VILTROX 28mm F4.5 Pancake Lens for Sony E - Auto Focus Ultra-Thin Prime Wide Angle Full Frame Lens

This isn't a long term review, I've taken about 100 photos with it and so far I'm really impressed! First, build quality. I admit I didn't expect much considering the 100 dollar price tag yet I was pleasantly surprised to find it's really quite good! Lots of metal and feels like a well thought out design. No option for manual exposure, your stuck with f4.5 but when you consider the price and overall fun factor of this lens it's a great buy! Picture quality is very acceptable for an informal, light walk around lens. Auto focus while not world class speed is more than acceptable. It has it's drawbacks but they are far, far outweighed by it's size , weight , acceptable photo quality and just the overall fun factor. For 100 bucks Viltrox hit it out of the park!

Nice lens, nothing to bad about it.

Easy to use and quality is good.

Small and compact. Image quality is fantastic for the price. Definitely a for fun lens that you take whenever you're in a hurry and want to take a picture with a dedicated camera rather than a phone.

This helps me want to bring my camera everywhere. Excellent quality and results

I've been trying out this lens, and it's a lightweight, compact pancake lens designed for portability, ideal for travel or street photography. The autofocus is fast and silent, which pairs well with my Sony a7IV camera, but the lens lacks a manual focus ring, limiting tactile control for precise focusing. Optical quality is solid for its size, with good sharpness in the center at wider apertures and reasonable corner performance stopped down. However, distortion is noticeable, and chromatic aberration can appear in high-contrast scenes.Pros- Extremely compact and lightweight, perfect for on-the-go shooting.- Fast and silent autofocus performance.- Good optical sharpness for its price and size.Cons- No manual focus ring for fine adjustments.- Noticeable barrel distortion in images.- Some chromatic aberration, especially in challenging lighting.

You have to give it to Viltrox to be the first to come up with a pancake autofocus lens for the Sony E-mount. Granted you are stuck at a fixed f/4.5 aperture and there is no manual focusing but these are the things you have to give up to get this lens down to the size. The rear lens cap is literally half the length of the lens. The front element is protected by a little cover that you operate via a little toggle at the front of the lens. You have to ensure that it is in the open position when you turn on your camera otherwise you will run into issues where the camera doesn't start. I use this on my Sony Alpha 7CR and the results are pretty good but the high resolution sensor can out resolve this lens. For for APS-C cameras this lens would not have that problem since the center area is the sharpest and tends to be less so at the edges.

Wanted a small lens to keep my setup simple and clean and this looked perfect. Out of the box it’s crazy thin, barely sticks out past the grip, weighs next to nothing. Popped it on and the wide angle is great for street shots and quick snaps. Autofocus locks on fast, quiet too, and the image quality is solid. It's sharp enough for casual use, colors pop nice. Appreciate the built in slide cap, keeps it protected without fuss. Only gripes are it’s stuck at f/4.5 so low light’s a stretch. For the price it’s a steal, makes my camera more portable, just don’t expect pro optics.