Viltrox PFU RBMH 85 mm f/1.8 STM review - Summary

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Viltrox PFU RBMH 85 mm f/1.8 STM

14 October 2019

Arkadiusz Olech

11. Summary

Pros:

good quality metal casing,
very good image quality in frame centre,
good image quality on the edge of APS-C sensor,
lack of problems with spherical aberration,
slight lateral chromatic aberration,
negligible vignetting on APS-C sensor,
quite nice out-of-focus areas,
sensible coma correction,
low astigmatism,
good price/quality and price/performance ratio.

Cons:

weak image quality on edges of full frame,
higher distortion results than those of direct rivals,
huge vignetting on full frame,
performance against bright light in the case of the Fuji X mount could have been better.

A duel between the Viltrox PFU RBMH 85 mm f/1.8 STM and the Sony FE 85 mm f/1.8 was really interesting as both opponents were well-matched. The first lens provides better sharpness in the wide areas of frame centre, the second is better on edges of full frame. The Viltrox corrects longitudinal chromatic aberration not so well, but it's better when it comes to its lateral variation. The Sony is better when it comes to distortion but it loses in category of spherical aberration. Coma is corrected better by the Sony but the Viltrox prevails when it comes to astigmatism. The Sony performs against bright light better but the Viltrox corrects vignetting more efficiently. The autofocus of the Sony is more accurate but that of the Viltrox is slightly faster. There is one asset the Sony cannot match – the price of the Vlitrox. Currently it amounts to 1800 PLN, significantly lower than the amount of money you have to spend for the brand name product.

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Our overall conclusion is such that the owners of mirrorless Sony and Fuji cameras can choose from more and more sensible quality lenses which also feature affordable price tags. We hope it is not the last word from Viltrox and soon we will see more good autofocus lenses produced by them. Anyway, we keep our fingers crossed.