- Viltrox has announced its new AF 26mm F2.8 EVO lens
- It’s available in Sony E and Nikon Z mount versions and costs $299 / £279
- Measures 23.8mm thick and weighs 4.6oz/130g
Chinese lens maker Viltrox is having a prolific year and has now followed up with a recent pair of medium prime telephoto lenses for APS-C cameras with an all-new 26mm f/2.8 pancake lens.
The AF 26mm F2.8 EVO is part of the same mid-range series as my recently tested AF 90mm F2.2 EVO and is available for Sony E and Nikon Z-mount cameras at launch. It costs $299 / £279.
The lens here is compact size and light weight: the 26mm F2.8 lens is just 23.8mm thick and tips the scales at 4.6oz/130g. I can see it pairing very well with a Sony A7C/A7C II or Nikon Zf as a casual, everyday lens that offers surprisingly sharp image quality.
Mind you, it’s not the smallest full-frame autofocus lens in the Viltrox range: that award goes to the AF 28mm F4.5. However, given the bright f/2.8 aperture and built-in features, the new 26mm lens appears incredibly small.
Those features include dust- and splash-resistant machined metal construction, dedicated focus and aperture rings, a metal rear kickstand with a USB-C port for firmware updates, and an STM focusing motor for snappy autofocus.
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And there’s more: the AF 26mm F2.8 EVO ships with a magnetic lens cap that snaps into place, eliminating the problems that come with traditional pinch-release lens caps.
It is part of a lens cap system that includes a magnetic lens hood, which also works with magnetic lens filters. Alternatively, traditional screw-on filters also work, via the 43mm thread.
I hope other lens manufacturers follow Viltrox’s example: removing and replacing lens caps can be a real headache, but a magnetic type simplifies the process.
Optically we have a simple construction of eight elements in six groups, with a minimum focusing distance of 0.2m resulting in a maximum magnification of 0.2x, for reasonable close-up photography.
The Viltrox AF 26mm F2.8 EVO is available immediately in Sony E and Nikon Z versions on Amazon US and the official Viltrox store. No word yet on whether L-mount or Fujifilm X-mount versions are on the way.
Yes, the Fujifilm
It’s another new Viltrox lens available for Nikon Z cameras, suggesting that the lawsuit between Nikon and Viltrox from earlier this year has been quietly resolved. I hope that’s the case, because Viltrox has consistently produced excellent optics and the AF 26mm F2.8 EVO looks like an impressive addition. Stay tuned for my in-depth review, coming soon.
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