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Viltrox has announced its new AF 26mm F2.8 EVO lens

It's available in Sony E and Nikon Z-mount versions, and costs $299 / £279

It measures 23.8mm thick and weighs 4.6oz / 130g

Chinese lens manufacturer Viltrox is having a prolific year, and it's now followed up a recent pair of medium-telephoto primes for APS-C cameras with a completely new 26mm f/2.8 pancake lens.

The AF 26mm F2.8 EVO is part of the same mid-range series as my recently tested AF 90mm F2.2 EVO , and is available for Sony E and Nikon Z-mount cameras at launch. It costs $299 / £279.

Compact size and light weight are the aim here — the 26mm F2.8 is just 23.8mm thick and tips the scales at 4.6oz / 130g. I can see it pairing nicely with a Sony A7C / A7C II or Nikon Zf as a casual, everyday lens offering surprisingly sharp image quality.

It's not the smallest autofocus full-frame lens in Viltrox's range, mind you — that accolade goes to the AF 28mm F4.5 . However, given the bright f/2.8 aperture and the features on board, the new 26mm lens seems impossibly small.

Those features include a dust- and splash-resistant machined metal construction, dedicated aperture and focus rings, a metal rear mount with a USB-C port for firmware updates, and a STM focus motor for snappy autofocus.

Viltrox Viltrox Viltrox Viltrox Viltrox Viltrox And there's more: the AF 26mm F2.8 EVO ships with a magnetic lens cap that snaps into place, eliminating the fiddling that comes with traditional pinch-release lens caps.

It's part of a lens cap system which includes a magnetic lens hood, which also works with magnetic lens filters. Alternatively, traditional screw-on filters work too, via the 43mm thread.

I hope other lens manufacturers follow Viltrox's lead — lens caps can be a real pain to remove and re-attach, but a magnetic type simplifies the process.

Optically, we have a simple construction of eight elements in six groups, with a minimum focus distance of 0.2m which results in a 0.2x maximum magnification, for reasonable close-up photography.

The Viltrox AF 26mm F2.8 EVO is available immediately in Sony E and Nikon Z versions from Amazon US and Viltrox's official store . There's no word yet on whether L-mount or Fujifilm X-mount versions are on the way.

Yes, Fujifilm X is APS-C format, but I can see the full-frame Viltrox lens working well with these crop-sensor cameras, even for Sony and Nikon, on which it would offer an equivalent 39mm focal length.

It's yet another new Viltrox lens available for Nikon Z cameras, which suggests that the Nikon vs Viltrox lawsuit from earlier this year has quietly been resolved. I hope that's the case, because Viltrox has consistently produced excellent optics, and the AF 26mm F2.8 EVO looks like an impressive addition. Look out for my in-depth review, coming soon.

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