Viltrox 13mm f/1.4: B&H Photo / Amazon / Adorama
Viltrox has released some great lenses for X-Mount, and the Viltrox 13mm f/1.4 continues that trend. Below is a summary of Dustin Abbott’s review.
- About 20mm f/1.4 full frame equivalent lens
- One of the best lenses from Viltrox
- They are doing better in areas that he criticized before
- Very similar to other Viltrox lenses, but a little on the larger size
- 74mm diameter and 90mm long
- 420g, so not the lightest lens
- Similar to the 85mm f/1.8 in that it feels full frame sized
- 87mm front filter thread
- Very nice metal lens hood
- Feels like a premium lens, but it is missing weather sealing
- Very nice focus and aperture ring
- No AF/MF switch
- USB-C connection in the mount to do firmware updates
- 9 rounded aperture blades that give nice circular bokeh, but you won’t get bokeh often
- 22cm close focus distance and 0.10x magnification
- Feels more premium than many Fuji lenses
- Sophisticated stepping focus motor
- Very good confident focus pulls
- Focus breathing is low
- Tracks faces well
- Low amount of distortion, so there isn’t much to correct beyond a little vignetting, which is removed with a +54
- Great for interior since lines stay nice and straight
- Not bad chromatic aberrations and a step up over previous Viltrox lenses
- Very well-controlled lens for LoCA
- Crisp results in the center of the lens and the mid-frame, which declines towards the edges wide open
- The edges get a bit better at f/1.8 and even better at f/2, and contrast improves, but by f/2.8 the corners are pretty reasonable, with the center being crisp
- The Fujifilm XF16mm and Viltrox 12mm compare well, with Fujifilm being better in some respects and Viltrox in others, but the Fujifilm gets better stopping down
- If you look at an image globally at f/1.4 and f/5.6, the image looks pretty similar.
- Very low amount of magnification due to unimpressive close focus distance
- Viltrox colors aren’t as good as Fujifilm colors, in Dustin’s opinion
- Not very flare resistant, but you can get a nice sunburst effect
- Off the edge of the lens, there is some chroma
- Very strong performer at its price point
- The images look very good from this lens, but there are some issues for pixel peepers, but you really can’t complain for the price
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