Since I started reviewing these Viltrox lenses in the latter part of last year, I have been more than intrigued to try one that has “Pro” in the nomenclature of the lens. So when I was offered the Viltrox 56mm 1.2 Pro to review, I very quickly agreed. In fact, that’s not quite true. Since it’s an APS-C lens, I decided I first needed to get my hands on an APS-C camera, but as I will come to, this lens is far too good for the camera I ended up borrowing. As such, this is mostly a review of an APS-C lens on a full frame camera – but let me reassure you from that start, the choice to go down this road was only to make sure the camera wasn’t the limiting factor in the experience!
Quick back story to the camera choice
When Viltrox approached me about this lens I went straight to London Camera Exchange in Worcester to ask if they would loan me an APS-C camera to try the lens with. I was extremely pleased when they offered me a second hand Zfc to try. I have shoot the Zf, so felt that the Zfc would be a perfect choice. What I hadn’t quite understood is just how much better a camera the Zf is compared with the Zfc. The Zf has Nikon’s current top flight AF system in it. The Zfc most certainly does not. The Zfc isn’t a terrible camera, but having shot one for a few days, let’s just say it put any ideas of me buying one out of my head. Any advantages the smaller size of that camera might bring to the table when compared to the bigger Zf are totally mooted by how primitive the AF system feels by comparison. The relevance of all this will become clear. One way or another though, I just wanted to say thanks specifically to Derek and Russ at LCE Worcester for entertaining the idea of loaning me a camera for review – I know them very well in that shop, but to trust me with a loan camera for review was above and beyond… though I suspect they might’ve been a bit disappointed that I ultimately didn’t like the camera enough to buy it… …
The Viltrox 56mm 1.2 Pro
Anyway, on to the lens. The Viltrox 56mm 1.2 Pro is, as I have said, an APS-C format lens. I’m sure I don’t need to explain this, but just in case I do, this means it is designed for the smaller sensor format mirrorless cameras on the market. In the case of this lens, it is otherwise available for Sony and Fuji, as well as the Nikon mount I am reviewing it in here.
When mounted on the correct type of camera, where there is approximately a 1.5x crop factor this 56mm lens becomes the equivalent of an ~85mm lens in terms of field of view when compared to lenses on full frame cameras. It’s also worth noting that in terms of depth of field, that same multiplication factor applies, so by comparison with full frame cameras it has a depth of field similar to an 85mm 1.8 lens when shot wide open. Seeing as I have recently reviewed an 85mm f/1.8 and 85mm f/2 Evo both from Viltrox, I felt this gave me a good base for comparison!
Of course, it’s also worth noting the advantages of wider aperture lenses on smaller sensor cameras. The small sensor cameras aren’t always quite as good in lower light, so the wider aperture lenses work well to even the playing field in terms of results between the two formats, at least in terms of low light noise capabilities. Though, to be honest, with how good post production noise reduction is these days, if I was an APS-C camera photographer, I would probably mostly be looking at a lens like this to bring the more shallow depth of field look to my photography.
As I have said though, most of my interest in this lens was with the ‘Pro’ nomenclature in the name of a lens where I was going to be able to make some pretty specific comparisons with the two lenses I had already shot before from Viltrox. And if you read my early impressions on the lens’s launch day, you might have some clue as to where this review is going to go already!
Build quality
But, before I get to the AF capabilities, I am going to follow the pattern I have been in previous reviews by first talking about build quality. In both my previous Viltrox lens reviews I have made it very clear how impressive I think their build quality is. I have always mentioned that time and how hard wearing theses lenses is the only factor I can’t comment on, but each lens I try, I find my confidence in the brand and the quality of build of the lenses they make increases.
The lens mount itself is metal. As seems to be common to Viltrox lenses there’s also a USB-C port for updating the firmware on the face of the mount. There’s also a weather-seal ring around the outside of the mount. Unlike when I tested the Evo, I haven’t used this lens in the rain, but I have no reason to doubt that this lens from higher up in Viltrox’s lens series wouldn’t be as well if not better sealed than the Evo. The entire outer surface of the lens is also metal, and with it feels very solid. It’s also a blacker-black than the Evo giving it a nicer finish-match to the Zf camera body. Even the aperture control and focus control are made of metal. The only use of other materials is in the switches which I think are plastic and the rubber surface of the Fn button.
Like the Evo, it also has a slightly pointless bit of text on the front of the lens that says APS-C Frame – seem like an odd choice of wording to me, and I still struggle to understand why it says it there.
Features
The feature set matches the Evo lens too. A bonus for me as in my set up and use of the Zf, I have found the lens-based buttons and switches to be increasingly useful.
As mentioned there’s an aperture control on the Viltrox 56mm 1.2 Pro. This can be set to click or not click depending on tastes and needs. When set no to click it is nice and smooth, and still has a click between f/16 and the auto setting meaning it’s harder to accidentally overshoot. When set to click, the clicks aren’t too detented but are still positive enough. There’s also 1/3 stops between each full stop, and even the correct amount of 1/3rd fractions between f/2 and 1.2… which sounds pretty obvious, but is something some manufacturers seem to get wrong sometimes.
There’s also an AF/MF switch and very comfortably placed Fn button which can have its function chosen within the camera’s menu. The focus control is nice a big, and feels very smooth too. As I’ve said in previous reviews, these controls don’t match the real feeling of older mechanical ones, but surprisingly they come pretty close, at least in terms of how they feel to turn.
Size & Weight
Due to how I have tested the Viltrox 56mm 1.2 Pro primarily on the bigger and heavier Zf, I haven’t found its size and weight all that noticeable. It’s certainly bigger and heavier than the 85mm f/2 Evo, but for an f/1.2 lens it doesn’t feel massive on the Zf… but of course, the Zf is a larger camera and is full frame. On the smaller and much lighter Zfc, I must admit it did feel like a bigger and heavier lens relative to the camera. I suspect it would be more ideally matched to the Z50 series cameras with their larger grip. In short, don’t expect a compact lens here, but for what it is, I don’t think it feels abnormally large or unwieldy.
AF performance
As I talked about at the beginning of this review, my first instinct was to use this lens on an APS-C camera. That’s what it is designed for, so that seemed logical to me. When the lens landed with me, I excitedly mounted it to the Zfc expecting some incredible autofocus capabilities. I was almost immediately disappointed. It seemed ok in good light, but even in my living room in the daytime, albeit in the darker corners of the room, it was a little slow. Of course, having no real experience of the Zfc I initially blamed it on the lens. I then decided it would be a good idea to put the lens through its paces mounted on the Zfc in a pretty tricky shooting situation during an evening out at a Christmas fairground.
To be fair, I did get some great results. The AF was a little sluggish on occasions, but even in pretty extreme low light shooting situations, I managed to get the shots I wanted. I suspect if you are used to the Zfc’s AF, this lens would definitely not let you down. Still, I came away from the Christmas fair shoot a little nonplussed. This lens was supposed to be “pro” spec’d, but was giving me a more basic autofocus experience than the nomenclature suggested.
I can’t remember when the lightbulb moment came and it clicked that I should just try the Viltrox 56mm 1.2 Pro on the full frame, much higher specified, Zf… but when I did, everything just clicked into place. Mounted on the Zf, there is of course a pixel count reduction. The camera is 24mp, so in crop mode – where it uses a central part of the sensor that’s the size of an APS-C camera sensor – it produces a 10mp image. 10mp is more than enough for my family snaps, so I was happy to take the hit there. I was even more happy when I saw the huge jump in autofocus performance. It went from feeling passably good to incredible.
I’m not going to claim to understand the technical difference, but the previous Viltrox lenses I have tested use a STM focus system and this lens uses a hyperVCM system. It has the word hyper in, so it must be good, right? Well, yes, it seems so! My previous method for testing the AF system of the last two lenses was to use it to track my daughter on her go-kart. I’d then see how it kept up with the dog. It’s too muddy for the go-kart now, so I skipped it and went straight to the dog. I can tell you for free, it would have had no issue with the go-kart at all, as where the other two lenses struggled a bit to keep up with the dog, the hit rate here was very impressive indeed. I did notice a few moments where it jumped to focus on the background, but then quickly corrected and picked up the dog again, but the AF is so fast, that even this fairly big distance adjustment happened in a fraction of a second.
My other comparison in previous reviews was with the Sony GMii lens I use for work. I have previously commented that this lens is a benchmark for me in terms of AF capability, and really don’t expect a lens from Viltrox to come close. Well, this Viltrox 56mm 1.2 Pro does come close. Without doing specific side by side comparisons, I can’t tell you how close, but I’d have no concerns using a lens with this sort of AF performance professionally, even for the stage performance stuff I do which has always been the most challenging.
It’s also almost totally silent. I have to hold the lens to my ear to hear in all but the most quiet of environments. It’s certainly not going to cause any alarm, and would never get in the way of use for video.
If it isn’t obvious, I am extremely impressed by this lens’s AF capability. I have told my contact at Viltrox that I really would like to try a full frame Pro lens next… I’m just waiting to see what they offer me!
Optical Qualities
I suppose it’s sensible to caveat this section by reminding you that I have been testing this lens on what amounts to a 10mp camera. With that said, 10mp is still enough for my hobby photography, and somewhat surprisingly, I have found also to be enough to see just how sharp this lens is. I actually feel like I could just copy and paste this section from my previous Viltrox reviews, as they have all exceeded my needs in terms of sharpness. That is to say, in no photo I have taken I have been aware of any notable reduction in sharpness outside of what I would normally anticipate from an excellent lens. That is to say, I can see a slight decrease in sharpness in the corners wide open and slightly stopped down, but by middle apertures it’s not there. Stop right down and of course diffraction kicks in. I am certain if you microscopically test the lens, there’s going to be some additional variables to take into account – certainly the Philip Reeve review notes a drop in contrast at close distances – but in real world use I have not seen anything even remotely comment worthy. Sharpness, contrast, colours, all great to my eye – nothing here would get in the way of taking objectively good images!
Bokeh
I was a little worried about what I might find in terms of bokeh from the Viltrox 56mm 1.2 Pro. The further away I get from reviewing the 85mm f/1.8, the more I feel like the bokeh I got out of that lens wasn’t to my tastes. As I’ve said, by a lot of people’s modern standards, it’s fantastic, but to my eye it lacked character. I sort of expected the same here. The 85mm f/2 bokeh really suited me, but it felt like the character of the bokeh that I liked came out of the compromise of making a smaller lens – i.e. the less objectively good bokeh worked for me, but to many it might have been a con to the pro of having a lens that’s easier to carry.
With the Viltrox 56mm 1.2 pro, I’d anticipated an optical design ethos that might’ve aimed for a more objectively “good” bokeh again, but actually I found myself pleasantly surprised. It is largely speaking nice and smooth, but there’s just enough going for it not to render a flat indistinct wall of out of focus like the 85mm f1.8 does. I suspect this might indeed also be the product of this being such a fast lens in what really isn’t that massive a housing.
In fact, thanks to the cat’s-eye shape of out of focus highlights, given the right circumstances, there’s almost a hint of a swirling nature to the rendering. I wouldn’t read too much into that comment, it’s not like some sort of crazy vintage lens. But if you have a look at this image where there’s loads of little points of sunlight reflecting off wet leaves and the like, you’ll see what I mean.
In more conventional, but also busy backgrounds, it’s less obvious, but as I say the busyness of the background also isn’t entirely smeared away.
Flare
In between a few storms, and of course the usual flat grey of UK winter, we’ve actually had some lovely, low winter sunshine lately. This has given me the perfect opportunity to test flare performance of the Viltrox 56mm f/1.2 Pro. I’ve been impressed too. I’ve not been able to get it to wash out with veiling flare in the way that I managed with the Evo on one or two occasions, but shooting directly into the sunshine backlighting my subject, I’ve managed to get a little bit of character out of it for shots like this:
To get any more flare, and ghosting etc, I’ve found myself needing to stop down to middle apertures. This image was shot at f/6.3, which isn’t to say f/6.3 is where peak ghosting happens, it’s just where I stopped the lens too in this exact circumstance to get this bit of ghosting.
But to even achieve that, I had to be quite specific with the angle I was pointing the lens, slightly off from this angle and the ghosting you see centre-frame disappeared.
Vignetting
On a recent walk with the Viltrox 56mm 1.2 Pro I took a photo that I am really very pleased with. I find the simple composition really pleasing, but the impact of the lens on the photo really works for me too. It was shot close to wide open, so even though there isn’t much background, you can still see the impact of the shallow depth of field on the grass and indeed the sky which has had some of the cloud detail smoothed. One of the other features of the image is the fairly heavy vignette. I really think it adds to the image here – but then I think a vignette adds to most images. Click through to Flickr and look at the comments and you’ll see that not everyone agrees with me.
My point: this lens vignettes quite a lot wide open, and even stopped down slightly. This might be an issue, if you don’t like the effect.
Distortion and other more objectively-annoying aberrations
I haven’t really noticed any distortion or any colour fringing in any of my photos. Martin reports the same on Philip Reeve around colour fringing, but has noted some pin cushion distortion that’s an easy fix in LR. I’m starting to get used to a near total lack of these sorts of issues with Viltrox lenses now – it’s quite impressive really.
The whole image
The result of all of the above is a rendering from the Viltrox 56mm 1.2 Pro that has a bit of depth and character, whilst still remaining very modern. It’s sharp beyond “normal” needs, contrast and colours are solid, and the bokeh is smooth enough not to bother most people, but has enough character for the lens not to render flat lifeless images for people who are fussy in that way too (like me). It does vignette, but other more unpleasant aberrations are well enough controlled that it’s hard not to be impressed by this lens, objectively speaking.
Subjectively speaking, like the Evo, this is a lens I could just shoot without having to worry about it ever really getting in the way of my photography. There’s a few characteristics I like, and none that bother me, but overall, again it feels like a solid lens that takes high quality images fairly effortlessly at essentially any aperture.
Final thoughts
Well, what is there to say? The Viltrox 56mm 1.2 Pro is superb lens from the brand that very much surpasses any reasonable level of need I might have as a hobby photographer. What’s more impressive though is that the ‘Pro’ designation actually seems to mean something more than just a higher price point. This is the first lens from Viltrox that I have tested that has the Pro designation, and indeed – thanks to the higher quality, faster and more effective AF system – I believe I could use this lens within the most testing environments I shoot as a professional, at least in terms of its AF performance.
I am also really starting to trust the build quality and reliability of these lenses too. Now, I must admit that I still haven’t been using them long enough to truly judge the longevity of these lenses, but nonetheless at the point of being three lenses in to trialing them, I am yet to find a single flaw in their build quality or anything at all that would make me doubt that they have the legs to last a good amount of time even in the hands of a professional photographer. I’d even go a far as to say that I am growing a very strong brand loyalty here that may even be beginning to bias my views. Possibly not ideal for future reviews, but as someone who isn’t really generally impressed by modern photographic equipment, I think this does say something!
The only real limiting factor when it comes to the Viltrox 56mm 1.2 Pro is the fact that it’s an APS-C lens, and I’m not sure Nikon (yet at least) make an APS-C camera that’s good enough to get the best out of it, though the Z50ii might get close (I’m still waiting on LCE to get one in stock for me to try it on). Edit: since writing this sentence, I have had a go with the lens on the Z50ii, and it seemed impressive, but I didn’t even take it out of the shop, so I am leaving this caveat in place.
I also remain slightly sceptical about how its size and weight felt on the small and light Zfc camera, but with the bigger grip-size of the Z50 and Z50ii, it does indeed feel like a much more comfortable lens to shoot with.
Ultimately, if you’re looking for a lens with the field of view of a short telephoto lens for your APS-C camera, and are seeking lower light performance, or more shallow depth of field, and want a lens that you can just trust to perform in terms of objectively good images, AF performance and build quality, I’d find it impossible not to strenuously recommend the Viltrox 56mm 1.2 Pro. I don’t think there is even any first party lenses from the various brands that this lens is available for that come close to what this lens offers, and that’s at any price point. What more could there possibly be to say here, other than, yet again, this is an extremely impressive offering from Viltrox!
You can find out more on the Viltrox website here (this is an affiliate link)
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