for IOS or Android via Bluetooth where you can also update firmware wirelessly…or even make a direct correction via USB-C from your phone to the lens. In the app you can go beyond firmware updates to tweaking the behavior of the custom buttons.
You can even customize the splash screen on the LCD at power-up to show your name or logo.
The one thing I wish was there but isn’t (at least yet) is some control over the function of the manual focus ring. I’d like to be able to choose between linear/non-linear focus and the amount of focus throw rotation similar to what Tamron allows on some of their lenses. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Viltrox get there; they are pretty ambitious.
The manual focus ring is slightly raised and has a rubberized, ribbed texture. It moves smoothly and with nice damping. It isn’t linear, so the amount of focus covered will depend on the speed in which you rotate the ring. I found the focus throw to be a little long when trying to do smooth pull for video…at least at close distances. It needed more rotation than I could do with a single wrist rotation. Using the A/B focus is a much more precise way to set up repeatable focus pulls.
We also have weather sealing on this lens that starts with a unique maroon-colored gasket at the lens mount along with other seal points through the lens (a total of 12 of them, by my count).
This is an internally focusing lens, so there is nothing that moves where dust might intrude. There’s also an HD-Nano multilayer coating on the front element to help with water and fingerprint resistance, making the front element easier to clean. This is a professional grade lens with professional sealing. As always, however, “moisture-proof” does not mean “water-proof”, so don’t go crazy!
There is no lens based stabilization, so you will need to rely upon the in-camera stabilization if your camera is so equipped. Handholding a 35mm F1.2 lens is rarely difficult.
Like the 135mm LAB (and the upcoming 85mm F1.4 Pro), the 35mm LAB employs floating elements. You might notice that when the lens is powered off, there will be some movement/clunking if you rotate the lens up and down. This can be very disturbing if you are not familiar with modern lens design. Many high end modern lenses employ floating elements that allow for better up close performance. The lens groups are not fixed, but float in a certain area, so when they are not energized they will move around a bit. This is by design, however, and when the camera is powered on, those elements will be energized and become fixed. You can rotate the lens up and down without anything moving around. This allows for superior up close performance. You can focus as closely as 34cm, giving a maximum magnification figure of 0.17x.
That’s a useful but not exceptional figure. The Sony GM can focus closer (25cm) and gives a 0.26x magnification level. The Nikkor 35mm F1.2 S can focus as closely as 30cm and gives a 0.20x magnification. But what the LAB does extremely well is give you amazing up close performance even at F1.2. Look at how exceptional that detail is in the crop.
The lens also comes with a nicer-than-usual leather pouch (similar to Canon L-series lenses). There is some cushion on the bottom, but I don’t find these pouches nearly as useful as a good padded nylon case like what Sigma provides.
The LAB 35mm includes a lens hood that isn’t quite as premium feeling as the one on the 135mm, but it still feels like good quality. The plastics are thick and it has internal ribs. It doesn’t have a lock, but it does bayonet into place firmly and with a definite “click”.
The lens is constructed with a aviation-grade magnesium-aluminum alloy, making it extremely tough. The finish of the lens feels every bit of premium as the more expensive Sony GM lens, and the LAB badges manages to fall in the same spot and be the same color as the “G” badge on the Sony lens…though I’m sure that’s a coincidence (wink, wink).
As with the 135mm LAB, the Viltrox AF 35mm F1.2 LAB E is a premium lens with a robust set of features. I don’t necessarily agree with all the design decisions, but it is a very, very nice lens. It’s also pretty big and heavy, so that will be a serious factor for some.
Autofocus and Video
Like the LAB 135mm, the LAB 35mm utilizes four(!!!) of Viltrox’s new “Hyper VCM” (Voice Coil Motor) motors working in tandem to drive autofocus. Viltrox states, “Its double floating magnetic suspension system ensures precision focusing, whether you’re tracking a fast-moving subject or shooting videos.” Focus is extremely quiet and fast. I had no problem keeping up with fast squash action on the court…even at F1.2.
Grabbing quick, reactive shots at F1.2 was very easy to execute.
Focus on thin objects with shallow depth of field was effortless, and the lens yielded excellent precision.
Focus sound is near silent, with a very light whirring sound as focus moves back and forth that I can only hear if I put my ear right next to the lens barrel.
I was very impressed when testing for focus speed. It is essentially instant when moving from a foreground to a background subject. I tested with the Sony GM back to back, and actually felt like the Viltrox had a split second advantage. Both are extremely fast, so it feels a bit like splitting hairs, but that helps put the Viltrox’s performance in context.
As mentioned in the intro, I was able to get accurate focus on the eye even when shooting portraits with strong backlighting.
I had no problems nailing focus at F1.2 during a teaching session at a church.
You can also see great precision in this shot of a horse. The lashes were covering the iris, but the precision and detail (at F1.2) is great.
I had no problem snapping focus to a bird on the wing.
If we look at a crop where I’ve raised exposure, you can see that the shot is perfectly focused.
And, of course, here is the obligatory shot of Nala.
This is definitely in the upper tier of autofocus performance for third party lenses. It’s amazing how far Viltrox has come in just a few short years.
I will add one caveat, however. While the Viltrox is fast enough to keep up with a quick moving action, burst speed is limited by Sony to 15FPS. If you are using one of their sports bodies, like my Alpha 1, that means that you can only achieve half the maximum burst rate that you can with a native Sony lens. That difference will be even more pronounced on a camera like the a9III. One of the nice things about the LAB lenses on Nikon is that no such limitation exists.
Video AF
The focus excellence carries over the video side of things. Video focus pulls are smooth, quick, and confident. The advantage of not having a STM (stepping motor) is that there are no visible steps, allowing focus to move consistently and smoothly from one subject to another without any visible pauses. There is some focus breathing, but it is fairly well controlled, with only a slight change of subject size depending on focus (I’ve put some lines here so that you can see the amount of size change).
The Sony 35mm F1.4 GM has a bit of a reputation for breathing quite badly, and you can definitely see that the GM has more obvious breathing…however…Sony has a focus breathing compensation correction on their cameras that utilizes a crop to mathematically eliminate focus breathing. It only works for first party Sony lenses, however, and it’s a pretty significant crop for the 35GM because there is so much breathing.
So, the Viltrox has less breathing, but that breathing will not be corrected in Sony cameras, either.
My “hand test” where I alternately block the camera’s view of my face with my hand and then remove it went exceptionally well. Focus confidently moved from my hand to my eye and back without any pulsing or lack of confidence. The focus breathing means that you will see the pull from my hand to my face, however.
Focus stayed stable in static shots at various apertures and didn’t pulse or move around.
I would say that autofocus for both stills and video is generally excellent. Viltrox’s new Hyper VCM focus motors are pretty great.
Image Quality Breakdown
The 35mm LAB continues in the tradition of being, well, exceptional. The optical design is 15 elements in 10 groups, with five of those being ED (low dispersion) elements, three of them being HD (high refractive index) lenses, and two being extreme aspherical lens (so two-thirds of the elements here are exotics). The MTF at F1.2 looks very good, with an absolutely stunning center and midframe performance and then a fade into the corners. At F8 the MTF is pretty much a straight line across the top, i.e. perfect.
Not everyone understands MTF charts, so I won’t do a deep dive into them here, but what I do find helps people visually is if I line up the MTF charts from alternatives, put a line through 80% (anything above that is looking great), and allow people to see what falls above and below that threshold for each lens. In this case, I’ve grabbed the premium Sony FE 35mm F1.4 and the new and exceptionally expensive Nikkor Z 35mm F1.2 S. The results are illuminating.
By this metric, the LAB lens will have the sharpest center and midframe with only the GM having sharper corners. I haven’t yet tested the Nikkor, but, on paper, the LAB will be the sharper lens essentially across the frame.
And yes, in the real world, this is a lens perfectly capable of producing stunning results even at F1.2:
Look the precision in the fine details after an ice storm. The contrast is pretty much perfect…even at F1.2.
More on this in a moment. Let’s look at the technical side of things.
I was expecting a lens well corrected for LoCA (longitudinal chromatic aberrations), and that is the case here. I see mostly neutral results on either side of the plane of focus without any fringing.
I don’t really see any fringing in this shot of water droplets…one that I’ve often found plays havoc on lenses with lesser control.
I did find a bit of fringing at F1.2 when shooting a camera/lens combo, which is my favorite subject for finding fringing (and I like taking pictures of cameras!) The amount of LoCA here is mild, but visible.
We’ve also got near-perfect corrections for LaCA (lateral chromatic aberrations) that typically show up along the edges of the frame with high contrast transition points. I see only the tiniest amount of fringing here.
I see no evidence of fringing in the transition areas near the edges of real world images, either.
I have seen some VERY unfortunate results in the past year when it comes to fast 35mm lenses and their quantity of vignette and distortion (hello Canon 35mm F1.4L VCM!). There’s much less of that here, though not the perfect levels we saw with the 135mm LAB.
There is a very minor amount of distortion, though unfortunately what’s there is complex. It is neither a true barrel or pincushion distortion, but a non-linear mix of the two. You can see that the corners have a pincushion look while the center is pretty neutral. Trying to correct the pincushion distortion creates barrel distortion elsewhere. I found that dialing in a minimal -2 was the best compromise I could achieve. When the actual correction profile arrives it will certainly do a better job. At the moment there is no correction for JPEGs, either, which will almost certainly change down the road. Fortunately the quantity of distortion is low enough that I couldn’t see it in real world shots.
This horizon looks pretty straight even without any corrections.
However, in this shot, with the horizon right up near the top of the frame, you can see a bit of that “mustache” pattern.
You would probably want to correct that…which will be much easier once this lens has gone to retail and we get RAW correction profiles for Adobe and other editing software. I did find that doing a miniscule -1 in Lightroom’s distortion slider did help enough that I wouldn’t probably notice after correction.
Vignette is moderately heavy at F1.2, requiring a +70 (between 2 and 3 stops). A lot of that clears naturally by F2.8, as you can see here.
At wide apertures, this is often a visible amount of vignette but not necessarily a negative amount. In this portrait shot (uncorrected) you can see that there really isn’t any destructive about the vignette even at F1.2.
There are going to be situations where a bit of vignette is flattering or productive. Bottom line is that while the 35mm LAB has a bit of distortion and a moderate amount of vignette, neither is extreme.
We’ll move on to inspecting our test chart. This test has been done on a 61MP Sony a7RV sensor. I use a high end tripod and two second camera delay to ensure vibration doesn’t affect images. *I ran into an issue that I sometimes encounter with third party lenses in that metering for my test chart didn’t work properly at smaller aperture if the aperture was declicked. I would get overexposed results at F11 and F16. This isn’t the case when testing with the aperture clicked. Firmware should be able to fix this issue.
Here’s a look at the test chart that we will examine at high magnification:
If we take a look at crops (at 200%) at F1.2 from the center, mid-frame, and lower right corner, we find that center and mid-frame performance is exceptionally good, and the corners are good but a bit softer.
So let’s put that in perspective. The premium lens in the class is the Sony 35mm F1.4 GM, which I have owned for years and consider to be exceptionally good. The LAB 35mm is sharper everywhere save in the corners, where the GM has a bit of the edge (as the MTF chart suggested).
But that was with both lenses wide open. If I stop the LAB down to F1.4 and sample the upper left corner, I would give the win to the LAB with both lenses at F1.4.
So this is definitely a very sharp lens at F1.2. I didn’t hesitate to shoot with it wide open at all.
Even landscape images at F1.2 look great:
By F2 the sharpness has increased to the level where my a7RV is struggling with moiré (false color). That only tends to happen when lenses are very, very sharp.
Even the corners are now extremely sharp.
Landscape images shot anywhere between F2 and F8 will look fantastic. Here’s one shot from a car window at F2.8:
This shot of a pier at F2.8 looks great everywhere that is in focus.
If I check back in with a comparison at F2.8 with the GM, I find that while both lenses are ridiculously sharp, the LAB is just a bit sharper everywhere. Take a look at the smaller text in this comparison.
Also interesting is the fact that the LAB consistently required less exposure (faster shutter speed) even when I shot both lenses with the same settings in a controlled environment. Clearly the LAB lens has a bit better light transmission (perhaps not surprising considering its more robust size).
Landscape images in the middle apertures show plenty of punch and detail. Colors are rich, contrast is strong, and detail is great even on a 61MP camera.
As is typical on a high resolution body, diffraction will start to soften the image by F11 and more obviously by F16, which is minimum aperture (though this lens is still sharper than many lenses at its weakest!)
Clearly this is a very sharp lens. But we aren’t just looking for sharpness; can this lens also deliver soft bokeh? It is a rare lens at any focal length that is good at both. 35mm lenses aren’t necessarily the biggest “bokeh makers”, but I’ve seen a few that could deliver lovely bokeh.
Here’s a look comparing the LAB and GM. We would expect the specular highlights to be larger on the LAB due to the faster maximum aperture, and that is the case. Both lenses experience some “cat-eye” geometric deformation near the corner of the frame, though the LAB experiences less of it.
What’s interesting here is that I actually think that the rendering from the LAB is nicer. By that I mean the mix of color, defocus, and general look to the image.
What many people don’t know is that due to some quirk of physics the specular highlights of a brighter lens remain a bit larger and softer than a lens with a dimmer maximum aperture even when you equalize the settings. If I stop the 35mm LAB to F1.4, for example, it still has bigger, softer “bokeh balls” than the GM at F1.4:
We see a little busyness in those specular highlights, but nothing too bad.
This next shot has a lot going on in the frame. It’s a gift shop that is full of various items and knick-knacks. There are also a number of bright lights and small objects that make for a complex bokeh rendering in both the foreground and background.
What we see is excellent subject isolation and fairly smooth rendering on all of those various textures…even the ones likely to induce “nervousness” in the rendering.
A gentler scene produces a more creamy background.
Obviously at closer distances and F1.2 the background will be strongly defocused and will look nicely creamy.
I think that most people are going to be very happy with the rendering from the 35mm LAB, and will love that extra bit of subject isolation that you can get from an F1.2 lens. I’m not sure it’s bokeh is as nice as my favorite 35mm bokeh maker (the Zeiss Milvus 35mm F1.4), but it is pretty close.
I also felt like colors are very nice and rich from the 35mm LAB. It’s a little ugly at home right now as we (very slowly) transition from winter to spring (mostly still winter!). That wasn’t a problem in Myrtle Beach in March, however, particularly when I was up early to catch the predawn light.
I felt like my real world images had very rich color to them.
Flare resistance was also very strong, which is hard to do in a lens with such a huge maximum aperture. I’ve tested a lot of cheap F1.2 and F1.4 lenses that have massive flare issues, but I saw (at most) the tiniest amount of ghosting in all of my testing period.
Contrast remained strong even in strongly backlit situations. This adds a lot of additional versatility for portrait photographers, as they can shoot backlit subjects without fear of their images falling apart.
I did manage to test coma. A 35mm lens with an extremely bright F1.2 aperture is going to be a potential favorite for those wanting to shoot the night sky. How did it do?
As you might expect by this point, this is a lens that is pretty much good at everything. Astro is no problem, even at F1.2, with no issues with fringing around bright points of light, crisp star points in the center frame crop, and very little coma near the edges of the frame in the second crop.
I’ll be honest; I actually didn’t expect this lens to rival the 35mm F1.4 GM, which is perhaps my favorite 35mm lens to date. Now, to be fair, the GM is working within much tighter size constraints, but the fact that the Viltrox AF 35mm F1.2 LAB FE is so good and so comparatively inexpensive ($500 less!) makes for a pretty compelling option. If you’d like to see more images in my extensive image gallery, just click here.
Conclusion
I was excited by the idea of the Viltrox LAB series lenses from the moment that they were announced, but the reality of them has been, if anything, even better. These LAB lenses have been so good that I’ve scaled up my expectations (and critiques) of them to the level that I would hold lenses that cost 2-3x as much to. That’s mostly because Viltrox has proven that they are pretty much capable of anything.
While Kazuto Yamaki (CEO of Sigma) did announce a MK II version of Sigma’s own 35mm F1.2 for Sony FE, at the moment of this review the Viltrox LAB 35mm F1.2 is the only autofocusing 35mm F1.2 lens on FE since Sigma had previously discontinued the existing 35mm F1.2 DN. I’m not sure what level of sales success that the first generation Sigma had on Sony FE, but that fact that the Viltrox is the superior lens in both optics and autofocus, is smaller and lighter, and costs nearly half as much will probably give it a sales advantage. Add to that that this lens will also eventually come to Nikon Z, and I suspect that the 35mm LAB will do just fine.
The Sony 35mm F1.4 GM is a still a lovely choice if you want both high performing and compact, but the LAB 35mm is the new champ if you want that next level F1.2 goodness. It can produce brilliant images at all apertures, nail autofocus in those critical moments, and won’t break the bank. It may break your back, however, though no more so than a lot of the Sigma ART series primes from back in the day. And if you want a lot of this magic in a slightly smaller, lighter, and cheaper package…their 35mm F1.4 Pro lens is coming somewhere in the near future. I’ve already been testing the 85mm F1.4 Pro, and it is pretty sweet. It’s a good day for Viltrox…which means that a lot of other lens makers may be having a bit of a bad day.
Pros:
Not as massive and heavy as the 135mm (or the 35mm F1.2 S-Line)
Beautiful built lens
Feature rich
Very good weather sealing
USB port for firmware updates along with Bluetooth for wireless access
Quad HyperVCM motors means focus is near instant
Focus pulls are nicely damped
Exceptionally sharp lens that matches or bests the very best in the center and mid-frame
Keywords: Viltrox AF 35mm F1.2 LAB FE, Viltrox AF, LAB, Viltrox LAB, #LAB, #LAB35, #explorebeyond, Viltrox 35mm, Normal, Full Frame, F1.2, f/1.2, Hyper VCM, Viltrox LAB 35mm F1.2 FE, Viltrox LAB 35mm Review, Viltrox AF 35mm F1.2 FE Review, Sony a7IV, Sony Alpha 1, Sony a7RV, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, let the light in, weathersealing, #letthelightin, DA
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This is a very important review for me. Not because the Nikkor Z 135mm F1.8 S Plena is a new and hot review (it was actually released in October of 2023, several months before I started to do Nikon reviews and 18 months before this review), but because it represents a very important new connection for me. Since adding my Z8 in spring of 2024 I have been seeking partnerships to get a supply of Nikon loaners here in Canada, but I was largely unsuccessful in my first year. That meant that I have largely reviewed third party Z mount lenses (Tamron, Viltrox, etc…) but only a few first party Nikkor lenses. But on a trip to Japan I developed a friendship with Evelyn Drake of The Camera Store TV on YouTube (a truly lovely person!), and she connected me with Chris at Nikon Canada.
Chris was kind enough to get me a loaner of the Plena, and its my hope that my connection to him will enable me to do a more thorough job of covering Nikon products moving ahead. So far he has been great, so thank you to both Chris and Evelyn!
The Plena 135mm is one of Nikon’s top tier premium prime lenses, engineered to produce as beautiful of bokeh as possible. It’s a lens that I’ve been wanting to test for a while, as I’ve had an opportunity to review (and own) a lot of other premium 135mm lenses over the years and have been very interested in Nikon’s offering. There’s also the factor that Viltrox has now released their 135mm F1.8 LAB lens in Nikon Z mount, (my review here), so for the first time the Plena 135mm has some real competition. There’s no question the LAB is a great lens, but having spent time with the two lenses side by side, there are definitely some areas where the extra polish and sophistication of the Plena shine through. The big question, however, is whether or not that difference is worth a $1600 USD premium, as the Plena costs a whopping $2500. The answer, as usual, is complicated, and really depends on your set of priorities. We’ll explore all those details in either the video review, in the text review, or just enjoy the photos in the galleries below.
Thanks to Chris at Nikon Canada for sending me a review copy of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. All opinions and conclusions are my own.*The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the 45MP Nikon Z8, which I reviewed here.You can find the product listing page for the Nikkor Z 135mm F1.8 S Plena here.
There are sharp lenses and there are lenses with beautifully soft rendering…that creamy bokeh that we all love. Lenses that have both qualities are very rare, as it takes masterful engineering to accomplish this. Nikon’s engineers prioritized the rendering in the Plena, working to engineer right out to the edges of the frame. They wanted round specular highlights across the frame, low vignette so that it wouldn’t interfere with that rendering, and as generally pleasing bokeh as possible. One of the first banners on the listing page says, “Beauty that reaches every corner.” It’s that attention to detail that sets the Plena 135mm apart…as I dive into in either the text or video reviews.
Keywords: Nikkor, Nikkor Z 135mm, Plena, F1.8, F1.8 S, Nikkor Z, Nikkor Z 135mm F1.8 S Plena review, Nikon 135mm, Nikon Z 135mm, Viltrox, LAB, Viltrox AF 135mm F1.8 LAB Z, Nikon, Nikon Z8, Z, Z-mount, Z8, Review, mirrorless, Full Frame, Sports, Tracking, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Handling, Focus, Portraits, Resolution, High ISO, Image Quality, Sample Images, Photography, 45MP, #letthelightin, #DA, #NIKON, #Z8, #NIKONZ8
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.
This is a very important review for me. Not because the Nikkor Z 135mm F1.8 S Plena is a new and hot review (it was actually released in October of 2023, several months before I started to do Nikon reviews and 18 months before this review), but because it represents a very important new connection for me. Since adding my Z8 in spring of 2024 I have been seeking partnerships to get a supply of Nikon loaners here in Canada, but I was largely unsuccessful in my first year. That meant that I have largely reviewed third party Z mount lenses (Tamron, Viltrox, etc…) but only a few first party Nikkor lenses. But on a trip to Japan I developed a friendship with Evelyn Drake of The Camera Store TV on YouTube (a truly lovely person!), and she connected me with Chris at Nikon Canada.
Chris was kind enough to get me a loaner of the Plena, and its my hope that my connection to him will enable me to do a more thorough job of covering Nikon products moving ahead. So far he has been great, so thank you to both Chris and Evelyn!
The Plena 135mm is one of Nikon’s top tier premium prime lenses, engineered to produce as beautiful of bokeh as possible. It’s a lens that I’ve been wanting to test for a while, as I’ve had an opportunity to review (and own) a lot of other premium 135mm lenses over the years and have been very interested in Nikon’s offering. There’s also the factor that Viltrox has now released their 135mm F1.8 LAB lens in Nikon Z mount, (my review here), so for the first time the Plena 135mm has some real competition. There’s no question the LAB is a great lens, but having spent time with the two lenses side by side, there are definitely some areas where the extra polish and sophistication of the Plena shine through. The big question, however, is whether or not that difference is worth a $1600 USD premium, as the Plena costs a whopping $2500. The answer, as usual, is complicated, and really depends on your set of priorities. We’ll explore all those details in either the video review below or in this text review.
Thanks to Chris at Nikon Canada for sending me a review copy of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. All opinions and conclusions are my own.*The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the 45MP Nikon Z8, which I reviewed here.You can find the product listing page for the Nikkor Z 135mm F1.8 S Plena here.
First, a word on 135mm lenses. There are few lenses that I like the look of images more from. To me images shot with a fast 135mm lens are a cut above those shot with an 85mm F1.4 (or even F1.2), but the challenge is that the additional 50mm in focal length makes for a less flexible tool. You need more room to operate, which means that a 135mm lens isn’t going to work in every room. I shot my first wedding using a Canon EF 135mm F2L lens rather than a 70-200mm type zoom, and I regretted it afterwards. There were several shots where the framing was unnatural because I didn’t have enough room to fit everything I wanted in the frame. But there’s no lens that I like more for environmental portraiture. The ability to have a full length portrait while still having beautiful separation of the subject from the background makes for incredibly special images.
There are sharp lenses and there are lenses with beautifully soft rendering…that creamy bokeh that we all love. Lenses that have both qualities are very rare, as it takes masterful engineering to accomplish this. Nikon’s engineers prioritized the rendering in the Plena, working to engineer right out to the edges of the frame. They wanted round specular highlights across the frame, low vignette so that it wouldn’t interfere with that rendering, and as generally pleasing bokeh as possible. One of the first banners on the listing page says, “Beauty that reaches every corner.” It’s that attention to detail that sets the Plena 135mm apart. This comparison hows that extra little something special when compared to the LAB, with rounder specular highlights right into the edges.
We’ll explore more of those little details in the review.
Nikkor Plena 135mm Build and Handling
Nikon’s lineup of Z-mount premium lenses – the S-Line lenses – is known for many things, but being small is not one of them. Nikon has taken the old Zeiss Otus philosophy where performance is by the greatest object and size and weight are not really significant considerations. I think they can get away with it, too, when they often have a Small | Medium | Large option at that given focal length. It’s true now of a 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm, where F1.8, F1.4, and F1.2 options all exist (though ironically the F1.4 options are often the smallest!). Obviously that’s not true of the 135mm focal length, where the Plena is the lone entry, but the Plena is definitely a part of the F1.2 crowd in design philosophy.
That being said, it’s not as if 135mm F1.8 lenses tend to be small and light in general, and while the Plena is a little wider in diameter than the Viltrox LAB option, it’s actually shorter and lighter.
The Plena is 98mm (3.9″) in diameter and 139.5mm (5.5″) in length. It weighs 995g (35oz). But the LAB 135Z manages to top that. It is 93mm in diameter (3.66″), a little narrower, but is a bit longer at 147.6mm (5.74″) in length. That’s not bigger (the Plena has an internal volume about 1% higher), but the Plena is actually lighter than the LAB. The Plena weighs 995g (35oz), which is heavy enough, but the LAB weighs a whopping 1268g (44.72oz), or about 270g more than the Plena. For that matter, the Plena is shorter and lighter than any of the S-Line F1.2 options. That’s right – the Plena is the lightweight option! It’s all about perspective.
What makes this a big, heavy lens is that there is a massive amount of glass inside right past those 82mm front filter threads.
The Plena is a premium lens with an excellent build. It has a tough outer shell of mostly metal alloys, and, internally, it has thorough weather sealing throughout.
There is a protective coating on the front and rear elements and then roughly 11 (by my count) internal seals at the rings, buttons, and switches. That allows you to have confidence when shooting in the elements.
I do have one gripe with modern 135mm lenses, and this criticism applies to all of them…not just the Plena. One of the things I appreciated about the old school Canon EF 135mm F2L (my first quality 135mm) was that it was fully compatible with teleconverters, allowing one to get a nice quality 190mm (ish) F2.8 lens with an F1.4x TC or even a 270mm F4 lens with a 2.0x. That just added to the versatility of the lens, but that seems to have be a forgotten element of modern 135mm design. Nikon instead touts that the rear element (located nearly flush with the mount, meaning that there is no physical room ever for a TC) is actually curved to allow for lower vignette.
At least this design has a specific purpose (more on that in the image quality section).
Nikon has a specific design ethos of the feature set of these upscale S-Line lenses, which includes a few more control points than the average lens. That starts very early on the lens with an AF | MF switch that is located very close to the lens mount.
Maybe too close to the lens mount, at least on certain cameras. On my Z8, there are two controls located way too close to this area. There is a flash sync port behind a rubber cover along with the camera release button. That means if I’m reaching around with my left thumb to operate the switch, I’m having to thread the needle through a couple of obstacles. Perhaps placing it on the same tier with the Fn buttons would have made more sense.
Next comes Nikon’s “clickless control ring”, which could serve as a manual aperture ring but could also function to control ISO, exposure compensation, or a few other functions – whatever you’ve set up the ring to do in the menus. Those controls can be found in the Custom Settings menu, then by selecting group F (Controls), and finally choosing custom setting F2 (Custom Controls Shooting) to change the function of the ring.
As an aside, I will note that I was able to do smooth aperture racks through the control ring without any visible steps. That wasn’t true of the LAB lens, where I could see visible steps even when I had the aperture ring in the declicked mode (at least on Z-mount).
The aperture iris has eleven rounded blades, and the aperture iris definitely does a nice job of keeping the specular highlights round. The screenshot above is somewhere around F5.6 or F6.3, and shows a very circular shape with very minimal evidence of the individual aperture blades.
Here’s what that aperture iris looks like from the inside.
I’m personally more a fan of a traditional manual aperture ring (with marked positions) as I think the function works better than using the control ring for aperture, where there is no natural visual representation of the current aperture. Unlike Sony (at least at the present), some of Nikon’s cameras have a top mounted LCD screen (including my Z8), which at least gives you some visual feedback on the current aperture. I can also appreciate that not everyone is a fan of manual aperture rings, and Nikkor’s approach allows that ring to be used for other purposes if so desired. Viltrox seems to have been taking a similar tack with their LAB lenses (and I’ve been complaining about it there, too!)
Many 135mm lenses employ a focus limiter switch, but Nikkor has skipped that on the Plena. The positive spin is that they clearly have confidence in the autofocus speed and don’t feel it is necessary.
In the middle of the lens there are two Fn buttons, one on the top and the other on the left side. These are redundant (both have the same function – whatever has been assigned to it in camera) but are in duplicate so that you have one easy to hand whether shooting in horizontal or vertical modes.
The manual focus ring is slightly raised and has a rubberized, ribbed texture. It moves very smoothly and has a nice amount of weight to it. I was able to pull off really smooth manual focus pulls and focus with very nice precision. I also love the fact that I can do full time manual overrides even when in AF-C mode.
You’ll note that there is a third rubberized section near the front of the lens, but that appears to just be a grip section and not a movable part. It’s a rather odd design choice, actually.
There is no lens based stabilization, so you will need to rely upon the in-camera stabilization if your camera is so equipped.
The lens hood is relatively deep and does have a small lock on the right side. The hood is made of plastics and feels fairly ordinary. Unlike the Viltrox, it doesn’t have a rubberized front edge. I would argue that a premium lens like the Plena deserves a nicer hood.
Minimum focus distance is 82cm, giving a maximum magnification figure of 1:5, or 0.20x. That falls a little behind the LAB lens, which can focus 10cm closer and gives a 0.25x magnification. The performance of the Plena up close is fantastic even at F1.8, with excellent sharpness and contrast and a nicely flat plane of focus.
That excellent detail and contrast holds up well with a three-dimensional subject as well at minimum focus distances.
This is one other area where being able to throw on a teleconverter would be nice, as you could significantly boost that magnification into more macro territory.
There is no VR (vibration reduction, or optical stabilization) built into the lens. That’s not a problem on a body like my Z8, which has good camera based stabilization, but could be a problem for those of you shooting on a camera without VR.
I have loved using the word “Plena” as my keyword in this review. I wish that all lensmakers would apply a designated name to their premium lenses, as it becomes an easy way to distinguish it from alternatives and gives the lens a touch of elegance. The word “Plena” comes from a Latin word that means “full” or “complete”, and the latter meaning seems most appropriate. The words in nicely etched into the barrel of the lens and becomes a visual focalpoint for the lens design.
This is a big, heavy, expensive lens, but it is also beautifully made and is a nice match for a beefier camera like my Z8. It does carry a premium price at roughly $2500 USD, but it is also a premium product.
Autofocus (Stills)
I was a little surprised to see that the Plena employed dual STM focus motors, as I tend to associate Linear or VCM style motors with the more premium options. But having used the lens for a variety of applications, I’ve got no real reservations about the AF performance. Focus is very nicely reactive, able to keep up with more difficult subjects that I regularly photograph, including a fastly scampering little Nala.
I’m not sure if you’re aware, but cats are not very cooperative subjects. Most often when they are sitting nicely you can guarantee that they will start moving the moment you go to pick up a camera. Nala was perched on a planter in the sunshine, so I went to grab my Z8 with the Plena mounted on it, delighted to get a shot with her in a nice position. She immediately ran to the end of the planter and jumped off. I snapped a picture in frustration anyway, knowing that it would be out of focus.
But it wasn’t.
Not only was it not out of focus, but it was perfectly focused, despite her A) being backlight B) being on the move and C) my having no opportunity to start tracking and reacting properly to her movement. Here’s what a 100% crop looks like.
Now we’re talking!
So, autofocus speed belied my expectations of an STM-equipped lens. Maybe the solution is having two of them!
In my formal tests I saw mostly good speed, but I also a pretty consistent quick rack in the wrong direction before a then quick journey to the right focus destination. The Plena doesn’t seem to love those forced racks between a close and distant subject. In real world shots, however, focus changes tend to be smaller and I didn’t really notice the same things.
Focus accuracy was generally excellent in my tests. You can shoot with precision even in situations with a tiny depth of field, like this:
I did a portrait session with a friend (thanks, Justin!), and worked at a big range of focus distances – from a little over a meter to nearly 20 meters (4-55 feet). I switched between the Plena and the Viltrox LAB lens and had Justin hold poses so that I could get as scientific of results as possible. What I found as a general rule is that I had more consistent accuracy with the Plena than the Viltrox. That’s pretty much what you would expect, obviously, though I’m still waiting for the Viltrox to receive a firmware update that will hopefully improve the performance closer to what I saw on Sony FE.
I had very good focus results with the Plena whether working at close distances:
Medium distances:
…or further distances.
The only sequence that I saw some issues was in this one where some prominent branches sometimes confused the AF system.
Those of you who watched or read my initial review of the Viltrox LAB lens on Z-mount know that I had a similar problem there with snowflakes, so I think that Nikon’s Eye AF is just not quite as good at looking past obstacles as either Sony or Canon.
With a little persistence I got the result that I wanted here.
So autofocus for stills was generally very good. I wouldn’t put the Plena in the same class as a lens like the Sony FE 135mm F1.8 G Master, however, which utilizes dual XD Linear motors and has essentially flawless autofocus for both stills and video, but that’s not necessarily relevant on the Nikon platform.
Autofocus (Video)
Video autofocus was less impressive to me. Focus pulls felt a little rough, with plenty of little pulses, racks, and an end result that felt anything but cinematic. There’s a fairly strong amount of focus breathing as well (not unusual for a 135mm lens).
The focus breathing further detracts from the cinematic quality of video focus pulls. When I compared the LAB and Plena closely, however, it doesn’t seem like one is any better than the other.
Both also equally failed my hand test where I alternately block the view of the camera to my face with my hand and then remove it to test reactiveness. Neither lens decided to move from my face to my hand in any of the sequences.
Things were better when I approached the camera and stepped in and out of frame. They both did a pretty good job of moving focus on me when I approached in a linear fashion. With both lenses there was a pretty pronounced lag before focus snapped back into place on me if I stepped out of frame, however. I’d say the Plena was a couple of percentage points better, but neither was great.
The Plena did fine with static video shots where I just needed it to hold focus without pulsing or hunting. Overall video AF was probably the area where I was least impressed during my review, however.
Image Quality Breakdown
There’s rarely anything sharper than a good 135mm lens, and the Nikkor Z 135mm F1.8 S Plena is a sharp one. The optical design is 16 elements in 14 groups, and as you can see from the cutout below, six of those are exotic elements including Aspherical, ED (extra-low dispersion), and SR (short wave refractive) elements. The MTF shows a 90% mark across about half the frame and then a slow slide to the corners at F1.8.
On paper, the Viltrox LAB is the sharper lens.
But we’ll verify (or dispute) that for ourselves.
One of the big marketing points by Nikon is that the Plena has been designed with a unique rear element that is both larger and curved, allowed light to more evenly illuminate the whole image circle. And, when examining the my chart results, I found that the Plena showed very low vignette.
I used about a stop of correction here (+30), and even that is gone by F2.8. There’s a tiny bit of pincushion distortion that corrected easily with a -3.
That means that real world results at F1.8 even without correction are going to have an essentially invisible amount of vignette, like this (uncorrected result – no profiles or manual correction).
This was also the way that I found the LAB on Sony, but that’s just not the case on Z-mount. The Viltrox lens shows a lot of vignette on the larger diameter Z-mount.
For perspective, I needed +50 to correct the vignette on the Z-mount version of the LAB, or nearly twice as much. There is no distortion on the LAB lens.
I also saw very minimal amounts of LoCA (longitudinal chromatic aberrations), and that is the case here. I see mostly neutral results on either side of the plane of focus with only a tiny amount of fringing after the lane of focus.
This real world result shows no visible fringing before or after the plane of focus.
Brilliant.
LaCA (lateral chromatic aberrations) typically show up along the edges of the frame with high contrast transition points. I saw nothing but clean transitions on either side of the black and white transitions.
So far those are all really excellent results.
We’ll move on to inspecting our test chart. This test has been done on a 45MP Nikon Z8 sensor. I use a high end tripod and two second camera delay to ensure vibration doesn’t affect images. Here’s a look at the test chart that we will examine at high magnification:
If we take a look at crops (at 200%) at F1.8 from the center, mid-frame, and lower right corner, we find that center and mid-frame performance is exceptionally good, and that sharpness extends right to the corners.
If I compare my chart results with those I’ve done with the LAB, I find that I prefer the Plena in the center, the LAB in the mid-frame, and it is mostly a wash in the corners.
If I compared the two lenses for portraits, I had a hard time picking a winner. They both gave essentially equal amount of contrast and detail, and even skin tones look pretty similar. The LAB lens may give very slightly deeper levels of saturation, but they are very, very close.
If we step back and look at the image as a whole, there is again very little to distinguish between the two lenses.
One more interesting comparison is a full length F1.8 shot with a lot going on in the scene. I’ll let you spend the time trying to find the differences; they aren’t easy to spot.
Now, before you get too bent out of shape, know that Sony shooters have already dealt with the same angst, as, if anything, the Plena actually outperforms the Sony GM. The LAB lens is just shockingly sharp for the price.
Stopping the Plena down to F2 produces a slight contrast boost across the frame, but probably not enough that you would notice without them side by side and at high levels of magnification. That’s not true at F2.8, however, where the improvement is far more noticeable…particularly in the corners, which are now razer sharp.
If we jump back to a real world result, we will find that sharpness and contrast are just gorgeous…as is the general rendering from the lens. As mentioned in the intro, this is one of those rare lenses that has both gorgeous defocused rendering and razer sharp detail/contrast.
Look at the amount of detail in Justin’s beard and mustache.
After F2.8, it is hard to tell much of a difference through F8. It’s just amazingly good all throughout. Landscape images are going to be pretty flawless.
Physics will affect even the mightiest of lenses, however, so expect diffraction to start to soften the image by F11 and more obviously by F16, which is minimum aperture (though this lens is still sharper than many lenses at its weakest!)
But the Plena isn’t all about sharpness. Bokeh is at the heart of its design. It is very easy to get extremely pleasing backgrounds with very creamy defocus and great colors.
You also get great subject separation, with an excellent level of 3D subject isolation.
I brought along a vintage hatchet to the photo shoot with Justin, not really knowing how I’d use it but grabbed it on a whim. It turned out that the area we went to had just had some clearing along the path, and the heavy machinery had just chewed everything into splinters. I knew exactly how the hatchet would work, and got Justin in the midst of the carnage as if he’d done it all with the hatchet. See the amazing cutout effect effect that you can achieve even at a distance?
I was using natural light for these shots, but if I had used strobes, it would have seemed essentially like I had “Photoshopped” him into the scene as strobes will often just intensify the cutout effect.
Part of that rear element design was not just about vignette, but also about being able to evenly distribute light for the sake of specular highlights. And there is no question that the Plena is the best 135mm lens that I’ve used for keeping circular specular shapes (bokeh balls) right into the corners even at F1.8.
The bokeh rendering is fantastic from the 135mm Plena.
I only have one optical complaint, and it is more of a general Nikon complaint. I find magentas a little too strong, so I find that in Caucasian skin tones that I often feel that I need to take some of the red/magenta out of people’s faces.
Darker skin tones look more natural to me.
Cat fur tones are also excellent, and I just love the amount of sharpness and contrast I get from the Plena.
Flare resistance was also very strong on the Plena. I didn’t see any lost of contrast in real world shots, and here you can see with the sun in the variety of positions and with a variety of apertures (from F1.8 to F11) that there is never really any veiling, either. The various coatings by Nikkor (Meso Amorphous Coat and ARNEO Coat) are doing a fantastic job.
The Plena thrives in all tested metrics. This is one the good ones.
The bottom line is that this is one the most complete lenses that I’ve tested optically, with strong performances in basically every optical category. If you’d like to see more images in my extensive image gallery, just click here.
Conclusion
Nikon’s premium S-Line lenses represent the pinnacle of their Z-mount engineering, and the Nikkor Z 135mm F1.8 S Plena is one of the best. It has it all going optically – great sharpness, great bokeh, and no real aberrations or flaws.
The only fly in the ointment is the new Viltrox AF 135mm F1.8 LAB Z, as it shares a lot of those optical strengths and comes at a much lower price tag. But as I used the two lenses side by side, I could see the many little ways where the Plena proved its superiority. It just works better, whether it was doing aperture racks, getting better consistency when doing portraits, or even manually focusing.
The Plena is still the premium option, however, with an amazing performance all around. It produces the kinds of images that you can only associate with professional photography, and you won’t ever have to worry about someone’s phone producing images that look like your 2 kilo combination of Z8/Z9 and the Plena. If you are a portrait photographer (particularly if you do environmental portraits) and you want a lens that can reliably produce images that you’ll love, then check out the Plena. It’s a treat.
Keywords: Nikkor, Nikkor Z 135mm, Plena, F1.8, F1.8 S, Nikkor Z, Nikkor Z 135mm F1.8 S Plena review, Nikon 135mm, Nikon Z 135mm, Viltrox, LAB, Viltrox AF 135mm F1.8 LAB Z, Nikon, Nikon Z8, Z, Z-mount, Z8, Review, mirrorless, Full Frame, Sports, Tracking, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Handling, Focus, Portraits, Resolution, High ISO, Image Quality, Sample Images, Photography, 45MP, #letthelightin, #DA, #NIKON, #Z8, #NIKONZ8
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.
In May of 2023 I reviewed a lens that I was very excited about. Viltrox had released a next level 16mm F1.8 autofocus lens for Sony FE, and it fill a niche previously unfilled on FE – a high quality, fast prime lens at 16mm…and even better, it was very affordable. That lens has sold a lot of copies over the past few years on first Sony FE and then Nikon Z, but its time in the spotlight may be coming to an end. Sony has now released their answer to the Viltrox, and it is smaller, lighter, wider, and even higher performing…and only costs about $220 more. The new Sony FE 16mm F1.8 G takes the formula that I loved in the FE 20mm F1.8 G and takes it wider. The 16mm F1.8 G is a lens that I quickly fell in love with. You can find out why by watching my video review or reading my text review…or just enjoying the photos below.
Thanks to Sony USA 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 along with the Sony Alpha 1 that serve as my benchmark cameras for Sony lenses. You can visit the product listing page for the 16mm F1.8 G here.
I got two lens loaners from Sony in March of 2025, and they are definitely what you would call two extremes! Here’s what the 16mm G and the 400-800mm G look like side by side:
Ummm, wow! And while that may exaggerate how small the 16mm F1.8 G is, here’s a look at it side by side with the Viltrox:
So yes, it is definitely compact. But that doesn’t mean much if it also isn’t good…which it is! Enjoy the photos in the galleries below!
Keywords: Sony FE 16mm F1.8 G, Sony 16mm G, 16mm F1.8, Sony 16mm F1.8 Revew, 16mm, F1.8, G, Sony 16mm review, Viltrox AF 16mm F1.8, Full Frame, Review, Sony Alpha 1, Sony a7RV, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, let the light in, weathersealing, #letthelightin, 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.
In May of 2023 I reviewed a lens that I was very excited about. Viltrox had released a next level 16mm F1.8 autofocus lens for Sony FE, and it fill a niche previously unfilled on FE – a high quality, fast prime lens at 16mm…and even better, it was very affordable. That lens has sold a lot of copies over the past few years on first Sony FE and then Nikon Z, but its time in the spotlight may be coming to an end. Sony has now released their answer to the Viltrox, and it is smaller, lighter, wider, and even higher performing…and only costs about $220 more. The new Sony FE 16mm F1.8 G takes the formula that I loved in the FE 20mm F1.8 G and takes it wider. The 16mm F1.8 G is a lens that I quickly fell in love with…and we’ll explore the reasons why in both the video review and the text review shared here.
Thanks to Sony USA 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 along with the Sony Alpha 1 that serve as my benchmark cameras for Sony lenses. You can visit the product listing page for the 16mm F1.8 G here.
I got two lens loaners from Sony in March of 2025, and they are definitely what you would call two extremes! Here’s what the 16mm G and the 400-800mm G look like side by side:
Ummm, wow! And while that may exaggerate how small the 16mm F1.8 G is, here’s a look at it side by side with the Viltrox:
So yes, it is definitely compact. But that doesn’t mean much if it also isn’t good. We’ll explore the answer to that question in this review.
Build and Handling
Sony’s G series hits what I consider to be a sweet spot for their lenses. These lenses are typically well made, have a good set of features, perform well optically, but, perhaps most importantly, are reasonably priced.
I’ve really felt like the 20mm F1.8 G has been one of Sony’s underrated gems since its release. It had the misfortune to release just about the time that the COVID 19 pandemic went global, which probably muted its introduction. The 16mm F1.8 G should have no such issues, and I suspect this should be a very popular lens for Sony long term.
16mm is a wide focal length, allowing you to get a lot in the frame, but it isn’t so extreme as to become more difficult to compose with like 14mm or wider lenses. What I found as I compared the Sony to the Viltrox in a variety of tests was that the Sony is actually a fair bit wider than the Viltrox. Take a look at this comparison:
That’s a pretty significant difference. I went and looked at the listing for both lenses, and sure enough, the Sony’s specification is 107° while the Viltrox is rated at 105.6°. A good rule of thumb in this day of high resolution cameras is that wider is better. It’s easy to crop in a bit, but much harder to crop out!
So how small is the 16mm F1.8 G?
The answer is pretty small. It is just 73.8mm (2.91″) in diameter and 75mm (3″) in length. It weighs in at a lightweight 304g, or 10.7oz, making it a full 246g less than the Viltrox. I love high quality lenses that also manage to be very small, as it means that they are far more likely to go into my bag when I’m planning for a trip or excursion. I don’t mind shooting with big lenses if I’m staying close, but small and light is better if I’m traveling.
The front filter size is 67mm, which I love, as it is shared with perhaps more lenses than any other on Sony (thanks in large part to Tamron making it their standard).
You may not be able to see it, but that front element also has a fluorine coating, which is part of the weather sealing in the design. There is a small gasket at the lens mount, and then, according to Sony, a variety of other seal points throughout the lens. I count a total of ten seals according to the diagram.
That’s fantastic, as wide angle lenses are often going to be used for capturing landscapes. Going out into the world means sometimes facing moist or dusty environments, and the 16mm F1.8 G is equipped to survive them.
There is also a robust set of features on this compact lens. The first is Sony’s comprehensive approach to aperture control.
This includes the ability to use the aperture iris with clicks (one third stop detents) or in a declicked fashion.
What’s more, unluck some inexpensive lenses that sport the ability to declick the aperture, you can in fact do smooth aperture racks for video without any visible steps (that’s true of the Viltrox as well).
There is a firm detent between F 22 (minimum aperture) and “A” (Automatic mode”, but if you prefer to lock into or out of the aperture ring, there is an iris lock.
I noted while doing the aperture rack that specular highlights stay nice and round due to 11 aperture blades. Here’s a look at F2.8 (I can actually still see decent sized specular highlights at F2.8 due to the high magnification of the lens).
The 16mm F1.8 G also sports a function/custom button (function is set in the camera) along with an AF | MF switch on the left side.
I love all of these control points on this compact lens, as these physical controls allow you to stay more connected to the shot and out of the camera menus.
The manual focus ring works fairly well. The damping is on the light side, but I was able to successfully do smooth focus pulls and some precision focusing for formal tests.
A shallow, petal shaped hood is included. It’s nothing fancy, but it also doesn’t flare out wide, making it easy to reverse for storage without adding a lot of addtional room. There is no lock, but it bayonets on with good precision and a tight “click” when locked into place.
One area of clear advantage for the Sony over the Viltrox is in maximum magnification. The Sony can autofocus as closely as 15cm and achieve a maximum magnification of 0.25x, but you can manually focus a little closer (13cm) and get an ever higher 0.30x magnification. The Viltrox, by comparison, has a MFD of 27cm, and a much lower level of magnification around 0.10x.
As you can see, this also means that you will be able to blur out a background much more strongly with the Sony than the Viltrox as well.
The downside is that you have to pretty much be right on top of your subject at that distance. If the lens is is 7.5cm, and the sensor is a little further back (we’ll call it a total of 9cm), that means that there is just 4cm between the front of the lens and the subject. You’ll need to remove the hood to give yourself any chance of not shading the subject with the lens and/or hood.
Sony does this be employing floating elements in the design of the 16mm F1.8 G, so when the lens is powered off you will feel a slight clunk if you tip the lens up and down as those non-energized elements move inside. That will go away when you attach the lens to the camera and it is powered on.
You will want to avoid getting too close to subjects that require a flat plan of focuse. This lens (as we will see) has a lot of distortion, and that gets exaggerated up close, resulting in so much field curvature that a two dimensional subject almost looks three-dimensional. Check out my test chart result!
You may see some of that with three dimensional subjects, but it probably won’t be anywhere near this pronounced. Just know that there are few caveats in the close-up performance. I’m still glad it has the option, however, as it expands the usefulness of the lens.
The bottom line is that this is a great package. Compact, lightweight, feature rich, weather sealed, and handles great. I immediately loved it.
Autofocus for Stills
Sony has employed dual XD linear motors to work in concert and drive the focus group. Sony has done perhaps a better job than any other lens maker in making sure that their lenses have plenty of autofocus thrust to ensure that you are going to get top-tier autofocus performance.
Focus is silent and near instant. There is no lag between focus on a close or distant subject. Focus happens essentialy instantly and without any drama.
Wide angle lenses like this often don’t put huge stresses on focus systems, as the difference between nothing being in focus and everything being in focus is often very small, but the 16mm F1.8 G proved very capable of quick and acurate focus changes.
Eye tracking in either my formal focus tests or real world results were consistently excellent, though note that eye tracking only really works at close focus distances. Too far away and soon the eye and then even the face won’t occupy a big enough area in the frame for dedicated tracking. It doesn’t matter, however, as at that point everything will be in focus if the focus is even on the body of the subject.
One key advantage of buying a first party lens is the simple fact that you unlock the full potential of Sony’s full autofocus potential and burst options. When shooting on a camera like my Alpha 1, for example, I can shoot at 30FPS rather being limited to 15FPS with a third party lens. For someone with an a9III, that difference becomes even more extreme.
This is a great autofocus system that is ready for whatever subjects you throw at it.
Video AF
Sony is extremely good at calibrating their focus for both stills and video, and that’s true here. That instantaneous focus speed is detuned just enough to make autofocus focus pulls a little more cinematic. Focus breathing is low, allowing focus pulls to be smooth and not eye catching.
I also saw good performance in my hand test, though there was at least one cycle where focus stayed on my face rather than moving to my hand, even though the hand was dominating the frame.
I had a clip where Nala scurried towards the camera, and focus largely kept up with her (though more at her neck rather than eye level), so I would need to tweak the focus speed in settings to really keep up. I don’t doubt there is sufficient thrust in the lens focus motors to accomplish that, however. Here’s a few screen grabs from that clip.
Static shots (landscape type clips) were nice and stable, without any microadjustments. Footage looks nice and crisp. The issues with distortion that we will visit in the image quality section are not an issue with video because Sony’s correction profiles will eliminate them.
Autofocus is great for either stills or video work.
Image Quality Breakdown
Sony has equipped this little lens with a fairly complex optical design. It has 15 elements in 12 groups, which is the same as the Viltrox lens. Included in this design are seven different exotic elements, including AA (advanced aspherical), apsherical, Super ED (Extra Low Disperation), and ED elements. the MTF chart shows an extremely sharp center at F1.8, with good mid-frame and above average corners.
I created a chart comparing the MTF results from the Sony and Viltrox lenses, and found that while both lenses are very sharp, the Sony is sharper across pretty much the whole frame. The advantage at F1.8 (left sides of each chart) only grows when both lenses are stopped down to F8 (the right side value). I put a bold red line through 80% on both charts and you’ll see that more of the sharpness performance is above that line for the Sony.
The FE 16mm F1.8 G has a lot of optical advantages and one major weakness. That weakness is NOT sharpness; this is an extremely sharp little lens.
Let’s cover that major weakness first. The 16mm F1.8 G suffers from a MASSIVE amount of barrel distortion. This is clearly the area where the engineers compromised to produce a lens this compact, as both the quantity and complexity of the distortion is quite bad.
I needed to use a massive +30 to correct the barrel distortion, but even then the results are pretty terrible due to a very complex mustache-pattern effect that results in uneven correction. There is, in fact, more distortion after correction than what the Viltrox has with no correction.
It’s a good thing this lens has access to first party software profiles to help electronically correct things. There isn’t a profile available yet in Lightroom for the RAW images, but I grabbed a JPEG that received in-camera correction, and it looked like this:
Even Sony’s own correction profile doesn’t cover things perfectly, but it definitely looks better. If you don’t have corrections employed, you will DEFINITELY see this distortion.
So is this a dealbreaker? Probably not. Here’s a look at the same shot with an uncorrected RAW on the left and the in-camera corrected JPEG on the right. The latter has been well enough corrected that I doubt it will cause any problems.
If this were a third party lens with less than perfect profile support, I’d be concerned, but it’s probably not too big of a deal with a first party lens.
Vignette is actually not a real issue at all, with only a +52 required in my manual correction (about two stops). That’s impressive in a lens that is so compact, particularly when I consider that the Viltrox has a much larger front element (77mm vs 67mm filter sizes) and yet has double the vignette. If you look at an uncorrected RAW from both, you can clearly see their flaws.
Most of the time LoCA (Longitudinal Chromatic Aberrations) isn’t really an issue with wide angle lenses because depth of field tends to be pretty deep. That’s a little less true of the 16mm F1.8 G because it is capable of focusing much closer than most lenses in this class, but I didn’t really notice much of an issue with fringing in my chart tests.
I also didn’t notice an issue with lateral style aberrations near the edges of the frame. Transitions from black to white are largely unmarred by any fringing.
Lateral CA is far more common on wide angle lenses, and I really hate it because it often messes with edge performance even after correction, but fortunately I saw zero real world issues with LaCA. You can see that the bare branches at the edge of the frame in this deep crop show no issues with fringing.
So yes, the barrel distortion is very unfortunate, but fortunately these other areas are all areas of strength.
So how about resolution? You’ve probably already concluded that this is going to be an area of strength. Crops in this section will be from my test chart shown below, which I’ve tested on using my Sony a7RV and its 61MP of resolution. Crops are shown at roughly 200%.
And here are the F1.8 crops from the center, mid-frame, and lower right corner:
You can see a very nice degree of consistency, with an extremely sharp center and center performances, though we can see that the stretching in the extreme corners does detract a little from the extreme edge performance.
If we check in with the Viltrox, there are a few informative conclusions. First of all is the fact that the Sony is a bit sharper in the center of the frame (as the MTF suggests) and also that it delivers a slightly brighter image despite its compact size.
That advantage carries into the mid-frame, where the Sony is noticeably sharper and has superior contrast.
But the amount of corrections needed on the Sony do compromise its corner performance a bit. The Viltrox shows an advantage there with remarkably sharp corners for being F1.8:
Real world images have fantastic “bite” to them and there’s a bit more real-world contrast for the Sony than what I see on the Viltrox.
Here’s a real world shot at F1.8 that shows both great center sharpness but still quite good sharpness at the edge of the image…even on a 61MP camera.
Stopping down to F2 bring a tiny bit more contrast, with a bit more available at F2.8. Corners are looking fairly crisp now.
The real jump in the corners comes in the F4-F8 zone, where they now look excellent. Here’s a look at how much better the upper left corner is at 200% at F5.6 (right) compared to F2.8 (left).
Real world images taken at these aperture settings will just look awesome.
After F11 diffraction will start to soften the image, with F22 (minimum aperture) looking considerably softer than F11:
So yes, this is an extremely sharp wide angle lens.
We wouldn’t normally talk about bokeh with a 16mm lens, but the high magnification level of the 16mm F1.8 G means that you will be able to get backgrounds blurred out to some degree if you’re very close to your subject. Bokeh isn’t amazingly creamy or anything, but doesn’t look bad, either.
Here’s the bokeh in my barrel sauna if I put a bucket in the foreground.
Sony has great coatings, and they are extra important on a wide angle lens like this. The 16mm F1.8 G does a strong job of rejecting flare artifacts, delivering good contrast and minimal ghosting when pointed at the sun. I’ve raised the shadows in these images to make sure no ghosting artifacts are hiding there. First shot is F1.8, second F11, third F6.3.
The third image has the most of a glare pattern, and that seems to be at least somewhat related to the aperture, as I have the same composition wide open, and it has far less obvious ghosting.
The Sony has slightly less flare artifacts than the Viltrox, and, while the sunstars are very similar, I do slightly favor those on the Sony because the blades keep a little more definition.
Colors seem to be slightly cool on the Sony lens than on the Viltrox. I gave some comparison images the same white balance, but even then there are slight nuances in colors. I’ll let you decide what you prefer.
Finally, let’s take a look at coma. This could prove a very popular lens for shooting stars and the night sky. The low vignette is a big asset here, as it means that you won’t be getting a ton of extra noise in the edge where the vignette has to be corrected. This lens isn’t free from coma, though the results aren’t bad, either. The third crop shows the crucial corner performance, and you can see tha the stars have become more like flying angels. I’ve seen worse…and I’ve seen better.
The Viltrox shows very slightly less coma, but also more noise in the corners because of all the additional vignette that needs correcting. You’ll have to decide which you prefer.
All told, this is a good lens optically with just one major flaw. Check out the image gallery to see more photos from the lens.
Conclusion
I’m of the firm opinion than F1.8 lenses hit the sweet spot for wide angle lenses. F1.4 lenses are always “sexier”, but to me really fast maximum apertures are less necessary in a wide angle lens where one will ofter stop down anyway. A 16mm lens is pretty easy to handhold, so having an F1.4 aperture isn’t really ncessary for keeping the ISO down, either. Sigma’s (excellent) 20mm F1.4 DN weighs over twice as much and is 50% longer despite being fairly compact for an F1.4 wide angle. The Sony FE 16mm F1.8 G will make you wonder why carrying a larger lens is necessary, as it delivers great looking images and is generally a delight to carry and use.
I don’t love the trend of relying on software corrections to finish the job optically, and the amount of barrel distortion here is a bit disappointing. At the same time I’m a little more understanding when a lens is this compact. I recognize that there has to be some kind of tradeoffs for producing such a small lens, and I would rather have the need for software corrections of distortion than having a soft lens.
I’ve referenced the Viltrox AF 16mm F1.8 FE a lot during this review, as it is the most natural comparison for the Sony (and I happen to own it). But I’ll have to confess that this Sony is making me definitely consider selling my Viltrox and acquiring the Sony. It’s small size in particular is very compelling. $800 is not an inexpensive price, but that is $100 cheaper than what the similar FE 20mm F1.8 G sells for. I would probably choose the 16mm over the 20mm, myself, mostly for the simple reason that it is easy to crop in on today’s high resolution cameras, but you can’t always step back to put more in the frame. Kudos to Sony for managing to produce such a desirable little lens despite having a massive existing catalog. I guess there still is room for innovation!
Stay tuned at my YouTube channel, as I will soon have a direct head to head comparison video between the Viltrox and Sony which really highlights the comparitive strengths and weaknesses of both.
Keywords: Sony FE 16mm F1.8 G, Sony 16mm G, 16mm F1.8, Sony 16mm F1.8 Revew, 16mm, F1.8, G, Sony 16mm review, Viltrox AF 16mm F1.8, Full Frame, Review, Sony Alpha 1, Sony a7RV, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, let the light in, weathersealing, #letthelightin, 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.
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