Viltrox AF 85mm f/1.4 Pro FE, the full review

To be honest, it had been a little while since I took the time to test a lens in depth. I’m back with the full review of this Viltrox AF 85mm f/1.4 Pro FE, a lens mainly (but not only!) dedicated to portrait photography on Sony full-frame bodies.

And I have to say I was more than pleasantly surprised when I received this email from Viltrox. I should mention that I already tested last year the Viltrox 56mm f/1.4 STM, a fast standard lens that’s ideal for portrait photography, this time on Sony APS-C bodies. Since we travel and this blog is important for our day-to-day life, we decided to own one APS-C body and one full-frame body.

So I’m going to enjoy thoroughly testing this Viltrox 85mm and giving you my honest opinion on the subject. Of course, I thank Viltrox for agreeing to send me a copy of this lens for this review. However, this review is entirely independent and I have full control over what I write in this article. This test will be carried out on my Sony A7 III, while I wait to decide whether to move to a more advanced version, even though this body suits me very well for most of my photo needs.

To give you a bit of general context, I’d say many people probably still consider Viltrox a Chinese sub-brand of average quality, but the brand is clearly gaining momentum. Just look at the brand’s latest releases to realize the very high-quality lenses they’ve managed to produce lately. And I’m not only talking about Sony, since as a third-party brand, Viltrox offers a large number of lenses for several mounts. Among the brand’s recent standouts, we can mention the Viltrox AF 75mm f/1.2 Pro, as well as the Viltrox AF 27mm f/1.2 Pro, both for the Fuji X mount.

More recently, Viltrox officially launched its highest lineup with the “LAB series” (full frame), with the launch of the Viltrox AF 135mm f/1.8 LAB FE, a lens that all the reviews I’ve read clearly praise! So it’s fair to say there will most likely be a higher-end version coming out than this 85mm f/1.4 I’m testing today. And that’s saying something, because (spoiler) this 85mm is already truly exceptional in quality, worthy in my opinion of the biggest brands on many points! But what makes the big difference compared to the major brands is the price. Offered at only (yes, I mean it!) 650 euros, it makes this a lens with superb value for money for anyone looking for a quality lens, mainly dedicated to portraits, with a very wide aperture. So yes, of course, there’s also a Sigma 85mm f/1.4, as well as a Sony, but both remain at a much higher price.

I find the 85mm focal length really interesting for portraits because it still allows some framing flexibility, and I often find it a good compromise between a 50mm, sometimes too wide and which isolates the subject a bit less, and a 135mm, for which you need some distance. After that, as often, it’s a matter of taste and needs.

Suffice it to say I’m quite excited to bring you this field test. I’ll do my best to highlight this lens and its strengths! Here we go

Before diving into this lens in detail, here are the key points to remember about it.

In addition to these elements, here is some extra information.

• Optical construction: the optical design of this 85mm is based on a complex formula of 15 elements in 11 groups, including 3 ED elements to reduce chromatic aberrations, 9 HR elements to ensure high resolution while keeping the whole relatively compact, and 1 aspherical (UA) element aimed at limiting distortion and eliminating artifacts. There’s also an HD nano multi-coating, which reduces flare and ghosting while maintaining a contrasty rendering.
• Autofocus: Dual Hyper VCM motor. The Dual Hyper VCM ensures fast, silent and precise autofocus in both photo and video, with smooth, jerk-free focusing.
• Weather sealing: yes, about 10 seals (depending on sources).

Let’s start at the beginning—unboxing, as they say—the moment you take it out of the box. I received this package here in Guadeloupe from China, and everything arrived in perfect condition, well protected. The lens comes in a gorgeous glossy black box, itself protected by a quality outer cardboard sleeve. Just from the box, you can tell it’s serious business!

Upon opening, you see the lens well set into a hard foam. On the side, there’s a good-quality gray and black pouch, reinforced at the base. They’re almost like the ones Canon provides for its L-series (pro) lenses. In any case, it’s always nice to have that kind of attention!

I’ve kept you waiting long enough. But the first time I took the lens out of the box, I was impressed by the overall quality. The lens isn’t the lightest/most compact, but when you hold it, you immediately feel a truly superb quality. To put it this way, I even had a much better impression of quality and solidity than when I handled, for example, my Sigma 150–600mm or even some Canon L optics back when I used a DSLR.

The lens really exudes quality overall with a magnesium–aluminum alloy, the same often found in the construction of recent mirrorless bodies. The all-metal lens makes a really great first impression. So yes, attached to my A7 III—which isn’t the heaviest mirrorless—it does have some heft, but the whole setup is well balanced, I find. You’ll obviously see the brand’s “PRO” designation and the “AF 85/1.4 FE”.

On the lens you’ll find plenty of options, like on a major-brand optic. You get an AF/MF switch that works perfectly, a manual focus ring, and an aperture ring with a button to make it clickable/de-clickable. There’s also a small round button that corresponds to a customizable Fn button. It can serve as a shortcut to quickly choose certain functions (such as AF lock or detection, toggling MF/AF, or other settings depending on your camera). It can also be configured more precisely via the Viltrox Lens App through the integrated USB-C port.

The aperture ring is of superb quality. It’s divided into full stops (f/1.4, f/2, f/2.8, etc.) and the third stops are also marked on the metal barrel. Moving from f/1.4 to f/16 is very smooth, very supple, and it remains a joy to use. After f/16, there’s indeed an “A” (auto) mode that lets you control the aperture from the camera. But the ring is such a pleasure to use that I caught myself staying at full aperture and often using the ring. You also have a switch to make the aperture ring clickable—no problem there either—it works perfectly and the clicks make it easy to feel where you are.

The manual focus ring is also relatively wide and of good quality, in my opinion. The feel is very good and it’s neither too loose nor too stiff to operate. For me, it’s perfect. I did a few proxy photography tests, for example on flowers, and the manual focus ring lets you perfectly and easily find the zone where you want to focus.

The lens also comes with a quality lens hood—nothing to complain about there. Finally, a small detail that I think adds a nice touch: you can see the red sealing gasket at the mount—pretty cool, right? You can also note the presence of a USB-C port that makes it easy to update the lens firmware. More recently, still aiming to offer even more, Viltrox provides an (iOS/Android) app to update the lens via Bluetooth or simply by plugging the lens into your phone.

You’ll notice that when the lens is off, you can feel “something moving” inside the lens. This feeling disappears when the lens is mounted on a powered-on body. These are the floating optical elements. It can feel a bit odd at first, but rest assured it doesn’t cause any issues in daily use.

I was really curious to test this lens in terms of autofocus and I have to say that, overall, I was really not disappointed. So yes, if you read other reviews of this Viltrox 85mm, they say its autofocus would still be slightly below the Sony 85mm F1.4 GM II, but I want to say—well, of course, given its price, right? Haha! I couldn’t test the Sony (which costs almost four times more), but according to some tests, the difference would be almost minimal in AF performance compared to the Sony, which says a lot about the AF quality of this Viltrox.

Personally, in day-to-day use and during my test days, I found the AF to be really very good, if not excellent. In AF-S (single AF) mode, I didn’t encounter any issues, even though I rarely use this mode, even for static subjects like details, landscapes or others. In AF-C (continuous AF) mode, I also got really good results. Eye tracking locks on very well and, frankly, I didn’t find much to criticize in this regard.

That said, you do need to be very careful (as with all very fast lenses) when shooting portraits with several people, because at f/1.4 there will inevitably be people who aren’t in the focus plane (for example, the photo below of my two sons).

I also did quite a few tests in poor light conditions—at sunrise/sunset, in dark rooms, etc.—and autofocus really grabs very well, even wide open. So, in my view, that’s very good.

Given the interesting close focusing distance (79 cm — x 0.13), I also did a fair amount of manual focusing and, honestly, it’s really very pleasant. As I mentioned above, the ring is nice and wide, of quality, and you can achieve perfectly fine-tuned focus. Obviously, if you’re shooting wide open, the depth of field is so shallow that it’s better to use manual focus if you want to place focus on a very precise area. At that distance, with an 85mm wide open, you get a gorgeous bokeh.

To be frank, I shoot very little video; it’s simply not my thing. But I still spent some time doing a few tests and I have to say, once again, I was relatively blown away by autofocus in video. The Dual VCM motor is supposed to be much better than the classic STM motors, with notably smoother transitions, and honestly, I found it very good.

I was able to film quite a few lively scenes, like my kids in the garden, passersby in the street, people running, and autofocus generally locks onto the subject very well as it should. I even did some slightly tougher AF tests, switching from a very close plane to a more distant one, then back to the starting plane, and it still does well. So for me, on the video side, I think it’s very good!

There is a little focus breathing, but honestly, it remains acceptable.

Assessing image quality is sometimes a bit subjective, I agree, and I often prefer to test image quality in real time, in the field, rather than spending days shooting brick walls. But unfortunately, for certain aspects, you’re kind of obliged to do it…

According to the MTF charts provided by the brand, the lens offers very good sharpness at the center and up to mid-frame, with only a slight drop in performance in the corners at f/1.4. At f/8, the center loses a bit of sharpness (diffraction) but the whole frame becomes more homogeneous, offering a balanced rendering across the entire image. Well, at the same time, you don’t buy an 85mm f/1.4 not to shoot wide open, right? Haha. As a reminder, MTF (Modulation Transfer Function) is a graph often provided by the brands themselves, illustrating a lens’s ability to reproduce contrast and fine detail from the center to the edges of the image.

Generally speaking, before getting into more detail below, I was literally blown away by the image quality produced, and that from the very first minutes. I’m not necessarily a great portrait specialist, although I do enjoy shooting Mélanie and the kids more and more. It’s always enjoyable and, frankly, the sharpness of this 85mm f/1.4 and, more broadly, the rendering, is really superb. You get very detailed and sharp images, whether at short or longer distances. The very wide f/1.4 aperture really helps subjects stand out, with a nice “pop/3D” effect. Nothing to complain about in my opinion regarding image quality, anyway.

To test the sharpness of this Viltrox 85mm f/1.4, I chose a test scene at home. All tests were carried out on my Sony A7 III on a tripod. Here are the image results at 100% sharpness, at the center of the frame.

(Just hover over the aperture values under the images to see sharpness changes – 100% crop – Center of the image)

As you can see from the images above (100% crop), center sharpness wide open (f/1.4) is already excellent in my view. Stopping down to f/2 doesn’t make a huge difference at the center, although the edges gain slightly in sharpness and contrast. Stopping further to f/2.8 goes in the same direction, mostly improving the edges. Beyond that, you don’t see much difference in sharpness, which means this lens—although you don’t really buy it for this—can also be excellent for landscape photography, even from f/2.8.

Although I don’t own either the Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN Art or the Sony FE 85mm f/1.4 GM II, I can still say a few words based on all the reviews I’ve seen. In short, the difference in sharpness from the Sigma is clearly not visible, while the Sony obviously remains ahead, but at a much higher price. In any case, everyone agrees that Viltrox has done an excellent job regarding image quality…

Let’s talk bokeh now—that famous blur created by fast-aperture lenses. Obviously, with an 85mm and an f/1.4 aperture, we could expect nice things. And you know what? I wasn’t disappointed. The quality of the bokeh is truly extraordinary to my eyes. It’s a smooth, creamy bokeh, as we like to say, and the separation between subject and background/foreground is really magical.

Here are two images that show the bokeh difference.

Here are 3 more images to show you the quality of the bokeh you can get with this Viltrox 85mm f/1.4.

Just to show you something interesting, I shot a scene in my garden with two different lenses: the Viltrox 56mm f/1.4 STM mounted on an APS-C body, and the Viltrox 85mm f/1.4 Pro FE on full frame. Since the APS-C sensor is about 1.5 times smaller than full frame, the framing obtained is almost identical between the two photos. However, the bokeh difference jumps out at you: with the 56mm, the background remains more present and less blurred, whereas the image made with the 85mm f/1.4 offers a creamy, much more aesthetic bokeh. To get a comparable look with the 56mm, it would need to open around f/0.9, which clearly explains the difference between the two systems.

(Ignore the difference in RAW processing and color rendering…)

The lens handles distortion perfectly well. There’s a very slight pincushion distortion, but it’s almost imperceptible to the naked eye in practice and won’t cause any problems in everyday photography. On the contrary, this type of rendering can even be flattering for portrait photography by avoiding any deformation. On this point, Viltrox has clearly done an excellent job. Note, however, that at the time I’m writing this article, there isn’t yet a dedicated correction profile in DxO, even if, in practice, correction becomes almost unnecessary since distortion is already well controlled. From what I’ve read, the Viltrox performs as well as the Sony (!) and much better than the Sigma, which made compromises on this subject.

On the vignetting side, of course this was expected with an aperture as wide as f/1.4. Measurements indicate around –2 EV, which remains very reasonable and comparable to what Sony offers. In my view, there’s really no reason to complain. From f/2.8, vignetting becomes subtle, with a value around –0.8 EV.

Here’s an example showing how vignetting evolves below.

Regarding chromatic aberrations, the tests I performed show they remain really very discreet. Sure, they exist and may appear wide open, notably on outdoor bokeh balls, but they’re very well controlled by Viltrox. And as always, if you shoot RAW, it’s never a real problem since you can correct them in a few seconds in post-processing.

As with chromatic aberrations, I’d say you’ll have a hard time finding it. Yet we know very fast lenses like this one can tend to produce flare, particularly in some situations with the sun to the side or facing you. So yes, in the worst-case scenarios—i.e., if you shoot the sun in the middle of the day—you can find a bit of flare, but it remains minor.

In more typical situations, like a sunset with softer light, and even backlit, I didn’t find any particular issues to note.

I haven’t tested it personally yet, but from the feedback I’ve read, the Viltrox 85mm f/1.4 Pro shows decent coma, with a slight wing-shaped spreading on stars in the corners: a respectable result, without being exceptional.

Although this isn’t really the point of the article, it’s always interesting to discuss possible alternatives if you’re looking for an 85mm f/1.4.

• Sony FE 85mm f/1.4 GM II

This is the high-end rival. Overall, it has better autofocus than the Viltrox, especially in bursts beyond 15 fps. Sharpness is slightly better, though the difference isn’t huge. It has the unique advantage of focus breathing compensation. Conversely, it costs more than three times the price of the Viltrox (€2,100 versus €650–€670) and remains “still heavy and bulky,” even if it has lost weight compared to the GM I. In practice, it’s the ultimate optic, but the Viltrox retains a value for money that remains unbeatable, in my opinion.

• Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN Art

The Sigma almost ties with the Sony GM II in terms of sharpness, so perhaps slightly above the Viltrox, especially wide open. Its weight is more contained (625 g versus 800 g). Build quality is on the same level, but color rendering appears less pleasing than the Viltrox. It suffers from more pronounced distortion and vignetting. Its price is almost double that of the Viltrox (around €1,100), which makes the Viltrox a more balanced option, with a more flattering rendering and a more affordable price.

Samyang 85mm f/1.4 AF II

The Samyang remains compact, with a featherweight (509 g versus 800 g for the Viltrox), and its autofocus is relatively fast and quiet. On the other hand, it disappoints on several points compared to the Viltrox: ergonomics are more basic, without a real aperture ring; bokeh loses quality from f/2.8; and color rendering is less natural. Build quality is also a notch below. Finally, its price is higher than the Viltrox (€800 versus €650–€670). It’s a lightweight alternative, but overall less consistent and less interesting, especially given the price difference with the Viltrox.

Sirui 85mm f/1.4 Aurora

The Sirui plays the reduced-weight card (540 g versus 800 g for the Viltrox) and attractive price (€530 versus €650–€670). It offers very nice color rendering, a soft bokeh and a pleasing 3D effect, which strongly resembles the Viltrox. Conversely, it’s weaker in sharpness wide open, and its autofocus lags behind, especially in bursts. It also suffers from pronounced distortion and vignetting, where the Viltrox is better. Its build and ergonomics are decent but less refined. In short, a tempting option for its price and lightness, but less complete than the Viltrox.

In the end, looking at the alternatives, I clearly find it hard to recommend considering the Sony which, yes, is a bit better in some respects, but remains more than three times the price. The Sirui and the Samyang, in my view, are a step below and less interesting.

I’m coming to the end of this full review of the Viltrox 85mm f/1.4 Pro FE. I was frankly impressed by its build quality and image quality. To be frank, I’m sometimes a bit skeptical at first about lenses from some third-party brands, but here I was really very pleasantly surprised by this lens.

Some judge the lens a bit heavy, and that’s often one of the only drawbacks you notice, but in all honesty, I didn’t find it problematic. Sure, the lens is not light per se, but mounted on a full-frame body, I find the combo well balanced. If I sum up the key positives, I’d note exemplary build quality (all metal), superb image quality even wide open, a soft and creamy bokeh that isolates subjects perfectly, autofocus that works very well in my opinion, optical flaws that are very well managed overall and, above all, a price that’s hard to beat!

You’ll have gathered that I was completely won over by this lens and, if you want to buy it, you can use the links below!

I hope I’ll have the opportunity to test the LAB series lenses soon (the 135mm) and even the 35mm f/1.2 which looks excellent. In the meantime, I invite you to read our full review of the Sony FE 20mm f/1.8 G, a very high-quality wide-angle lens.

See you soon for a new review!

Written by Sylvain PONS

I've been passionate about photography since 2010, learning as I went along. Today, I dedicate myself to guiding others in their choice of camera gear and sharing a variety of tips to improve their photography skills.

Despite our care, a mistake may have slipped into this article. If you find any, please don't hesitate to let us know so we can correct it as soon as possible and keep our information up-to-date!