Viltrox AF 50mm f/2 Air (Very Longwinded) Preview: So All New Lenses Are Good Now Then?

Viltrox AF 50mm f/2 Air (Very Longwinded) Preview: So All New Lenses Are Good Now Then?

Subtitle: Here I Go With Yet Another 50mm Lens.

My 50mm-ish lens problem is well documented in this space.

M mount edit.

Culling The 50mm-ish M Lens Herd: Voigtländer Nokton 40mm F1.2 For M.

Sony-verse edit.

Sony FE 50mm-ish Lenses… Similar and Very Different.

In the M mount edit I got myself down to one Voigtlander lens. In the Sony-verse edit, I got myself down to one surprisingly competent lens.

The Giant Slayer: 7Artisans Photoelectric 50mm f/1.8 AF; Far Better Than It Has Any Business Being.

That should have been it. But another lens tempted me. The 7Artisans 50mm f/1.8 AF struck me as a nice mashup of some of my favorite Sony lenses.

• Metal build and look similar to the ZEISS 55mm f/1.8.
• Aperture dial like the 40mm f/2.5 G and 50mm f/1.2 G Master.
• IQ up closer to the higher priced Sony lenses.
• Budget price like the 50mm f/1.8.

But the Viltrox Air 50mm f/2 addressed a different brief.

While it costs like a nifty fifty, which is appreciated, the 7Artisans is too large to fit the bill. More premium-ish on a budget rather than cheap and chipper like some of my favorite SLR lenses. And I will admit I have been a bit jealous of the Canon 50mm f/1.8 STM lenses, whether for EF…

Utter Nonsense Files: MC11 and Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM.

…, which I adapted to great stills IQ results but overall it was more novelty than solution, or RF…

Canon RF 50mm f/1.8 STM: Everyone else, you had one job.

…, that I bought a whole Canon EOS RP for <checks notes> two times. But a one lens only/one camera additional lens mount to feed made no sense, so I let it go. This is what the Sony FE 50mm f/1.8 FE should have been.

A Surprising Pairing: Sony A7c and FE 50mm f/1.8.

I mean, just look at it paired with the A7C…

…but it was not the lens I was looking for. I tried to make this work two or three times. But no. Even after a firmware update that improved things slightly, issues persisted.

• AF that second guesses itself with stills.
• AF too noisy for video.
• Feels cheap.
• Ok IQ.

I also tried to make do with the Rokinon/Samyang 45mm f/1.8.

Rokinon/Samyang AF 45mm f/1.8 FE Update: Photographers plan, Lens companies laugh.

A lens with no glaring, obvious faults. Tried it a couple of times, but it sits in the corner of my mind marked mediocrity. Its IQ was a high point, but AF did not seem quite there for me, and the feel and materials did not compare well to even the lackluster build of the Sony 50mm f/1.8 FE and fell well behind the Canon STM twins and most SLR nifty fifty lenses. To their credit Rokinon/Samyang stepped it up with their later f/1.8 primes. The 35mm…

Rokinon/Samyang AF 35mm f/1.8 FE. The Goldilocks lens.

…and 24mm…

Rokinon/Samyang AF 24mm f/1.8 FE. They are just showing off now.

…were stars in this regard. While looking similar, the 24mm felt especially good in hand, had higher quality plastics, and a switch and button or two to jazz things up a bit.

What I had hoped for was upgraded versions of either of the Sony 50mm f/1.8 FE or Rokinon/Samyang 45mm f/1.8 lenses, but that was not in the plan for either, evidently. Even though both companies made similar looking, but better performing lenses later on. Just look at the other Rokinon/Samyang lenses mentioned above, and Sony later released the similar looking, but all around excellent, better performing and built Sony 85mm f/1.8.

New Sony FE 85mm f/1.8 Review: Thank you Sony.

A lens good enough to land a feature head shot credit.

But no. No version 2 for either. Well, it would appear that Viltrox decided to give the whole Sony mount FE nifty fifty thing a try…

…and from what I have read and from what I have seen in my first tests, they have hit the mark. A true, affordable, great IQ, compact lens that feels good in hand.

But let me back up a bit. I recently noticed something.

There are no longer bad lenses being produced as far as I can tell.

Even the little guys and upstarts are churning out great glass for relative peanuts. Most of these companies seem to have followed a similar development path now that I think about it.

1. Make a lens and sell it cheap. Does not need to be great, just take photos successfully most of the time.
2. Improve the optics.
3. Improve the materials.
4. Add AF.
5. Make the AF good.

All while keeping the price low. That is where we are now. I do not make this next statement lightly.

This $199 Viltrox 50mm f/2 lens is as good optically as any lens I have owned, regardless of brand or price.

Here is the first image with it after taking it out of the box.

Ok. Thank you for reading this post.

Happy captu… More? Ok.

A couple of days in now, I have not found a significant downside. If forced? Here it is.

Close focus is longer than most 50mm lenses.

That’s it. That is the only downside I have found so far. And the rest of it is so good that this does not bother me.

Otherwise, for me, it is a perfect nifty fifty for Sony. While not metal, the plastic feels first rate. As mentioned above not that long ago, I had four Sony lenses around 50mm.

Sony FE 50mm-ish Lenses… Similar and Very Different.

All of wildly varying price and aperture specs. Well… For my money, I prefer this one for Sony. Especially for my A7C II.

Don’t believe me about the IQ? Dustin Abbot himself shared that in his tests, it was sharper than his Sony 50mm F/1.4 G Master.

I repeat. A $199 lens (Less than Sony’s poorer performing comparable offering.) that is sharper than a $1,298 Sony G Master lens… That alone should shift this lens without issue.

Now let me address the “What about?”s.

What about the f/2 aperture?

In use, I see no difference.

What about the other options?

I covered the FE and Rokinon/Samyang options ad nauseam above.

Then there is the 7Artisans 50mm f/1.8 AF. Covered the pluses above. But the Viltrox punches back.

• While not metal, the Viltrox is a fine looking lens that also feels good in hand.

• Much smaller.

• Better IQ.
  • The 7Artisans is a solid performer, but the Viltrox is better.

For $199. Nuts. I am keeping my 7Artisans 50mm f/1.8. Mainly because it was so inexpensive. Why not? I will only get peanuts for it, and it is worth more to me just to have it around to play with when I want to.

And the other third party crashers? Larger, poorer performing, cheaper feeling, and/or significantly more expensive.

So. My long winded rambling done, let’s see some images.

Final thoughts.

I did not cover details. That is because it does everything well. Whatever you need it to do, it will do. Tracking. AF-C. Stills. Video. Silent. Colors. Everything.

Ah. One more thing. That USB-C port for firmware updates.

Updates are done differently than what I have seen before. There is no app needed. You do not use the camera or the SD card. You cannot see the lens firmware version on the camera. The lens is self contained software wise. You download the update to the computer, unzip the folder, copy the DAT file to the lens’ root folder and the lens updates itself. Different, but quite easy.

And finally, a question I imagine being asked.

Do I recommend this lens?

Yes.

Happy capturing.

-ELW