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Viltrox AF 16mm F/1.8 Fe: One-minute review
It is often not that a lens holds you from the screw of the neck and demands attention, but it is the same as Wiltrox F16 mm F/1.8 FE. This unmatched lens, which does not benefit from the Wiltrox’s Pro or Lab Series Label, is one of the most impressive lenses I have used in a long time. This is not the best, it is not the most expensive, but it is incredibly impressive for several reasons.
This is a bold statement if I have ever made one; But this lens, which is perfect for landscape and astronomy, is incredibly well priced, produces excellent image quality, and offers professional-level construction quality and features. How Wiltrox has succeeded in making a lens of this quality at this price, it is beyond me.
The cost of Viltrox AF 16mm F / 1.8 Fe is just $ 464 / £ 533 / AU $ 899, an incredible price for such a well-built, weather-baked lens that offers professional performance and excellent image quality. Sony has its own Sony Fe 16mm F / 1.8 g, and its cost is $ 848 / £ 849 / AU $ 1,799, so Viltrox undoubtedly provides excellent value for money – and Viltrox is a better lens than almost every way, which is bigger and heavy.
What is more, the Sony version depends much more on lens reforms, while alternately excellent without the need for Wiltrox improvement. I appreciate that many modern lenses rely on the lens reforms to achieve their excellent image quality (and compact size), but you can not just defeat the pass-right images in terms of sharp, deformation and abstinence directly from the camera.
Viltrox AF 16mm f/1.8 is one of the best Sony lenses designed for full-frame cameras, as well as available for Nikon Z Mount. There is no word on future versions yet, such as for L-Mount.
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Viltrox af 16mm f/1.8 fe glasses
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Type: |
Wide-angle prime |
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Mount: |
Soni E / Nikon Z |
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Censor: |
full frame |
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focal length: |
16 mm |
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Maximum aperture: |
F/1.8 |
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Minimum Focus: |
10.6 inch / 27 cm |
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Filter Size: |
77 mm |
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Dimensions: |
3.35 x4.06 inch / 85.2 x 103 mm |
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weight: |
19.4oz / 550g |
Viltrox Af 16mm F/1.8 Fe: Design
- Compact yet heavy design
- Season seal
- Excellent handling
We have already covered the price of this lens, and you will normally expect construction quality to take a hit at such a competitive price point, but it is definitely not the case here. The 16 mm F/1.8 is an all-metal body and weather-sealing, which gives it a pre—sthemium look and feel. This color is further emphasized by digital screen that displays the lens information – later more about it.
Due to its construction at 19.4oz / 550g, there is a significant animal in terms of 16 mm f / 1.8 weight, but it is quite compact at 3.35 x 4.06 in / 85.2 x 103 mm, and Sony balances well with full-frame and APS-C mirrorless cameras.
It is unlike the Sony Fe 16mm f / 1.8 g, which is very small and lighter at 2.91 x 2.95 inch / 73.8 x 75 mm with a weight of 10.7oz / 304g, but it is very expensive as well as an alternatively inferior lens.
The construction contains 15 elements in 12 groups, including four ad glass and three aspherical lenses. The purpose of the optical design is to distribute sharpness, expansion and high contrast, reducing deformation, and it receives it because we will discuss in the performance section.
The front element is the standard in its design rather than the bulbus, which is very good, and involves an HD nano multilate coating, including water-resistant antifling coatings.
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The filter thread is 77 mm, the average for wide-angle lenses, usually from 67 mm to 82 mm. This means that you can use both circular and square filters for astrophotography and landscape photography.
The minimum focus of the lens is 10.6 inches / 27 cm, which is very good for landscape photographers who want to use focus stacking to get pin-edged images from the front to back.
In terms of control, you get a good wide manual-focusing ring, a manual aperture ring, which can be set for steps via switches or staples operations on one side of the lens, two adaptable FN buttons and an AF/MF switch.
There is also a USB-C port on the lens mount so that you can connect it via Bluetooth via Bluetooth to update the firmware, customize FN button and customize the welcome screen of the digital screen.
Viltrox Af 16mm F/1.8 Fe: Performance
- Great image quality
- Impressive acuity at f/1.8
- Acuity of excellent corner
It is a sharp and wide prime, which means that it has excellent light-acted abilities for astrophotography. The combination of such a wide area and a sharp F/1.8 aperture is attracted to the light in large quantities.
Of course, F/1.4 will be better, but for this the lens should be very large and heavy. The focal length is also very good for the length landscape, which can greatly benefit from the image quality 16 mm f/1.8.
The image quality manufactured by this lens is luxurious, with excellent sharpness in the frame, even in corners, wide open at f/1.8. This aperture produces the most vignetting as you will expect; It almost disappears because you are closed to f/2.8 and have gone completely to F/4.
An adobe lightroom lens is the profile that can deal with this and small, much negligible amount that exists of barrel deformation. There is only a minimum chromatic aberration, so it is an alternatively impressive lens.
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The sharpness is very wide and increases to the sweet place of the lens, which is F/8. The sharpness falls slightly at f/11, and on f/16 you begin to see diffraction in the game, and while f/16 is perfectly usable for photography, it is very high on diffraction f/22, so this setting is best saved.
Color Digital Screen is a feature that we are looking more on the Wiltrox lens, and it is a unique and very clean feature. It only shows focus distance, aperture settings and active FN control, and I feel the most useful when I manually focus on a point and need to repeat that focus distance quickly.
Autofocus is not the fastest. The lens takes 0.5 seconds to lock on topics when stopping down, and open about 0.25 seconds wide. This is not very good, but since it is a lens you will not usually use for action subjects, this is not a very big issue.
Autofocus is powered by an SMT stepping motor, which is cool but only about audio. AF landscape is perfectly fine for photography, while astrophotographer will use manual focus to focus exclusively on stars.
Should you buy Viltrox AF 16 mm F/1.8 Fe?
Buy it if …
Do not buy it if …
How I tested Viltrox Af 16 mm F/1.8 Fe
- I tested the lens in a few months
- I used it to catch landscape and astronomy
- I tested it with Sony A7R V
I tested the Wiltrox AF 16mm F/1.8 FE in several weeks associated with an unforgivable Sony A7RV, shooting landscapes and astrophotography in several weeks. I took photos in a series of aperture settings to test sharpness, deformation and aberration.
I just shot most images to see how the lens performed in various situations, while the other was specifically shot to compare the results of other lenses.
With the 30 -year photographic experience and 17 years working as a photography journalist, I have used many cameras and lenses released at that time. As a working photographer, my purpose is to test cameras and lenses from the point of view of a photographer.
