Viltrox AF 85 mm f/2 EVO review

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Viltrox AF 85 mm f/2 EVO

19 January 2026

Maciej Latałło

1. Introduction

In 2018 the Chinese Viltrox appeared on the market by launching two lenses, the 20 mm and the 85 mm. The first model could be a surprise of a kind but showing a 1.8//85 class model was more than understandable. You get safe parameters, because quite easy to design, that are also very common. Viltrox offered two variants of this lens at once – the smaller, manual one, and the bigger, equipped with autofocus. The second one we've already tested.

Quite fast, because less than two years later, in June 2020 Viltrox decided to show a slightly improved version of this model. At the same time its name was changed into something easier to remember, without all these meaningless abbreviations (AF 85 mm f/1.8 II FE).

In 2025 Viltrox presented another 85 mm instrument, the faster AF 85 mm f/1.4 Pro. It proved to be an exceptionally sharp instrument that, for a moment, even managed to occupy our podium for record-breaking lenses.

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Anyway 2025 was a miracle year for Viltrox, as four months ago another 85 mm device was shown on the market, the AF 85 mm f/2 EVO.

With this move Viltrox created another line of their lenses. Earlier we dealt with big, fast LAB and PRO models, then they showed small, shapely Air lenses. The EVO series is supposed to combine advanced optics, precise autofocus STM, and a shapely, solid construction – perfect for day-to-day work of a photographer or videomaker.

In the following chart you can find a compilation of basic parameters of all 85 mm lenses we mentioned above.

The lens we got courtesy of Fototechnika.