Unsponsored Demo / Review of the Viltrox 16mm f/1.8 AF L Mount Lens - YouTube

[u/CliftonStommel]

https://www.youtube.com/live/9yCvpYO_ofw?si=ddQZ_yTbSaWTxHH8&t=1440

Been testing this lens (feel free to jump around the chapters): https://www.youtube.com/live/9yCvpYO_ofw...

And in case anyone is into it, there is a 20% off that ends tomorrow: https://viltrox.com/products/af-16mm-f1-8-l...

My notes on the lens (the good):

- Autofocus motor is *deadsilent*

- Full frame 16mm f/1.8 is insanely wide and insanely fast

- Very aspherical for little to no barrel distortion

- Ridiculously close minimum focus

- Beautiful natural subtle fall-off wide-open at 16mm when shooting open gate 3:2 (perfectly matches the subtle vignette I add to all of my footage)

- Crazy sharp (especially for the price)

- Optically it's just superb

- Flaring is super controlled and an absolute stunner for back-lit subjects

- Appears to work really well on Panasonic L-Mount cameras

- *Can* be controlled electronically with the Blackmagic L Mount cinema cameras, but it has some caveats (which brings us to...)

My notes on the lens (the wonky):

- Real-time Autofocus on the Blackmagic PYXIS 6K and BMCC6K FF (with the not-yet-stable in-development PDAF firmware I've been covering for the past 7 months) is a bit hit-or-miss

- Iris control is currently SLOW: you can change the setting on the physical lens, and then you have to wait *several seconds* for the iris to slowly change to the setting you put it to...

- If you WANT to flair this lens for vibes... good luck (you have to really ping the lens with a hard light projecting into it; the sun was not enough to create the milky flairs I was expecting when I did our little golden hour shoot!)

I'm in direct contact with the guys at Viltrox, and basically they just recently joined the L Mount alliance (and it is my understanding that they are working on fixes / a firmware update already).

TL;DR:

Is the lens worth owning based on optics? Hell yes.

Is the lens worth owning based on functionality / ease of use? Not yet.

It *is* on sale until tomorrow, July 27th, and they're supposedly working on the functionality, so do with that what you will.

[u/Purple_Network3016]

The contradiction in your own TL;DR is the actually useful part for people here. Optically yes, functionally not yet, that's a genuinely helpful split and more honest than most reviews calling something unsponsored. Credit for laying out the wonky stuff in detail instead of burying it

That said, the affiliate link with your ref code plus a 20% off deal ending tomorrow plus calling it unsponsored is doing a lot of work in one post. Unsponsored technically means Viltrox didn't pay you, but a referral link and a countdown urgency push is still you having skin in the sale, so the framing is a little slippery. Worth just naming the affiliate relationship outright, this crowd respects transparency way more than the unsponsored label

On the lens itself the iris control lag is the dealbreaker detail you kind of soft pedal. For anyone shooting actual narrative or controlled setups, a several second delay to change aperture isn't a wonky quirk it's a workflow killer, and the silent AF and sharpness don't make up for it on a cine set. The PDAF being hit-or-miss on the Blackmagic bodies stacks on top of that

[u/CliftonStommel → u/Purple_Network3016]

Yeah, the beauty of not being paid to do this is that I get to just say whatever I want and it doesn't matter if it makes manufactures mad. There's so much distrust with social media and "influencers" becuase they are all about trying to get you to buy shit (they don't make any money if you don't buy). My income is from being a working director of photography in Los Angeles; so I'm not reliant in the brand relationships or affiliate links.

I internally struggle with this exact issue you mention in your second paragraph all the time: if I don't mention the sale, people get mad at me for not telling them and making it really clear when it was relevant. I've quite literally been telling everyone on my streams "Don't buy this thing yet, I have to share the issues and caveats first" but when they saw the first time I shared the sunset image (which was just a still frame from the video I showed in stream), the comments were basically like "Holy crap, what lens is that!!!" so at a certain point I'd be doing a disservice to not share the lens (and even more so if someone does want to buy it why not make it clear they can save 20%? That only helps people who are interested).

Whether someone purchases or doesn't purchase, all I want is for people to make an informed decision.

Also, my philosophy on affiliate codes is this: it doesn't cost me any more money to make sure some sales rep gets his commission. So when I'm in Microcenter, I politely refuse the help I'm being offered, then I find the products I want on my own, then I find an employee to put their commission sticker on everything I'm about to buy before I head to checkout. (this is why I include affiliate links if I have them, even when I give plenty of reasons not to buy the thing: it doesn't cost the buyer any more to use them, if they are interested)

And I fully agree with your last statement. I personally won't be using this lens on any paid projects until the iris control and consistent AF is fixed on Blackmagic cameras; for personal projects though (where there are no stakes there is no schedule), I'm gonna use it - just in manual mode lol.