Background
Ever since hearing that Viltrox was making an inexpensive wide angle prime for Sony e-mount, I waited to see if when they would release it on Z-mount.
A few months later, they did. I pre-ordered one directly from Viltrox and in short time it made the trip from China to my front door.
Having used other Viltrox lenses in the past, I kind of had an idea of what to expect. Will this copy of the 20mm f/1.8 from Viltrox meet, exceed or fall short of our expectations? Let’s find out!
Disclosure – images were post processed to my liking and in various styles. Some were processed from RAW and others may be out of camera JPG.
Handling/Size/Weight/Build
This is a nice, small lens. Plastic and metal, light weight for what it is. I like having small prime lenses for low light shooting and this 20mm f/1.8 from Viltrox fits in nicely with the Nikon Z 28mm f/2.8 and Z 40mm f/2.
The mount is metal, I know a lot of people prefer this over a plastic mount. I, personally, don’t care either way. All my years in f/mount, m/43 and Fuji using plastic mount lenses – I’ve never had a failure or issue.
Viltrox makes some pretty robust lenses and the 20mm feels sturdy to me.
On the mount is a USB-C port for firmware updates.
Weather Sealed
As far as I know, Viltrox does not rate this as weather sealed, but I doubt a small sprinkle or snow would hurt it.
Please make your own decisions on how and in what conditions you’ll shoot your gear.
Image Quality
So here is what most want to know. Sharpness is here! I was surprised by just how sharp the lens is for the $145 price tag I purchased this for new.
I don’t have any comparable z-mount equivalent field of view to compare. I’m sure the OEM Nikon 20mm f/1.8 is sharper…but is it 3-4X the price sharper? You’ll need to be the judge on that.
As for me the contrast, rendering and sharpness are good enough for the times when I want something wider than 24mm or 28mm.
Wide open, this lens is pretty sharp, as you can see from the image below. Shot up close, wide open.
Even the out of focus background, often referred to as the bokeh is pretty good!
One checkmark into the plus category for the lens so far! Even on the high megapixel Z8, it seems to resolve with plenty of details!
Focusing
Focusing is relatively quick and confident in good to moderate lighting. In low light, the lens seems to struggle with locking focus sometimes. You’ll see some images here in this review from a place called OtherWorld, where the lighting is low in a lot of exhibits.
So, a ding to the lens and a check mark into the negative category regarding the low light auto focus.
I’m hoping that since the lens has a built in USB-C port that the focus confidence and accuracy in low light can be adjusted via firmware update.
VR (Vibration Reduction Stabilization)
This lens has no VR. If stabilization is needed, pair the lens with an IBIS enabled Z mount camera.
Bottom Line
This small little gem of a prime lens is fantastic in image quality for the price you pay for it. I do not shoot super wide often, so having a lens that is inexpensive, but performs well is a boon for sure.
If you are looking for something that is a stelar focuser in low light, this is probably not the lens for you as of initial release, the lens does have some focusing hiccups. Hoping that once the lens has been out for a bit that we will see a firmware update that will address this deficiency.
Bottom Line = Recommend with caveats.
All in all, for a third party auto focus lens, this is a hard value proposition to beat. For a lens that I use rarely, I can live with the issues it has, as the image quality far outweighs the downside…besides, with a wide angle lens like this, you can always zone focus it or use the excellent focus peaking of the Nikon Z mount cameras to adjust the focus position with the manual focus ring.
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