Is This the Best Budget 35mm Lens for Sony?

by Jason Vinson

Meet the Viltrox AF 35mm F1.2 LAB FE

In this review, we’re diving into the Viltrox 35mm f/1.2, a lens that surprised me in the best ways. I’ve had this thing in my hands for more than a month and have used it on multiple sessions now, and—spoiler alert—this is one of the best and most affordable 35mm lenses for Sony.

Build Quality 

Physically, the lens feels really solid—way more premium than I expected. It’s not tiny by any means, but considering it's an f/1.2, it’s manageable and well-balanced on my camera. Compared to my Sony 35mm f/1.4 CZ, the Viltrox AF 35mm F1.2 LAB heavier, wider, and a tad taller. But given the extra range on the aperture, this is to be expected. As for controls, this lens offers everything you've come to expect from a modern mirrorless lens. It has the AF/MF switch, a declicked switch, two Fn buttons, and an aperture ring. The only thing really missing is the locking switch for the aperture ring. And then one thing it has that most lenses don't have is the little LCD screen that displays focus distances and the aperture setting.

And you need this little screen to tell you the aperture setting because the lens itself doesn't have any aperture markings. That's because the aperture ring infinitely rotates in both directions. So you have to either look at the LCD screen or the screen on your camera to know what setting you are at and how that setting is changing. And this is actually one of my only—and biggest—things I don't like about the lens. Not only does this setup not allow you to make changes while the camera is turned off, but this ring also is not very precise in the way it functions. When the lens is set to f/1.2, just a slight pressure with no click could potentially change the aperture to f/1.3. From here, the lens sometimes takes one click to make an aperture adjustment, sometimes two clicks, and sometimes even three clicks. And I can't decipher any rhyme or reason why one click wouldn’t always equate to one aperture adjustment. Thankfully, you can throw the ring into A in order to have the lens give up control to the camera. But with no locking switch on the lens, you could easily bump the ring back into manual control on the lens.

Another drawback here is that any time you turn the camera off and back on, the lens will default back to f/1.2. Not only does this mean you have to reset your aperture setting every time you turn the camera on or off, but you also have to make a huge ring adjustment to get the lens back into the A setting every single time.  

The last thing I want to talk about in terms of build elements is the two Fn buttons. These buttons come with some cool added functionality but also don't give you some functionality you might expect. For one, these two buttons, through a simple setup process on the lens, let you set an Fn button to cycle through preset focus distances. So if you have the camera on a tripod, you can continue to move from one focus point to another and back and forth. For example, you can focus on the stars and then quickly change to a foreground element without moving your camera or focus points around. Or you can focus on the bride and then move to the groom—all with the simple press of a button on the lens. The downside here, though, is that while the lens has two Fn buttons, my Sony cameras only recognize one of the buttons for programming custom functions. And while you may be able to set up other functionality with the Viltrox app, at the time of testing, the lens was not supported by the app just yet.

(Note: The lens is now officially supported by the Viltrox Lens app and can be fully customized via the app.)

Sharpness

When it comes to sharpness, this lens is top tier. The Viltrox 35mm f/1.2 is part of the LAB series of lenses, which places it in the highest quality category for the company. And when it comes to sharpness, it's as good as or better than some Sony native glass. And thankfully, this sharpness is at the center and goes all the way to the corners. Even at f/1.2, I’d be more than willing to place a subject up into the top corner and remain confident that the subject will be sharp with plenty of contrast.

Vignetting

This is one of the areas that, for me, is fine. But if you are someone who doesn't like a good vignette, you may need to stop down for the best image quality. Because at f/1.2, there is a noticeable amount of vignette. As you step down from 1.2, you can see things clean up at 1.4, and things get even better around f/2.  

f/1.2

f/2

But one of the weird things here is that as you go from f/1.2 to f/1.4, while the vignette gets better, there is actually a dark spot in the center of the frame that shows up. Then, as you continue on to f/2, the vignette and dark spot go away.

Other Optical Qualities

As for other optical elements, I found that the distortion was handled very well. Even looking at an untouched raw file (there is no in-camera correction and no Lightroom lens correction at the time of the article), the lens handles distortion very well. In terms of newer mirrorless lenses, I feel like manufacturers are beginning to rely too heavily on post-production lens corrections. So it’s nice to see that this lens handles things pretty well out of the gate.

As for the bokeh, reproduction is nice and clean, and you only see a little bit of cat’s-eye bokeh along the corners and edges at f/1.2. But this cleans up pretty quickly around f/2.

When it comes to flare, I love a good bit of flare in my images. And this lens delivers while also maintaining a good amount of contrast when it's there. At f/1.2 it's more noticeable, and it cleans up fast going to f/1.4 and then even more at around f/2.

f/1.2

f/2

Autofocus

The autofocus on this lens is really good. I never had the lens hunt or miss focus, even when shooting close-moving subjects at f/1.2. And while I don't have any specific test that says one way or another, I do feel that the newer Sony GM lenses are a bit faster. But by no means is the Viltrox slow. In fact, I’d say the Viltrox, while attached to my Sony a9 III, is faster than any lens I have tried on any other competing brand's system. But, because the Viltrox is obviously from a third party, you won't get access to things like 120 frames per second on the Sony a9 III, and you are also limited to shooting at 1/16,000 of a second shutter speed instead of the possible 1/80,000 you can achieve with supported lenses. So this is something to keep in mind if these features are important to you.

What I Liked
  • Fast f/1.2 
  • More affordable than other f/1.2 offerings and even more affordable than f/1.4 offerings 
  • Size and weight for an f/1.2 lens is very nice and manageable 
  • Fast and precise autofocus 

What I Didn't Like
  • The entire aperture ring implementation 
  • I wish I could program both custom buttons in the camera 

Conclusion

While there are some quirks and things I don't really love about this lens, it is still the best and most affordable 35mm f/1.2 lens available for Sony E-mount. The size and weight are more than acceptable, and the optical performance goes from good to amazing.

(The above opinions and content are quoted from fstoppers’s channel, specifically from his review video of the Viltrox 35mm f/1.2 LAB FE)