Viltrox AF 35mm F1.8 EVO Review

Introduction

Ease of Use

Part of the appeal of compact primes like this one is their low weight, and at 330g in the FE mount (350g for Nikon Z), the Viltrox AF 35mm F1.8 EVO is one of the lightest 35mm lenses currently available for Sony’s full-frame mirrorless cameras.

The AF 35mm is also quite compact, with a 69mm diameter and 76mm length, again comparing favourably to similar Sony 35mm lenses.

It’s overall size and weight really complements a small camera body like the Sony A7CR that we tested it with, as shown in the photos below.

Given the very aggressive price point, it’s perhaps no surprise that the barrel construction is all-plastic, but at least the lens mount is metal, and the lens as a whole feels solid and well made.

Thanks to its rubber-sealed mount and front element with water and smudge-resistant coating, this lens has a dust and moisture resistant design, although Viltrox stop short of saying that it’s 100% weather-proof.

There’s also a coating on the front lens element to help repel water, oil, and any other contaminants, as well as making it easier to clean.

This lens has a metal lens mount. It accepts 58mm filters via plastic threads.

There is a fairly wide, ridged focus ring. Manual focusing is possible by using the focus mode switch to toggle between AF and MF.

There are no hard stops at either end of the range, making it a little more difficult to set focus at infinity. Polariser users should be pleased that the economical 58mm filter thread doesn’t rotate on focus.

The lens utilizes an STM stepping motor to provide quiet and smooth auto-focusing, making it very well-suited to shooting video.

When it comes to auto-focusing, the Viltrox AF 35mm F1.8 EVO proved to be an almost silent, fairly quick performer on the Sony A7CR camera that we tested it with.

We didn’t experience very much “hunting”, either in good or bad light, with the lens accurately focusing almost all of the time, but it’s not as quick to find and lock onto the focus point as rival Sony lenses.

This lens features an aperture ring that has 1/3EV stops ranging from f/1.8 to f/16 and an Auto setting. 

There is a Click switch on the bottom-right of the lens barrel lets you select whether the aperture ring clicks into place at each aperture stop or rotates smoothly for silent operation during movie recording.

There is a round, clicky, unmarked customisable Function which can be programmed to quickly access various functions from within the camera.

This lens does not feature optical image stabilisation, so it relies on the camera body’s own built-in stabilisation, which is fine unless you’re an owner of an early Sony Alpha camera.

One other significant feature is the USB-C Firmware Upgrade Port which as the name suggests allows you to update the lens directly using Viltrox software, rather than via a camera body.

This lens is commendably supplied with both a soft case and a good quality plastic petal-shaped lens hood (PL-130A).

Focal Range

The Viltrox AF 35mm F1.8 EVO’s focal length of 35mm provides an angle of view of 63°.

Chromatic Aberrations

Chromatic aberrations, typically seen as blue or purple fringes along contrasty edges, were not readily apparent in our test shots, only appearing in very high contrast areas.

Vignetting

With the lens set to its maximum aperture of f/1.8, there is some obvious light fall-off in the corners, requiring you to stop down by at least 3 f-stops to completely prevent it.

Distortion

There is some mild barrel distortion evident in both the RAW files and JPEG files, which is typical of a wide-angle lens.

Sunstars and Flare

The Viltrox AF 35mm F1.8 EVO is capable of creating some nice sunstars when stopped-down to f/16, as shown below, and flare is also well controlled even when shooting directly into the sun.

Macro

The Viltrox AF 35mm F1.8 EVO offers a minimum focusing distance of 0.34m / 13.39in. with a maximum magnification of 0.15x.

Bokeh

Bokeh is a word used for the out-of-focus areas of a photograph, and is usually described in qualitative terms, such as smooth / creamy / harsh etc.

In the AF 35mm F1.8 EVO lens, Viltrox have employed an iris diaphragm with 9 rounded blades, which has resulted in quite nice bokeh in our view for a moderately wide-angle lens.

We do realise, however, that bokeh evaluation is subjective, so we’ve included lots of examples below for your perusal.

Sharpness

In order to show you how sharp the Viltrox AF 35mm F1.8 EVO lens is, we are providing 100% crops on the following page.