Viltrox is changing the game for camera lenses, with its latest premium prime matching Sony’s best for half the price

Photographers are spoiled for choice these days when it comes to third-party lenses, with Sigma, Tamron, Samyang and others making superb alternatives to costlier proprietary optics from the likes of Sony, Canon, Nikon and Fujifilm. However, there’s another name rightly earning renown in 2024: Viltrox.

The Chinese manufacturer of photography and filmmaking gear has been releasing excellent quality lenses for a few years – including, most recently, autofocus lenses for popular lens mounts – for what is almost always at least half the price of proprietary equivalents, and for the most part with no obvious compromises.

I’ve been shooting with the Viltrox 85mm f/1.8 for Nikon Z-mount for over a year – it costs exactly half the price of Nikon’s own 85mm f/1.8, and I can barely tell the difference between photos from the two lenses.

Viltrox’s stock is only set to rise with the launch of its latest lens, the Viltrox AF 135mm F1.8 LAB. It’s the first of Viltrox’s premium ‘LAB’ series of autofocus lenses, and if the response online from reviewers is anything to go by, it’s near perfection.

Currently it’s only available in the Sony E-mount for Sony mirrorless cameras, including the full-frame Sony A7R V; but the 135mm F1.8 LAB looks incredible, and it’s half the price of Sony’s superb FE 135mm F1.8 GM – and at the time of writing it’s on sale for $764.15 at Amazon the US – that’s 24% off.

As someone who’s particularly keen on but priced out of this type of lens – the five-star rated Nikon Z 135mm f/1.8 S Plena was one of my favorite Nikon lenses of 2024 but it costs $2,499.95 / £2,649 / AU$4,249 – Viltrox’s new lens has certainly grabbed my…