Viltrox PFU RBMH 85 mm f/1.8 STM review - Introduction

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Viltrox PFU RBMH 85 mm f/1.8 STM

14 October 2019

Arkadiusz Olech

1. Introduction

Lately we've seen a heavy crop of companies that, while entering the market of independent optics, offered mainly manual lenses produced in Asia, designed for both reflex and mirrorless cameras. If you wanted to compile a list of them it would be really long, including companies like, for example, Samyang, IBE Optics, Irix, Meike, Mitakon, Sain Sonic, SLR Magic, Laowa, or Yongnuo.

What's more, from time to time we find out there are yet new players which try to conquer the market with their products. One of such players is Viltrox, a company which introduced themselves to the world at large during the Photokina 2018, by presenting two full frame lenses designed for mirrorless cameras. The first one was a manual, 1.8/20 construction with the Sony FE mount. The second one was even more interesting - an 1.8/85 instrument, it was offered with both Sony FE and Fuji X mounts. And it came with an autofocus motor.

We have been in the middle of organizing a shipment of 85 mm models for our tests when the Polish Viltrox distributor informed us that soon a Sony mirrorless version would be equipped with an autofocus mechanism as well. Hearing the news we decided to wait for it and check in practice both Sony FE and Fuji X autofocus models.

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We would like to thank Prolite, the Polish distributor of Vlitrox products, for sending us the lenses for testing purposes.

You are also invited to get acquainted with our test procedure, described in the article "How do we test lenses?" If you feel it’s still not enough, please go to our FAQ section where you can find some further explanation.