Viltrox AF 16mm F1.8 L Review

Introduction

Ease of Use

The Viltrox AF 16mm F1.8 L is a fairly compact wide-angle full-frame prime lens, measuring 103mm / 4.06in. in length, 85.2mm / 3.35inch in diameter and weighing in at 550g / 1.21lb.

When mounted on the Lumix S5II mirrorless camera that we used for testing, the AF 16mm F1.8 L feels well-balanced and suitable for both two-handed and one-handed use.

Compared to the similar Panasonic Lumix S 18mm F1.8, which measures 8.2cm / 3.23inch in length, 7.36mm / 2.90inch in diameter and weighs 340g / 0.75lb., this lens is larger and heavier. It does have a more robust all-metal rather than plastic build, though, has far more external controls, and offers a slightly wider angle of view.

The build quality of this lens is excellent, with the all-metal barrel construction and matte black finish adding to the premium feel.

It has a sealed dust and moisture resistant design, although Viltrox stops short of saying that it's 100% weather-proof, and the front element features a water and smudge-resistant coating.

It has a supposedly more durable brass-plated lens mount and it accepts 77mm filters via metal threads on the front of the lens.

This lens features an aperture ring that has 1/3EV stops ranging from f/1.8 to f/22 and an Auto setting.

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

There are two adjoining round, clicky, customisable Function buttons which can be programmed to quickly access various functions using the Viltrox Lens app.

The built-in LCD screen displays the current aperture on a scale, focus distance, focus mode, startup animations (!) and other personalized data, all of which can be customised using the Viltrox Lens app.

The screen is small and not of very high resolution, but proved useful for quickly determining the current settings. It does shut itself off after an annoyingly short time, though, even if the camera body is still turned on. If you don't like the screen at all, it can be turned off in the app.

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

In the manual focus mode, the lens' built-in LCD screen very usefully displays a distance scale and even a depth-of-field scale, two features not commonly found on many mirrorless lenses.

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 77mm filter thread doesn't rotate on focus.

The lens utilizes an STM stepping motor to provide quiet (but not silent), smooth auto-focusing, making it well-suited to shooting video.

When it comes to auto-focusing, this lens proved to be an almost silent, quick performer on the Lumix S5II 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 quite as quick to find and lock onto the focus point as rival Panasonic lenses.

This lens does not feature optical image stabilisation, so it relies on the camera body's own built-in stabilisation system.

One other significant feature is the USB-C Firmware Upgrade Port which as the name suggests allows you to update the lens directly using the Viltrox Lens App, 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-22A).

Focal Range

The Viltrox AF 16mm F1.8 L's focal length of 16mm provides an angle of view of 105.6°.

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 an ultra-wide-angle lens.

Sunstars and Flare

The Viltrox AF 16mm F1.8 L is capable of creating some very nice sunstars when stopped-down to f/22, as shown below, and flare is also well controlled even when shooting directly into the sun.

Macro

The Viltrox AF 16mm F1.8 L offers a minimum focusing distance of 0.27m / 10.63in. with a maximum magnification of 0.10x.

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 16mm F1.8 L lens, Viltrox have employed an iris diaphragm with 9 rounded blades, which has resulted in quite nice bokeh in our view for such a 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 16mm F1.8 L lens is, we are providing 100% crops on the following page.