I Can't Recommend This Lens - Viltrox 50mm f/1.4 Pro for Nikon Z-Mount

Kind of curious that V trucks are ramping up their autofocusing Zmount options at a time when their ass is getting sued by Nikon. Yep, you might have seen it in the news. Nikon are taking Viltrox for a little legal dance in the courts. But before that reaches a conclusion, Viltrox thought it'd be only appropriate to bring out a new Zmount 50mm f1. 4 lens. That's massive though. Look at that. 51. 4. Let's take the hood off. That's almost unreasonable, isn't it? The kind of inflated mass that performance and hunting injections could only dream of attaining. However, today we're not after streamlined appendages, just curious about what the photo performance perks are inside of this lens. And whereas Dan is keen to get to grips with the nonlicensed lens, I am vlogging this with Vtrox's green lit glass, their first Elmount Alliance lens, the 16mm f1. 8. Filming myself with Vtrox 16mm f1. 8 eight on the Panasonic because they are actually part of the align, the Elman aligns. So, it's legit. It should work perfectly. Apart from the gargantuan size, the 16 mm is an excellent autofocusing ultra wide lens. Great image quality, low distortion, and quick to focus. And the good news is that the 50 mm f1. 4 is quick at focusing, too. It — is amazingly quick. I mean, the speed at which it acquires focus. Wait, look at that sequence. All right, that's pretty impressive. Yeah, if I were Nikon, I'd be worried. — Nikon might not want to hear these good bits, too. This lens shows very low distortion, seemingly no visible chromatic aberration, and with a large aperture 50 mm. What is incredibly important is the way it renders those shallow depth of field images. And this lens doesn't disappoint. — But the bokeh looks lovely. — The bokeh is ever so smooth. really gorgeous. Towards the edges, it does show some optical vignetting. That's what gives the cat's eyes bokeh shapes, which some may or may not like. It's really down to preference. And that brings us to what you might perceive as the bad bits. — I mean, it's quite flar. It's got a very rainbow flare. — I like that. — In typical lens tests or reviews, flaring is often considered undesirable, but it really should be up to the person buying it to figure out whether it appeals to them or not. — I quite like the flare, actually. Well, the good news is that if you love rainbow flaring, their 16 mm f1. 8 has it, too. And it flares quite a bit at moderate aperture settings. In fact, I found out quite a few Vtrox lenses have a tendency to flare. Holy crap, that flares like, wow, the flaring is incredible on that. I mean, their lenses could be a Wikipedia for everything lens flare related. It has it all. Essentially, it's a great lens. Focus is quick. Bo's nice. Sharpness in a minute, but I can see the bokeh's nice. The out focus bits are nice and soft, but the infocus bits at f1. 4 are super soft, too. I mean, it could be quite useful for portraitists. See, the thing is, there's not really many bad lenses around, just lenses that are suited for one style or not. Having said that, though, I think I'd be mad to recommend this lens. Not because of the cost. It's not expensive, although no small amount either. Nikon's 50mm f1. 8 is cheaper as well as their more budget friendly 50mm f1. 4 too. It's just the potential very real consequences if Vtrox do lose the court case and they probably will and in which case the size and weight of the lens might actually be beneficial once you update your Nikon's firmware or decide to buy a new Nikon and then you're left with using your Viltrox as a lovely paper weight. But seriously, since their first AF lens in 2019, Viltrox has been the most prolific of any Chinese lens brand releasing non-licensed autofocusing lenses. Viltrox are surely being sued to be made an example of. Still, that hasn't discouraged them. I find it incredibly impressive that Vtrox are putting out a lot of especially autofocusing products. So, here Dan is setting up this Nexus focus. It essentially turns your PL mount cine lenses into autofocusing E-mount ones. Although it's got to be said that since then Tilt have launched their own one which has manual focus override. The Vtrox doesn't have that at the moment. But still easy to be at least a little impressed by what Viltrox is doing. I quite like Viltrox lenses though. They're really not bad. I feel like I'm turning into Dan whenever I say, "Oh, they're really good. I really like them. " They call these air lenses. What? — It's airike. So, 14 mm f4 9 mm f2. 8. That's crop. But actually, they're really quite good. — So, which one's that? — This is the V trucks 14 mm f4. It's pretty cool. A little bit too wide for the street

— but it's fun. It's a good lens. It's really compact as well. Look at that. And if you want wide angle Sony, then you have to get something which is a little bit faster than this, obviously more expensive, and it'll be bigger than this. This is compact for 14 mm on mirrorless for Sony. It's fantastic. Their cheaper stuff doesn't feel as low budget as other lowbudget Chinese brands lenses. All right, so I got a Vtrox 40 mm on there just to compare to a TTR sense. This time of the year, there's some cool long shadows and reflections and stuff. Comparing their respective 40mm AF lenses, I feel like TT Artisan's 40 mm doesn't focus as fast and it's not as sharp, wide open, and at equivalent larger apertures as the Vtrox. The Vtrox is quick enough for street photography, and the images look great. I like it a lot. It's just like real trucks have come out from seemingly nowhere over the past few years. But one court case decision could easily make things quite different. My guess is as good as anybody's about how different it might be. Just know that if you fancy one of these lenses or this one or this one, unless you're an Lmount user, nothing really is 100% guaranteed. What might seem like a great idea now might not seem so much if it ever gets blocked out in the future.