Tag: 13mm

Viltrox 13mm f1.4 was announced back in January 2022. The lens is well received with many positive feedbacks from many photographers. I also do remember it was a challenge to snap one for my use and eventually, I gave up on getting one during that period. Of course, I eventually managed to buy one from an online platform.

Intro

Viltrox is the first brand that Fujifilm photographers are exposed to the third-party autofocus lens and the rest is history. Today, Fujifilm photographers have always been their first customers. For example, Viltrox 75mm f1.2 Pro and Viltrox 27mm f1.2 Pro were launched in X-mount first before any other mounts.

Viltrox positions its first ultrawide lens uniquely. They are not aiming to be the widest autofocus lens but strike a good balance between “wide” and “fast”. 13mm (19.5mm in full frame equivalent) is not the widest ultrawide lens (XF8mm f3.5 is the widest prime lens in the market ) but it is definitely the fastest one yet (same aperture as XF16mm f1.4).

I seldom set expectations for a China-made lens, but given the Viltrox improving records, I had a lot of expectations for this lens before getting one for myself. I hope it will fulfill the expectations I set for it.

At this point of writing, this lens comes with an X-mount and an E-mount.

Design and Build Quality

The metal-constructed lens body is great. In my opinion, it is as close as the pro lineup. It comes with a good clicky aperture ring but is not as tactile as the aperture ring found in the pro lineup.

When holding it on hand, the 420 grams feel lighter as compared to the Viltrox 27mm (560 grams) and Viltrox 75mm (670 grams). I also appreciate that the filter size is 67mm which allows photographers to access various filters without having to pay for more expensive ones.

Image Quality

Image quality is surprisingly great for an ultrawide lens. The results are pretty usable at wide-open. The contrast is good. Corner-to-corner sharpness is fine and the distortion is within my bearable range. As for overall sharpness, it does not give blazer sharpness as compared to the pro lineup but is not too far behind.

Vignetting is visible at wide-open but acceptable in my opinion. It is not as heavy as I have expected. Chromatic aberration is pretty well-controlled in this lens.

Flares and ghosting are obviously visible from direct sunlight. So beware if you want to avoid these.

Focusing

From the Viltrox online store, it mentioned that the focusing system is Stepper Motor (STM) + Lead Screw. I have very shallow knowledge and probably it is my first time hearing of “Lead Screw”. So I do some Google study.

As far as I can find, there are two types of STM, Lead Screw type and Gear type. The lead screw is bulkier as compared to the gear type but faster and quieter. Gear type is usually found in compact lenses. However, both STMs produce smooth and quiet focusing movement which benefits the videographer.

I guess this is one of the reasons why this lens is big?

Focus breathing is surprisingly very minimal. A good one for videographers who plan to use this lens for their work.

Focusing performance is great, I have only encountered very few focus-hunting throughout my trip to Japan. The focus speed from MFD to infinity and vice versa is pretty decent for an ultrawide lens. I have no complaint in this.

Minimum Focus Distance (MFD)

This lens comes with an MFD of 22cm. While there isn’t any benchmark of the exact same focal length from other manufacturers. So I extract what other ultrawide lenses’ MFDs are:

XF16mm f1.4 – 15cm

XF8mm f3.5 – 18cm

Sigma 16mm f1.4 – 25cm

Meike 12mm f2 – 20cm

Meike 10mm f2 – 30cm

TTArtisan 10mm f2 – 25cm

Given some references I have picked up over here, I could say the MFD of the Viltrox 13mm is somewhat average. The good things is that the image quality at MFD still maintain a good quality and not experience some image breakdown like some other lenses.

Price Point

In Viltrox online store, it is priced at 630 USD while it is priced at 459 USD in B&H. I think there aren’t any much prime lens competitors. There is only one I can recall and that’s Samyang 12mm f2 and it is priced at about 395 USD. Meanwhile, XF8mm f3.5 is priced at 799 USD.

Others

Like the other Viltrox AF lenses, it comes with a USB port for future firmware updates. In this case, it is a USB-C port.

There is also one thing that sets this lens apart from the pro lineup and that is the lens hood. It comes with plastic quality instead of metal. If this is something you are looking forward to, you might be disappointed.

Who is this for?

Although I always choose prime over zoom lens for street lenses, I prefer a more zoom versatility for ultrawide lenses, for example, Sigma 10-18 f2.8 or Tamron 11-20 f2.8. The reason is that ultrawide focal length is a lot less used in my type of photo genre.

Putting my own preferences aside, this lens is suitable for architecture, astrography, cityscape, and landscape. Besides all these genres, this lens is up to your creativity to create.

Oh yes, it can be a good lens for vloggers too.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading.

Disclaimer:
1. All the shots taken here are shot by me.
2. Most of the shots are straight out of the camera with some shots edited via In-Camera Raw Processing and Lightroom.
3. The opinions are based on my experience. If there is any mistake, please kindly drop me a message and I will gladly make the amendment.
4. I reserve ownership of these images, if you wish to use my images, please notify me.
5. Some readers might have noticed that I shoot more at f5.6 and that is because I have never thought of sharing my opinion initially. Since it is my holiday, so I should shoot something that I am more comfortable with.