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Nikon Z8 | Viltrox AF 55mm F1.8 Evo | F1.8 | 1/60 sec | ISO 900
Photo: Mitchell Clark
Last month, Viltrox announced the AF 55mm F1.8 Evo, one of its first lenses to use an apochromatic design that's meant to reduce chromatic aberration. We've had the opportunity to test it out in a variety of scenarios, to see how it performs and, of course, to get samples for our readers to enjoy.
Impressions
As we've come to expect from Viltrox's lenses, the 55mm F1.8 is quite well-built, feeling nice to use without being overly bulky or heavy. At 370g (13.1oz), it's roughly middle-of-the-pack when it comes to mid-range 50mm F1.8 lenses, and it's relatively easy to tote around town, or in a sling bag.
[TK lens photo]
I enjoyed the fact that it had a physical, clicking aperture ring, rather than a command dial, like the one found on the higher-end Lab lens that I recently tested. While it has an "A" setting that allows the aperture to be controlled by the camera, it can't be locked into or out of it. And while I didn't find myself knocking it out of A mode too often, or accidentally changing my aperture setting, it did happen every so often. My coworker Abby also recently had this issue with another Viltrox lens.
The lens also features an AF/MF switch and a programmable button, both of which are nice to have. The manual focus ring feels nice, but at least when paired with a Nikon Z8, it didn't quite give me the level of precision that I'd usually hope for. Likewise, the AF performance was just okay; the lens is quick and quiet, but, as we've experienced before with Viltrox lenses on Z-mount cameras, I just didn't quite get as many keepers as I'd expect to had I been using a Nikon lens.
One last odd quirk: the rear lens cap that came with the lens fits very loosely, as do the Nikon ones, and there were several cases where it came off in my bag. This didn't translate to the lens feeling loose on the camera at all, though; it never disconnected from the actual body when I was turning the aperture ring or otherwise manipulating it.
Nikon Z8 | Viltrox 55mm F1.8 Evo | F1.8 | 1/2500 sec | ISO 64
With that said, the majority of my photos were still in focus, and I was quite pleased with the results. They're sharp corner-to-corner, even wide open, and Viltrox has delivered on its promise to seriously reduce chromatic aberration. I also found the bokeh to be quite pleasing. While it does a nice job rendering out of focus specular highlights, I was actually more impressed by how it rendered the background in portraits I shot at F1.8.
Something about the background rendering in this picture really makes me happy, and the vignetting is a feature, not a bug, in this instance.
Nikon Z8 | Viltrox 55mm F1.8 Evo | F1.8 | 1/3200 sec | ISO 64
There are a few things to complain about with its performance. There's heavy vignetting at F1.8, which doesn't completely go away until around F4 (though it's much improved by F2.8). I also found myself wishing it could focus a bit closer than 0.43m (16.9"), though that distance isn't unusually far for 50mm F1.8 lenses.
Overall, I found myself really enjoying shooting with it, and loving the photos it produced. Sure, I could certainly find reasons to covet Viltrox's higher-end "Pro" 50mm F1.4 – it has a switch to declick the aperture, more robust weather sealing and linear focusing motors – but I don't think I'd actually need anything more. And that's a nice feeling to have about a lens that costs $370.
Viltrox AF 55mm F1.8 Evo Sample Gallery
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All images were processed using our standard lens workflow in Capture One, with the manufacturer's distortion correction applied but no correction of vignetting.
