The Viltrox 16mm f/1.8: A Budget Ultra-Wide with Pro Performance?

The Viltrox 16mm f/1.8: A Budget Ultra-Wide with Pro Performance?

When it comes to lenses, photographers who hear "ultra-wide" and "fast apertures" are usually bracing for an equally impressive price tag. The Viltrox 16mm f/1.8, however, seeks to deliver excellent optical quality and unique lens features at a reasonable price—in this review, I’ll see if Viltrox can execute a truly great ultra-wide prime.

The Viltrox 16mm f/1.8 caught my eye for a couple of reasons. I enjoy the image quality and capture possibilities made possible by ultra-wide and fast lenses, particularly for landscape and nature photography in low light. I am also always curious to see how third-party manufacturers handle the challenges associated with these more unique lens types. Lastly, while at NAB, I saw that this lens had a few unique handling features that I wanted to test in the field.

Build and Specs

Whether you’re into landscapes, architecture, astrophotography, or videography, the Viltrox 16mm f/1.8 should appeal to you. As a 16mm (24mm equivalent on APS-C) lens, it’s a desirable focal length, albeit a somewhat large and expensive option for many APS-C shooters. The fast f/1.8 aperture, while not as fast as some of the very newest dedicated ultra-wide lenses, like the Sigma 14mm f/1.4, is still at the top of the pack and offers a noticeable performance bump over f/2.8 or slower lenses when shooting astro or available light.

Picking up the lens, one of the first things you’ll notice is the solid build. With an entirely metal housing and a weight of around 550 g or 19.4 oz, this lens is a well-made prime that feels a bit larger and heavier than some narrower focal length options, like the Sony 20mm. However, it’s still a considerable weight savings over the largest ultra-wides, like the Sony 12-24mm f/2.8 and Sigma 14mm. I’d call it a “medium-large” prime if I were casually categorizing it.

Viltrox uses all that weight to good effect. They managed to pack in a 15-element, 12-group optical formula, using high-performance elements like three aspherical elements and four ED elements. These special elements help reduce distortion, improve sharpness, and minimize chromatic aberration—particularly important since this lens avoids the “bubble” front common on many ultra-wides as a design compromise. Instead of a bubble, this lens has a regular front filter thread with a 77mm diameter, which is quite reasonable for ultra-wide lenses and a nice feature for landscape photographers who prefer traditional filters.

Along with the metal construction, the lens is weather-sealed, with close-fitting construction and a rear gasket. The aperture ring provides clicks at 1/3-stop intervals and features a generous A-mode detent.

Also present on the body are a few special features, including a USB-C port on the bayonet for firmware upgrades, an LCD screen that displays focus distance, DOF, aperture, or other settings, and two function buttons under the AF/MF switch. Together, these features add up to a customizable, feature-rich lens, particularly compared to more utilitarian primes from Sony or Nikon.

The only area where build quality doesn’t feel top tier is the lens hood. The attachment mechanism is friction-only, without a reassuring detent, and it snags on Viltrox’s included lens cap. Lastly, the clearance for the hood is pretty narrow: if you aren’t lined up perfectly, you’ll see vignetting. Overall, it’s not a major issue. I’d suggest running a simple clear filter for better protection from spray and dust anyway, as this lens has great flare resistance even without the hood.

Image Quality

One of the strongest features of this lens is the pure image quality. Even at f/1.8, this lens is excellent in the center and very strong in the corners, matching or exceeding significantly more expensive lenses like the Sony 14mm f/1.8 and Sony 12-24mm f/2.8. Stopping down gives the lens even more bite, with improvement across the frame as you stop down to f/2.8, with f/4 giving the best performance across the frame overall.

Chromatic aberration is well controlled on my a7R V, peaking at around one pixel. While you can easily correct this, I never found it to be a significant issue.

Distortion is also very low, making this a great option for architecture and real estate. Lightroom includes a correction profile, further reducing the appearance of any barrel distortion that does appear.

Vignetting is the only real challenge, with noticeable vignetting at f/1.8 requiring correction for most uses. It improves when stopping down, with the best results at f/4. I can’t take too many points off for this, as vignetting is common across basically all fast ultra-wide lenses (and arguably most modern lens designs in general).

Bokeh, while tough to produce on such a wide lens, looks pleasant enough. The aspherical elements can create a bit of outlining, but this really isn’t meant to be a creamy portrait lens, and I don’t think it’ll be noticeable outside test conditions.

For astrophotography, coma is quite well controlled, and I would put this in the upper tier of astro lenses for wide angle work.

The Viltrox 16mm also demonstrates excellent resistance to flare in scenarios where the sun is either in frame or just out of frame. For a wide lens with a complex optical formula, this is a very strong result. At night, slight rainbow flares can appear on the opposite side of the frame from the light source, particularly in dark areas like the night sky. In cityscapes and urban night photography, this can cause a small issue, but it would be much harder to produce in night photography in nature.

Video users will also be pleased to see minimal focus breathing and smooth transitions thanks to the stepping motor (STM) implementation. The clickless aperture ring and support for front variable ND filters also help make this a great video option.

While AF performance on an ultra-wide is usually less of a consideration compared to something like a 70-200mm f/2.8, it's still important. Here, the Viltrox shows good performance thanks to the STM motor: it focuses promptly, confidently, and accurately, even in low light. When used with video modes, I had great results with eye tracking, assuming your subject is close enough for the 16mm focal length to create a big enough target.

The Viltrox 16mm f/1.8 really does deliver a pro-level set of features at a very reasonable price. Creating images sharper than lenses that cost twice as much, the value is undeniable.

Furthermore, it avoids many of the pitfalls of budget-focused lenses, like poor build quality or cut features, with Viltrox providing a rock-solid build and feature list (even including features beyond first-party lenses). The 16mm focal length is excellent, and while ultra-wide enthusiasts might still want 14mm or 12mm options for the widest field of view, 16mm still delivers that “wow” factor. This focal length also has enough separation from 20mm or 24mm lenses to justify the extra slot in the bag.

For Sony shooters, this lens is an incredible value over the Sony 14mm f/1.8. While not as wide, the Viltrox 16mm is an optical-performance equal with added features—all at a much lower price.

Whether you’re a professional photographer looking for a pack-leading ultra-wide option or an enthusiast looking to explore ultra-wide photography at a reasonable price point, the Viltrox 16mm f/1.8 is a top recommendation. The Viltrox 16mm f/1.8 is available from B&H in both Sony E Mount (as tested) and Nikon Z mount.

What I Liked

  • Excellent image quality, even compared to lenses costing 2 or 3 times as much
  • Great build quality
  • Interesting and useful features like dual function buttons and an LCD screen add value
  • USB-C port for updates alleviates some of the worry around future firmware changes

What Could Be Improved

  • Lens hood fit and quality lags the rest of the excellent build
  • Heavy vignetting wide open
Alex Coleman's picture

Alex Coleman is a travel and landscape photographer. He teaches workshops in the American Southwest, with an emphasis on blending the artistic and technical sides of photography.

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8 Comments

As an experienced astrophotographer who has owned this lens, it’s actually pretty terrible. Awful astigmatism wide open, and the vignetting is so strong that it’s difficult to get sufficient corner and edge illumination with acceptable star trailing unless you’re tracking - and the point of using a fast ultra wide is that you don’t have to track.

How on earth did you come to the conclusion that it’s a top tier lens for astro? You don’t have a single sample in the article?

Did you get a bad sample? Vignetting is an issue, as I pointed out, but coma and sharpness are good. Astigmatism was fine in my sample, particularly for a sub-$600 lens.

Lastly, I didn’t say top-tier for astro: there’s lenses like the Sigma 15mm f/1.4 that perform better, but cost 3x. It’s in the upper tier, particularly in light of the price and on the Sony E/Nikon Z mount. It’s like you’re saying no lens can be good if it isn’t as sharp as a 400mm f/2.8.

Feel free to post your sample astro images, would love to see them.

Anytime a lens underperforms the “bad sample” thing gets trotted out. If they’re willing to let sub par product out of their factory then that’s what a consumer can expect when they buy the lens. I’m not alone in my assessment, I’ve seen plenty of similar reports from other disappointed consumers. Buy cheap, buy twice.

Here’s your exact words “For astrophotography, coma is quite well controlled, and I would put this in the upper tier of astro lenses for wide angle work.”

“Upper tier” = top tier. You can’t really be falling back on semantic gymnastics. From my experience and the collected experience of other astrophotographers I’ve seen, for astrophotography this lens is mid. We all wanted it to be better because of the price but dreams are dreams. I’ve also seen reports that the silly LCD screen fills the lens with IR light contamination which makes it useless for use with a modded camera.

Not trying to tear a strip off you, but I’ve seen too many disappointed people spend money down this dead end to keep quiet, myself included.

I’m mentioning “bad sample” because your experience isn’t really lining up with the variety of reviews from established publications - can you point to a published review that draws a major optical issue with the lens? Wide and fast lenses are among the lenses more liable to show QC issues, so it wouldn't be unheard of to see QC issues, but that just hasn't been the experience of a variety of reviewers.

As for the IR issue, I don’t have an astro-modded camera and can’t speak to it. It’s a real concern, but beyond the scope of a mass-market review.

Overall, I think expectations need to be a bit tempered: it’s a $600 lens that performs quite close to a $1500 lens (Sony 14 1.8), and therefore represents a very good value. If someone has a sub $1.6K budget, I think this lens should still be mentioned alongside the Sigma 14, Sony 14, and others. I'm curious to hear what you would put in the upper tier/top tier for a fast UWA.

I’m not disputing that it’s a significantly cheaper option, I’m making the argument that it’s mid-tier. If you’re trying to make a value argument then at that point you may as well save a few more $$, buy a Samyang/Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 and call it a day.

You’re making an argument to authority and comparing my experience to the opinions of “established publications” (most or all of which haven’t done any dedicated astro testing from what I’ve read/watched). And then posing a non-sequitur question back to me to change the topic. What you’re not doing is showing your work by providing even a single sample.

Which strongly implies that you haven’t actually done any astrophotography with the lens.

Attached are the MTF’s from Viltrox’s own website which clearly show degraded corner/edge performance as well as corner astigmatism at 30LPM, if you’re familiar with how to read an MTF. (Edit, it won’t attach, but is obviously available on Viltrox’s website for interested parties)

There's always a cheaper lens. The Rokinon is a good option if price is the entire priority, but for the various models under that name you'll lose a stop of light, AF functionality (or spend $200 more for the AF model), and deal with documented QC issues, all for a savings of $50 to $200 vs the Viltrox. If your earlier argument was that consumers should spend more for a better lens, the Viltrox vs Samyang comparison is a no-brainer.

The "argument to authority" is not made on the basis of reputation - they have documented in photos, videos, and via quantitative tests like Imatest strong optical performance from the Viltrox 16mm. It's stronger evidence than a single anecdotal experience and it represents the consensus of reviewers in a variety of conditions, across a number of lens samples. If you have results to the contrary, it'd be great to document it and broaden everyone's knowledge.

As for the MTF's, Sony and even Sigma's 14mm graphs also show weaknesses when you get out to the corners and edges - that's just the reality of a wide and fast lens. Hence I go back to the question of what benchmark lens you're thinking of, because these lenses would also face some scrutiny per your standards.

I think the only real IQ improvement would come from the SIgma 14mm f/1.4, an S-tier astro option at 2x the weight, 2.5x the cost, and with no ability to use front filters; leaving the original conclusion that the Viltrox is a "Budget Ultra-Wide with Pro Performance" still standing.

I have a few Viltrox lenses, I love them, terrific value and quality. The poor lens hood quality and fit is a common theme across there models. Hope they fix it.

That's unfortunate! It's a bit surprising as it really feels like a plastic part is an "easier" aspect of design compared to optical elements and AF motors.