Apochromatic (APO) lenses are things of beauty. By amplifying the contrast between colors, APO lenses have a unique characteristic that allows for more intense subject separation in your images. Some of my favorite street photography images have been made with APO lenses and until recently, they were mostly limited to a handful of mounts and very expensive brands. The Viltrox 35mm F1.8 EVO is an APO lens that democratizes this technology and brings it within reach of most photographers, but does it do justice to the APO heritage.
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The Big Picture: Viltrox 35mm F1.8 EVO II Z Review Conclusions
After nearly a month of using the Viltrox 35mm F1.8 EVO, I found myself wanting to take this lens everywhere. While we can talk about all the marketing jargon found in the lens’s tech specs, we find it far more useful to talk about what makes this a lens that deserves your attention. Like other, pricier APO lenses, the Viltrox 35mm EVO adds lots of character and pop to your images. But if you’ve used other APO lenses, like the Leica 35mm F2 Summicron SL or the Laowa 28mm F1.2, you may find that the APO pop effect is a little more subdued than in those lenses. That said, the Viltrox 35mm F1.8 does manage to deliver a character that is not unlike the Leica APO Summicron 35mm F2 (M-mount). And that ain’t bad company to be in. The Viltrox 35mm F1.8 EVO has found a permanent place in my gear bag and has even inspired me to take the long way home whenever it’s with me.
We’re giving the Viltrox 35mm F1.8 EVO II Z a four out of five for its beautiful character and fast AF performance. You can check one out for yourself via Viltrox’s website.
- Solid all-metal construction but still lightweight
- Dedicated aperture control ring
- Fast F1.8 maximum aperture
- Apochromatic lens design improves sharpness and color contrast in your images
- Some weather-sealing at the mount but not fully weather-sealed
- Only $390, making it insanely affordable.
Experience
For this review, we paired the Viltrox 35mm F1.8 EVO with the Nikon Z8 which was loaned to us by LensRentals and the Nikon Z7 II which I own. We also used this lens with the Profoto B20 and Connect Pro trigger system on long-term loan to us. Just for fun, we also used the Polar Pro x Shortstache SHIFT 4x Diopter Lens Filter.
As a lens, the Viltrox 35mm F1.8 EVO is as unassuming as they come. It’s a solidly built lens that’s still light enough to make it an everyday use lens. Thanks to its rear rubber gasket, the lens even offers some weather and dust resistance, while not a fully sealed lens like Viltrox’s LAB or Pro series, it does offer photographers some protection from the elements. Just don’t go taking it out in the middle of a downpour.
I’m not going to shy away from facts, I love a clicky aperture ring, and I’m very happy to report that the Viltrox 35mm EVO’s ring is responsive and even works on older cameras. As silly as it is to write, it’s a point that needs to be stressed because there seems to be a trend among some manufacturers that this is a feature that should be kept to the latest-and-greatest camera bodies only.
*cough* Canon *cough*
Silly, for sure. Still, it’s these details that make working with the 35mm F1.8 EVO a joy.
The Viltrox 35mm F1.8 EVO II Z isn’t a perfect lens. To recap on what was said earlier, the lack of full weather-sealing will mean that this lens will not meet the needs of pros and enthusiasts that really love being out in the elements. Additionally, the autofocusing speed varied slightly between using the lens with the Z8 and the Z7II, but largely I’m writing this off as the Z7 II has a slightly slower imaging processor compared to the Z8. And when I say that it’s slightly slower, I mean that very few of us will be able to notice it unless you’re trained to do so. AF-S has always been problematic in the Z7II and this lens truly performs best when used in AF-C autofocus mode. Other than that, the lens performs exactly as you’d expect from a Nikon lens; but this is a Viltrox lens.
Image Quality
So, what the heck is an apochromatic lens? At the most basic, an apochromatic lenses are designed to focus wavelengths of blue, red, and green light onto the same focal point to eliminate color fringes (chromatic aberration). The resulting image will benefit from better color accuracy, higher contrast, and more subjectively, give your images that “pop” that makes them stand out. To that end, the Viltrox 35mm F1.8 EVO delivers on that front, with the effect standing out if this is your first APO lens.
The first image I made with this lens was one of the African Violet that sits by my balcony. At first, I didn’t think much of it until I noticed a tiny spec of purple on the white flowers that I hadn’t seen with my eyes before this point. This was the first time the violet bloomed and early in the blooming the purple specs were tiny. But thanks to the higher color contrast of the 35mm EVO, those colors popped out at me when reviewing the image. It was at that moment I knew I wanted to take this out for street photography.
In March, I was invited to a career day event at a local middle school, and aside from answering questions from the kids, I also took some shots of the event for the school. I found that with the Z8 and Viltrox 35mm EVO, I was able to deliver some beautiful shots – straight from camera. In fact, many of the edited images below were simple crops vs. spending much time changing the look and feel of the image.
Here are a series of unedited sample images:
Below are some edited sample images taken with the Viltrox 35mm F1.8 EVO:
Declaration of Journalistic Intent
The Phoblographer is one of the last standing dedicated photography publications that speaks to both art and tech in our articles. We put declarations up front in our reviews to adhere to journalistic standards that several publications abide by. These help you understand a lot more about what we do:
- At the time of publishing this review, Viltrox isn’t running direct-sold advertising with the Phoblographer. This doesn’t affect our reviews anyway and it never has in our 15 years of publishing our articles. This article is in no way sponsored.
- Note that this isn’t necessarily our final review of the unit. It will be updated, and it’s more of an in-progress review than anything. In fact, almost all our reviews are like this.
- None of the reviews on the Phoblographer are sponsored. That’s against FTC laws and we adhere to them just the same way that newspapers, magazines, and corporate publications do.
- Viltrox loaned the unit and accessories to the Phoblographer for review and has not requested it be returned. There was no money exchange between us or their 3rd party partners and the Phoblographer for this to happen. Manufacturers trust the Phoblographer’s reviews, as they are incredibly blunt.
- Viltrox knows that it cannot influence the site’s reviews. If we don’t like something or if we have issues with it, we’ll let our readers know.
- The Phoblographer’s standards for reviewing products have become much stricter. After having the world’s largest database of real-world lens reviews, we choose not to review anything we don’t find innovative or unique, and in many cases, products that lack weather resistance. Unless something is very unique, we probably won’t touch it.
- In recent years, brands have withheld NDA information from us or stopped working with us because they feel they cannot control our coverage. These days, many brands will not give products to the press unless they get favorable coverage. In other situations, we’ve stopped working with several brands for ethical issues. Either way, we report as honestly and rawly as humanity allows.
- At the time of publishing, the Phoblographer is the only photography publication that is a member of Adobe’s Content Authenticity Initiative. We champion human-made art and are frank with our audience. We are also the only photography publication that labels when an image is edited or not.
More can be found on our Disclaimers page.