[Music] Hi I'm Dustin Abbott it's vr's big Lenses that have been getting all of the Press I've Loved lenses like their 16 mm F1.8 that came out for Sony last year It's an incredible lens optically I am Really anticipating seeing what their Proposed lab series that is going to be Even higher end op i al what it is able To perform and come out with but the Truth of the matter is is that when You're traveling it's rarely the big Heavy highest performing lenses that you Reach for but you tend to reach for the Lenses that are Compact and lightweight And that makes another vro lens the Autofocusing 20 mm f2.8 maybe the best Vro lens that exist for travel let me Break down why I've put that to the test On a number of occasions but most Notably kind of what I'm I'm going to Document here is a trip that I took at The end of 2023 beginning of 2024 to Arizona now just to give you a little Bit of a backstory I have got in my kit Right now I have got six wide angle Prime lenses all autofocusing lenses 24 Mm and under in my personal kit the vrox Is easily the least expensive of those Six lenses but it might be my favorite At least when traveling particularly in This case I was traveling with the Sony A7 CR which which is a high resolution But compact camera it's kind of
Pointless to buy or to use a compact Camera if you're going to saddle it with A big heavy lens so a lens like this is A perfect pairing for it and let me tell You why now looking at the lens itself It doesn't necessarily blow you away There's no bells and whistles there There's no buttons no switches no Apertur ring not even weather cealing None of those things but what you do Have is an incredibly compact lens that Also have happens to be high performing The lens is only 65 mm in diameter or 2 2.6 in it's less than 60 mm long 2.3 in And weighs only 157 G it's about 52 oz It uses common inexpensive 52 mm filter Uh or filters up front and it has a very Useful 19 CM minimum Focus distance and A pretty high 0.17 times Magnification inside we got a STM Focus Motor that is quiet and fast and Basically does everything that you would Want for either Stills or video I just I Don't have any complaints about it and I Will note that there have been two Firmware updates to this point from VR That is continuing to improve and to Correct for any kind of flaws great to See that there is some support there That is taking place I can't see that I Say that I've seen the bugs that were Addressed and improvements that were Made but I was already happy with the Performance of the lens anyway now
Optically is where this lens really Surprises particularly for a lens that Is this inexpensive it basically only Has one kind of Quirk SL flaw that's Worth mentioning and that is that at Closer Focus distances like when I'm Doing my test chart you can focus in the Center and get very sharp results in the Center but the extreme Corners will be Soft if you focus in the extreme Corners They will be sharp but now the center Will be soft and so you can't get both At the same time but for Ely out at real World distances as we're going to Explore in just a second you can Actually get nice sharp results all Across the frame and so let's dive in For a moment and let's look a few look At a few of the travel photos from this Trip and how that they demonstrate some Of the qualities that I really like About the lens now the first thing I Want to quickly detail is how a lens Like this so inexpensive held up on a Very high resolution Sony A7 CR so 61 Megapixels if we look at the center of The frame we can see that detail and Contrast this is at f5.6 by the way is Just really impeccable in this portion Of the image you can see that the detail Is there all throughout the frame and You know if you look at this cacti tons Of information there as we pan off Towards the edge of the frame you can
See that yes there is a little bit of Erosion of detail but there is Sufficient detail all the way right up Here into the corner where I think it's More of a depth of field issue than Anything else and so overall I think That most people in most situations are Going to be happy with that kind of Detail and in the center 2third of the Frame it is fantastic of course one of The beautiful things about higher Resolution is the ability to crop in Like this if I want to go do something a Little bit wider you know and here I've Eliminated a lot of that foreground Where depth the field was not there and So what's left obviously is very rich in Detail now interestingly here uh though This is a wide angle lens it does a a Really nice job I thought here of just Kind of capturing the late light and you Can see that the detail on my Daughter-in-law's face looks great and In this case step the field is fairly Shallow even though this is F5.6 but it creates a a look that's Almost a little bit of a cutout against The background so again pretty Impressive for such an inexpensive optic I also have been perfectly satisfied With the colors that I see and you can See that the saturation levels are nice Detail is very good here and I mean There's nothing about this image that
I'm unhappy with I also enjoy the focal Length it's not so extremely wide to be Difficult to compose with but it's a Great kind of classical wide angle focal Length allows me to get you know a great Looking shot at a global level but if You punch into the detail level it looks Great you know right off into the Distance great detail there and Obviously it handled the trans Transition to kind of a Sapia monochrome Really well now flare resistance is not Impeccable you can see there's a little Bit of a ghosting artifact but you can Also see here I have shot right into the Directional sun which in Arizona is Extremely bright and I have retained Enough contrast you can see my family There without any kind of issue and There's still plenty of contrast detail In the image and it has held up just Fine another interesting application is The ability to pop on a wide angle and For this this was was a large group of Family members that were together and You can see that as I kind of pan across All the faces that everybody's face is Nice and crisp there's a lot of detail That is there and so it worked well for That application as well the lens also Has reasonable up close abilities no It's not going to just dramatically blur Out any kind of background you can see That the detail here at close Focus
Distance is not bad and the bouqu again It's not stunningly soft but neither is It objectionable either so another Application and as a bonus I've also Enjoyed this focal link to bring along For event type settings be they uh Church type settings as you can see here There's lots in the frame and then also Here in more in an event type setting And you can see that as I look across The image this is at f2.8 that it does Get a little bit softer here in the Corner but overall the amount of detail Is really fantastic everywhere and again Holding up right basically to the corner So there's a lot good going on in the Optics of this very inexpensive lens and Of course outside of just the Optics It's the convenience of have a lens that Is so small and lightweight that you can Throw it in a lot of different bags even As a secondary option in a very small Bag to have a wide angle perspective Which is how I have often used it as a Compliment to bring along to maybe a a Zoom that this gets me to an actually Wide for example I traveled with the Tamron 28 to 200 mm so it's great but if I wanted to go actually extra wide this Was a beautiful companion for that lens So very very useful the lens that is Most similar to it is another lens that I happen to own that is the samyang AF 18 mm f2.8 now the samyang has the
Advantage of being just a little bit Wider obviously at 18 versus uh 20 Millim but if I as I compare the two Side by side which I just did a fresh Review on 61 megapixel A7 R5 I found That the vro is sharper it has less Distortion it has a better build has Better autofocus a better manual focus Ring and it costs literally half as much As what the samyang does which makes it An easy winner in my opinion this is Probably the best wide angle value best Bang for your buck you can get now not Only on Sony e-mount but on Nikon Z Mount as well you can get it for under $150 or around $200 Canadian dollars um You if you buy it from the VTR store There's a Code Dustin Abbott my name you Can use and it drops another I think 8% Off the price to get it down incredibly Cheap but this lens is just so useful And most importantly it takes photos That I'm perfectly happy with and I Don't feel like I have to compromise in Terms of the size of what I'm bringing Along and when you're traveling you know Often that is the most important thing To say that the best camera is the Camera you have in your hand and if you Have a compact wide-angle lens like this You're more likely to have a good camera Along with you I'm Dustin Abbott if you Want more information you can look in The description down below where there's
Links to both my original uh text review Along with my original video review if You want to do a deeper dive into the Performance itself but from a purely Travel perspective I don't know that There's any wide-angle lens that I would Recommend more this is a incredible Value and certainly worth checking out Thanks as always for watching have a Great day and let the light [Music] In
