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‘nifty fifty’ might be the classic standard prime for full-frame cameras but we like the 40mm focal length of this lens. It’s an ideal halfway house between 50mm and a more wide-angle 35mm prime, and works really well for all sorts of shooting scenarios. This Viltrox goes head-to-head with the Nikon Z 40mm on test but undercuts it for price. The Viltrox features a metal rather than plastic mounting plate but is nevertheless only 10g heavier, weighing in at just 180g. It also comes complete with a lens hood, whereas Nikon doesn’t even list one for its lens as an optional extra.
One downside is that the Viltrox is two-thirds of an f/stop slower than the Nikon, rated at f/2.5 compared with f/2. The optical path is based on 10 elements arranged in six groups. These include an aspherical element, an ED (Extra-low Dispersion) element and three HRI (High Refractive index) elements. As we’re seeing increasingly in thirdparty lenses, a USB-C port is featured for applying firmware updates, should they be needed. Like many lenses that are designed with compactness in mind, there’s no AF/MF switch, so you need to make the change from controls or menus on the host camera body.