Viltrox AF 15mm f/1.7 Air Review

Viltrox just released the AF 15mm f/1.7 Air, a wide and fast APS-C lens with autofocus. This lens is available for Nikon Z, Sony E, and Fuji X. I think it could be especially interesting for Nikon Z shooters who don’t have very many dedicated DX lenses, especially fast primes. In this review, I’ll share my experience testing the Viltrox AF 15mm f/1.7 Air and show how it performs.

Disclaimer: I tested this lens on the Nikon Z6, which in crop mode is essentially a 12MP APS-C camera.

Build and General Features

This new Viltrox 15mm f/1.7 is a cute little prime. It’s a sleek design whose only control is a smoothly-turning focus ring. It has autofocus, which I’d say is about average in speed. It’s accurate and isn’t slow, but it’s not extremely fast. Here are the lens’s basic specs:

• Mount: Nikon Z DX (also available for Sony E and Fuji X)
• Aperture: f/1.7-f/16
• Focal Length: 15mm (22.5mm FF equivalent)
• Aperture Blades: 9 (Rounded)
• Construction: 12 elements, 10 groups
• Special Elements: 3ED elements, 2 high refractive, 2 aspherical
• Minimum Focus Distance: 0.23m (9.1″) with 0.1x Magnification
• Filter Size: 58mm
• Weight: 180 grams (0.4 pounds)
• Price: $239

It’s got a 58mm thread like many other Viltrox primes, which makes it easy to swap filters between them. The lens has a so-so minimum focus distance of 0.23m (9 inches).

This lens feels relatively durable and has a metal mount, but it is without weather sealing. Personally, I don’t mind that much as I rarely would use this lens in really harsh conditions, but it’s something to keep in mind.

Overall, the Viltrox 15mm f/1.7 Air feels like a nice continuation of some of the previous releases from Viltrox: decently built, a promising set of features, and perfect for those that want something compact for lighter travel.

Optical Features

My first impression of this lens was quite favorable. But let’s take a look at very tight center crops of a $20 dollar bill to check out the center sharpness:

We see that there is some softness at f/1.7, but the lens gets much sharper at f/2.8. Stopping down further to f/5.6 and f/8 produces increasing levels of diffraction.

What about the corners?

Again, they’re slightly soft at f/1.7, getting much better at f/2.8 and even better at f/4. Then at f/5.6 and narrower, they get slightly softer again. So for a very rough approximation, it seems that between f/2.8-f/4 is the best range for this lens, with f/4 being a sweet spot.

In practice, f/1.7 is a very usable aperture, although you can definitely notice a slight improvement when stopping down.

Now let’s take a look at a shot of a flat grid:

A little bit ripply, with some paper-curling pincushion distortion at the corners, but not too bad. There’s also a relatively high amount of vignetting, which seems to be the norm for Viltrox’s recent lenses and a compromise for the light weight of the lens. It gets a bit better stopped down, but not too much. You’ll definitely need to correct it a little in post in some cases.

Now let’s check out the bokeh on a very busy background of out of focus branches and trees at three apertures:

It stays pretty rounded even when stopped down. Not bad!

So far, things have been looking nice for this lens. You might be wondering, are there any serious weaknesses? There is a one that could be minor or not, depending on how you intend to use it: flaring. In some cases with a bright, concentrated light in the frame – or just outside the photo – you might get some unusual flaring in the form of a straight, thin line:

It doesn’t happen in all shots, and seems to happen most when the sun in near the edge of the frame or slightly out of it. I suspect part of the problem could have been solved by a slightly longer hood on Viltrox’s part; I had success blocking it with my finger without actually blocking the image. In my opinion, this could be a concern for landscape photographers, as it’s not very easy to remove in post.

The other main downside is the lack of VR or optical stabilization in the lens, especially since all current Nikon Z APS-C cameras lack image stabilization.

Conclusion

After using this lens for a few weeks, I found it to be a pretty nice 15mm lens. It’s not perfect, but its MSRP of $239 means it’s a solid contender for Nikon APS-C users who need this focal length. I feel this could be a great travel and vlogging lens. Although it has some flaring issues, its reasonable sharpness and good bokeh means that it performs well enough in most situations.

If you’re interested in this lens, please consider buying it through the affiliate links below. It won’t cost you anything extra and it supports one of the few remaining independent photography websites on the internet:

1. Buy it from B&H Photo for $239 – Nikon Z
2. Buy it from B&H Photo for $239 – Sony E
3. Buy it from B&H Photo for $239 – Fuji X