RoamingScott wrote:
And yet I paid half and enjoy it on the Zf from time to time The 1.2's hood, hilariously large though it is, still doesn't block the Fn button either
If you have a bigger camera like the Z8 or Z9, the Viltrox feels downright tiny at least compared to something faster. I can already tell the Viltrox 1.4 would be a no-go on the Zf. Now I'm very curious to see what Nikon does in the 85/1.4 space.
Went out to stress test bokeh in midday light wide open. These aren't meant to be art, these were scenes that had a good range of things happening near to far so you could see how things render wide open.
This lens has a fantastic sharpness across the entire frame. The obvious weak point seems to be the transition zone just behind the focal plane as I came across yesterday, and I'm not a huge fan of distance bokeh busyness. The first photo has the worst of all possible bokeh at every turn.
And one shot that shows the sharpness top to bottom, including a small woodpecker that wasn't even visible during taking it.
Yeah, this jives with what I'm seeing. I really like the bokeh from up close up to around 15 feet away or so. I think it's really pleasing. For more distant subjects, like your cow photo, it can get rather edgy in the distance. Luckily, I don't generally use an 85mm prime for shots like that very often, as it gets mostly used for portraiture for me.
Jman13 wrote:
Yeah, this jives with what I'm seeing. I really like the bokeh from up close up to around 15 feet away or so. I think it's really pleasing. For more distant subjects, like your cow photo, it can get rather edgy in the distance. Luckily, I don't generally use an 85mm prime for shots like that very often, as it gets mostly used for portraiture for me.
I think the hardest circle to square is...what is this lens trying to be? It's certainly not "vintage" with that razor sharpness, lack of LoCA and deep contrast all the way down to wide open, but yet the bokeh is on that border of distractingly busy and doesn't match the moderness that the sharpness belies.
You're not buying an 85/2 to use at f8, so I think the bokeh conversation is probably the most important one. Also I'd be curious how much smoothing/softening in post is going to have to happen for portraits, as I think even f2 is a little too sharp to be flattering.
It's trying to be a quality moderate aperture portrait prime that doesn't break the bank. And I think it succeeds tremendously there. It very much is comparable to the Nikon 85mm f/1.8S, but at 1/3 the cost.
No, it's not going to be as magical for portraits as the 85mm f/1.2S or the 105mm f/1.4E, but those are also enormous and expensive lenses. I don't think the bokeh is anyhwere even close to 'distractingly busy' at portrait distances. On the contrary, I think it renders quite beautifully at those distances.
And if you tend to shoot farm portraits in rural Texas, you tend to care what the background looks like especially at distance. Doubly so when having to deal with heat haze 🫠
During shooting with the EVO today, my ZF failed to boot up, making a constant ticking noise. That’s never happened with any other lens, and I sure have tried a few. Not sure if it was the ibis unit that was stuck or a lens focus motor, but the whole camera wouldn’t boot. Odd.
Lots more testing today, this time with some A/B with the TTA again. Over and over, the TTA images are half a stop brighter at all apertures when shooting in Aperture Priority mode. I have adjusted the TTA exposures down to get closer to how they came out of camera with the Viltrox.
Wide open, the Viltrox often has the edge...sharpness, contrast, "more" bokeh, less flat color thanks to the microcontrast. The Viltrox does, however, have noticeably more vignette. The LR profile for the TTA fixes vignette more evenly than the Viltrox profile, for what it's worth.
Even by F4, the TTA distant bokeh has become smoother, and by all of my metrics, BETTER, than the Viltrox. This is disappointing, because the Viltrox actually has the built in advantage of being a longer focal length and should still be dominating here.
At F8 I really prefer the TTA rendering of distant foliage. Less mechanical, better bokeh balls.
Now, with a more distant in focus subject, we see that even wide open, the Viltrox is killing it. The rivets leap off the image, and the TTA looks downright mushy. This isn't really a use case you'll often encounter, but more of showing how sharp and contrasty the Viltrox is open. These TTA lenses all tend to have a bit of bloom wide open and here we are starting to see that.
And again, by F8, the TTA has caught up to the point of irrelevance (the TTA is actually sharper farther out to the edges than the Viltrox is here). Important if you have any desire for landscape type applications.
The coatings are also quite different. The TTA tends to trend more orange, and the Viltrox more pink at the same white balance (the TTA had to be brought down .7 stops here!). Sunset shows this well.
To my eyes i really like the Viltrox much, much more than TTA. Outside of few transitions, Viltrox really shines for me, especially with contrast and sharpness not to mention build quality.
I think im gonna be happy with it, especially for such a low price.
I think the 85 EVO is a very solid lens esp. considering its size and weight, but it's not for me. My main gripe is the rather strong optical vignetting. It's an understandable compromise to achieve such a compact lens, but I want something with a bit more consistent blur across the frame.
For me it will be a decision between the Sirui 85/1.4 and the Viltrox 85/1.4. The Viltrox is a chonk, but I also regularly use the 800g 70-180mm on the Zf and it's okay as long as I don't have to hold it for hours (=never).
fjablo wrote:
Yep, thanks for the tests, they're very helpful!
I think the 85 EVO is a very solid lens esp. considering its size and weight, but it's not for me. My main gripe is the rather strong optical vignetting. It's an understandable compromise to achieve such a compact lens, but I want something with a bit more consistent blur across the frame.
For me it will be a decision between the Sirui 85/1.4 and the Viltrox 85/1.4. The Viltrox is a chonk, but I also regularly use the 800g 70-180mm on the Zf and it's okay as long as I don't have to hold it for hours (=never)....Show more →
You're welcome, it was interesting to compare them. I wish the Viltrox behaved sort of the opposite...softer open and significantly improving as it went. The vignette is fine and fairly correctable for what it is, but still way worse than the TTA without correcting either.
I've been curious about the Sirui but know very little about them or their other lenses. It sounded like AF was middling.
RoamingScott wrote:
You're welcome, it was interesting to compare them. I wish the Viltrox behaved sort of the opposite...softer open and significantly improving as it went. The vignette is fine and fairly correctable for what it is, but still way worse than the TTA without correcting either.
I've been curious about the Sirui but know very little about them or their other lenses. It sounded like AF was middling.
Agree that AF seems to be the weak point of the Sirui. In the Petapixel review it looked pretty slow. Probably still usable for portraits, but way slower than the Viltrox with its VCM.
The 1.2's hood, hilariously large though it is, still doesn't block the Fn button either 
