Viltrox AF 56 mm f/1.7 Air review

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Viltrox AF 56 mm f/1.7 Air

10 December 2025

Maciej Latałło

11. Summary

Pros:

shapely, lightweight, handy casing,
sensational resolution in the frame centre,
very good resolution on the edge of the frame,
imperceptible longitudinal chromatic aberration,
practically zero lateral chromatic aberration,
lack of any distortion problems,
low coma,
moderate astigmatism,
nice out-of-focus areas,
silent autofocus,
low focus breathing,
sensational price/performance and price/quality ratios,
5-year warranty period.

Cons:

distinct vignetting in RAW files,
performance against bright light could have been better,
autofokus accuracy leaves a bit to be desired, especially when you attach the lens to older bodies.

The Viltrox AF 56 mm f/1.7 Air performs as well as its brothers with shorter focal lengths and represents similarly high level. Once again we noticed an attempt to break the resolution record and make it on the podium; it wasn't successful but impressive anyway, along with very good performance in the most of other testing categories.

When it comes to the flaws, with such dimensions of the lens and its aperture fastness, some of them were inevitable, like vignetting. We trust that this lens attached to newer bodies, or controlled by a newer version of software, will perform better. In fact the weak performance against bright light was the only thing that surprised us in a negative way. I admit with such an angle of view we expected better results in this categories; anyway other Viltrox devices managed to perform distinctly better.

The problem with a weaker performance against bright light prevailed; it was the main reason why the Viltrox AF 56 mm f/1.7 didn't get our 'Editor's Choice' badge but I admit it was really close. For a turn we don't have any doubts that this lens deserves our 'Good Buy' award – with such a sensational price/quality and price/performance ratios it would be a crime not to distinguish it in such a way. A round of applause!

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