BF Hammer
Senior Member
The price was reduced to $79 for Amazon Days, so I bought. I have been using a cheap pancake style lens as a body cap for the past year, and the concept has been working for me. So I decided to upgrade to autofocus and AI chip on board.
My blurry, handheld photo of the Viltrox Z 28mm f/4.5 pancake. I am going to show photos from the lens and give a few impressions.
The easy comparison is to the 7Artisans Z 35mm full-manual lens, which is what I have been using. I bought it for $64 as a used item. The Viltrox is smaller even with the autofocus built in.
Another interesting difference is in the aperture. They both used a fixed aperture, f/4.5 for Viltrox and f/5.6 for the 35mm 7Artisans. They cut a round donut-shaped aperture at 7Artisans while Viltrox cut an octogon to sort of mimic an 8-bladed aperture.
And I think the Viltrox gives better contrast, possibly due to a less shiny front and the glare-grooves in front. Direct light on the 7Artisans can cause a dramatic drop in contrast. But if you work with the limitation, gives acceptable photos.
I would say Viltrox punches above it's weight class here. I did experience some weird AF lock choices that required me to override the focus point. But not that annoying. I cannot complain about the photos I got in the early afternoon and late afternoon today. Focus speed is perfectly good, snaps faster than some Nikon lens I have used.
This lens is best used in Aperture Priority mode since you cannot change that from f/4.5 anyhow. Colors are pretty good, if a bit blue tinted. Can benefit from boosting contrast and adding local contrast.
My blurry, handheld photo of the Viltrox Z 28mm f/4.5 pancake. I am going to show photos from the lens and give a few impressions.
The easy comparison is to the 7Artisans Z 35mm full-manual lens, which is what I have been using. I bought it for $64 as a used item. The Viltrox is smaller even with the autofocus built in.
Another interesting difference is in the aperture. They both used a fixed aperture, f/4.5 for Viltrox and f/5.6 for the 35mm 7Artisans. They cut a round donut-shaped aperture at 7Artisans while Viltrox cut an octogon to sort of mimic an 8-bladed aperture.
And I think the Viltrox gives better contrast, possibly due to a less shiny front and the glare-grooves in front. Direct light on the 7Artisans can cause a dramatic drop in contrast. But if you work with the limitation, gives acceptable photos.
I would say Viltrox punches above it's weight class here. I did experience some weird AF lock choices that required me to override the focus point. But not that annoying. I cannot complain about the photos I got in the early afternoon and late afternoon today. Focus speed is perfectly good, snaps faster than some Nikon lens I have used.
This lens is best used in Aperture Priority mode since you cannot change that from f/4.5 anyhow. Colors are pretty good, if a bit blue tinted. Can benefit from boosting contrast and adding local contrast.
