Conclusion

The Viltrox AF 85mm F2.0 EVO is a compellingly compact, lightweight and affordable portrait prime lens for Sony full-frame mirrorless cameras that delivers excellent results with the minimum of fuss.

This compact optic delivers excellent sharpness in the centre of the frame almost throughout its entire aperture range, even performing well wide-open, although you'll need to stop down to get similar quality at the edges of the frame. 

Bokeh is very attractive thanks to the 9-blade aperture and there is little evidence of either distortion or chromatic aberrations. The only real optical issue of note is some obvious vignetting when shooting wide-open at f/2-f/4.

It provides fairly fast, reliable and almost-silent auto-focusing on the A7CR that we tested it with, although it's not quite as quick as the Sony alternatives, and manual focusing is also a pleasurable experience thanks to the nicely damped ring.

It offers an acceptable level of build quality and some basic weather-sealing too, a real bonus given the ultra-budget price-tag, and there's even a dedicated USB-C port to help make firmware upgrades easier to perform.

You might presume that this lens is trying to offer too much for its exceedingly modest £265 / $275 price-tag, but you'd be wrong. Other than the vignetting and the slightly slower f-stop than its main rivals, most notably the Sony FE 85mm f/1.8, there is a lot to like and very little to complain about.

If you value compactness over the greater bokehlicious qualities of a much larger f/1.4 85mm lens, but still want lots of features and excellent image quality, then the new Viltrox AF 85mm F2.0 EVO is an easy recommendation that's also very easy on your wallet.

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	4.5
Features	4.5
Ease-of-use	4.5
Image quality	4.5
Value for money	5