The Strange Appeal of a Tiny Lens｜ Viltrox 26mm F2.8 Pancake

Brought to you by Squarespace, the number one website platform. Camera companies, please hear me out. We need more full-frame lenses like this. This pancake lens made by Viltrox has been glued to my a7C II and dare I say, make shooting with a Sony camera just a little bit more fun. Now, what about the user experience? Because that is one of the more important parts about using a lens like this. Well, first off, I will tell you that I don't think I've ever owned a lens that has garnered so much curiosity. So many people coming up to me, like, hey, what's that lens? I think it's because, obviously, the small size. Sony users are used to seeing small lenses, but not this small. It also looks really good on a camera, and it has a nice, tactile look to it. Now, what happens when you pair this small lens To one of Sony's smallest full-frame cameras, the A7C2, is this a really good everyday carry option? Well, I'll tell you what. Like I said in my Leica video, the Fuji X100V has been my everyday carry for a very long time, but I have fallen out of love with 35mm. The reason is because when I'm next to people, when I'm with people, A lot of times, 35 still isn't wide enough, which is why I started to really embrace 28 millimeter as a good everyday carry. 26 millimeter? It might be a little too wide. Sure, it is. It's a little too wide. If there are people around you, it's really nice to be able to capture everyone around you. But if they're a little farther away, yes, it's a little on the wide end. One of the other benefits of using a setup like this as an everyday carry is how inconspicuous it is, especially given that it's a full frame camera. If I'm going like, you know, taking the dogs for a walk or something like that, I could easily fit it in my sweater pocket here in front. It's not like weighing me down too much. It even fits in my pants pocket. I can put it in a cargo pocket pretty easily. Now, what about the image quality? Now, I'm going to say that this is probably one of the biggest strengths and also one of the biggest weaknesses of this lens. See, looking at the images from the photo shoot and just all together, the centers are usually, they usually look good. There's a lot of detail in the center, and that's all I can ask for with a lens this small. Give me a good center. The problem is, That the moment light starts to enter the lens, this thing starts to flare like crazy. This is a flare monster. Okay. And sometimes those flares can add a nice, a nice look to the image like it did here, but then sometimes it will ruin the image and it will take, remove all the contrast from the photo. And you just literally, it's an unusable photo. So that is something that you need to be aware of with this lens. And what about its autofocus? So my hit rate with this lens is really high when I'm shooting more static subjects, right? It locks onto the eyes pretty quickly, whether I'm shooting humans or dogs. The problem is that it doesn't do well with tracking. So if your subjects are moving, it's probably not gonna be able to keep up. Now, what about for video? I mean, technically this would be a decent vlog lens. It's 26 millimeter. I'm at an arm's length and I got T-Rex arms. So why aren't people talking about it? As this an option for video and I will tell you what it's there's a reason why because this is a photo first lens for sure the focus breathing is pretty horrendous and that's what that's what you get with a pancake lens there's not a lot of room for the elements to move around you see it's not even that bad as long as you got a slow pull see it's actually not that bad so if you're vlogging you should be totally fine and those flares are nuts look at that and then it goes back see it's that Right here. All right. I'm going to take a quick second and thank my sponsor, Squarespace. Now, my website is the one part of my business that I never have to stress about. My portfolio, my online store, my off-camera flash mini course all live there. It's how I make money while I sleep. And I built my entire course all by myself using their templates and AI tools. No coding knowledge needed. The few times I've had a question, I hit up their 24-7 customer support and got it all sorted out Look, social media is great. But your website is the one place that you can actually control, and that's why I take mine seriously. So go check it out for yourself, and if you love it, use the code MANNY and you will get 10% off your first purchase. Now this might be a pancake lens, but there are a lot of nifty features that come with it, including this magnetic lens cap. Alright, so here you are getting a dedicated aperture ring along with a separate manual focus ring at the end. For autofocus, it has an STM motor, has a minimum focusing distance of 20 centimeters, a size and weight of 130 grams, right, feels like nothing, has a filter thread size of 43 millimeter, and it is a machined metal with a weather gasket at the end. Now, this lens also comes with a lens hood. But I don't have it here because I threw it away. And ever since I moved into my garage and my studio, I've been just trying to throw everything out. So I threw away the box, not realizing that there was a lens hood in there. And I believe the lens hood is how you attach filters to the lens. So I will not be able to take advantage of that. Now, my only two gripes with this lens are. Well, flaring would be the first one. If you can get over the flaring, you're going to enjoy the image quality. And the second one is that if you're putting this lens on a smaller camera like the A7CII and you got big fingers, not even big fingers, I have medium regular fingers, all right? And this aperture ring, these little blades here are kind of sharp, and it will be rubbing up against your fingers. So on a smaller camera with a smaller grip, it can be uncomfortable to hold in a hand. Well, depending on how you hold the camera. But other than that, I would say that this lens is for someone. Who wants to make their Sony camera feel less like a work tool. Because that is exactly what it does for me. Seeing this camera on the counter, I don't hesitate taking it with me. If I don't use it, I can put it in the side, you know, in my car. Just put it in the, it's easy to hide. It fits in your pocket. You know, this just, it makes a great run and gun setup lens. Datcam. It looks good. I want to see more lenses like this. I see Lumix. Lumix is doing it. Lumix is putting out some pancake, the 14-20. Phil Trox would love to see more lenses like this in different focal lengths. That'd be really dope. So, yeah, anyway, thank you so much for making it up to this point. When I film my videos, I'm doing multiple takes because I'm scared to go on tangents because I know that I will lose people's attention. When I go on tangents, like right now, in my head, I was thinking about, I want to talk about why I love pancake lenses and going back to this core memory, whatever. And I thought about saying it for a split second. My ADHD is like, Ooh, I want to just go down this rabbit, you know, but I realized that I got to stop myself. Got to get straight to the point. You know, I'm just, I'm just a huge fan of pancake lenses. You know, I like the aesthetic of a smaller lens on a larger camera and all goes back. to this one day i was in downtown when i first started photography i think i had a rebel at the time rebel t3i and i saw this guy with a bigger camera which was like a 5d3 with a pancake lens maybe like the 28 f2 or 2.8 the little 28 millimeter i think and that to this day i still think about that i'm like something about that setup was just so nice aesthetically you know and So to this day, I'm a big fan of pancake lenses. The problem is that I am mostly a full frame shooter and we don't have a lot of pancake lenses for full frame. This is what makes APS-C so attractive, especially the Fuji system where you can, they have tons of pancake lenses available for their cameras. And so for full frame, we have a lot of small lenses, but we don't have a lot of them that are this small.