All the lenses I have for my Fujifilm X-T cameras are Fujinon. They are wonderful lenses and although expensive, produce exceptional quality images.
There are probably dozens, if not hundreds, of third party lenses from the likes of Sigma, Tamron, Tokina etc. for the most popular brands i.e. Canon and Nikon and Sony, but until recently it has been impossible to get an autofocus third party lens for Fuji. Why would I want a third party lens? Cost. Why pay three times the amount for Fuji if you can get the same or similar from a third party manufacturer?
Most of my lenses are zoom, ranging from 10mm up to 200mm (or 16mm-300mm in 35mm terms). These are great lenses, but what can make a difference, particularly in portrait work, is a fast or wide aperture lens to give that nice bokeh or blurred background effect. The zoom lenses are fast, but not that fast.
So when I came across the Viltrox 85mm f/1.8 mark 2 at one third of the price of the Fujinon I was delighted. It has no weather sealing but the image quality is near enough the same so as to not matter and I doubt I’ll be photographing people in the rain anytime soon.
I took it down to London with me and used it on the streets of the capital. I came across the Extinction Rebellion protests and got some fantastic images of people. You can see the results in the link below. It is a wonderful lens, light, a good quality metal body, autofocus. Although it has no aperture ring like most Fujinon lenses, it can be controlled by the command wheel on the body.
I carried it round with me all day and it was an easy carry. It isn’t a big lens. I crashed it about a few times in the midst of the protests but it survived without a problem.
I have a new favourite lens. I am doing another wedding in Cyprus next year, covid permitting, and this will be a lens I will use a lot. It produces great quality images (ok, the photographer and the camera contribute to that also) and if I do things right I’m sure the couple will be delighted.
The following links show what it can do. Although many of the photos were taken with the Viltrox 85mm f/1.8 mark 2 attached to a Fujifilm X-T3, others were taken with the Fujifilm X100V.
Extinction Rebellion
London Streets
mhbphoto.wordpress.com 