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

5. Chromatic and spherical aberration

Chromatic aberration

The Viltrox AF 56 mm f/1.7 Air is simply larded with low dispersion glass elements with a high refraction index so we didn't expect any problems with longitudinal chromatic aberration. Indeed, we were right and photos below prove it.

At the same time you should emphasize the fact that, with a price around $180 the Viltrox offers you a relatively complex optics system with a lot of special elements. The results are very positive, for example when it comes to correcting both types of chromatic aberration.

Viltrox AF 56 mm f/1.7 Air - Chromatic and spherical aberration

What about lateral chromatic aberration? A graph below presents the performance of the lens depending on aperture values.

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As you can notice the results are impressive. No matter what relative aperture you employ you see a more or less constant level of 0.01-0.02% so really negligible values. This type of chromatic aberration won't be bothersome in real life photos taken with the Viltrox.

Fujifilm X-T2, RAW, f/2.8	Fujifilm X-T2, RAW, f/11.0

Spherical aberration

In first photos of this chapter you can notice a slight focus shift effect. During stopping down of the aperture the depth of field shifts slightly towards greater distances.

Defocused circles of light we produced before and behind the focus featured effects of similar scale. The influence of slight spherical aberration is noticeable as a soft edge in the first circle and a slightly brighter rim in the second one.

It's clear that the producers of the Viltrox, tested here, didn't correct spherical aberration in a perfect way, leaving in on a moderate level. Perhaps it was even deliberate – in case of portrait telephoto lenses such a trick helps to get nicer out-of-focus areas. Of course the aberration, described here, can't be very high because the results we've just described aren't especially pronounced. At the same time the lens offers you very good image resolution up from the maximum relative aperture both in the centre and on the edges.