I am definitely a huge gearhead when it comes to photography. It drives me crazy but I just love all the equipment, even if some of it I barely ever use.

There was a point in time when I wanted a tonne of lenses, both primes and zooms, to cover every possible situation I may shoot. But luckily I didn't act too deeply on this urge.

When I initially bought into the Fujifilm camera system I grabbed myself a 35mm 1.4 and an 18-50mm 2.8 - 4. These two lenses were decent but left me lacking. The 35mm was ridiculously slow at focusing, and the variable aperture in the zoom irritated me. At this point, Fuji was only my playtime camera so I wasn't too bothered. It did mean that I wouldn't use the zoom too often though. And I wanted a slightly longer lens with a wide aperture. But I didn't want to pay for the 56mm 1.2.

After a little searching, I discovered a little brand called Viltrox that had started releasing lenses for Fuji X mount that also had autofocus! The biggest selling point was that it was so ridiculously cheap! I ordered one straight away.

I instantly fell in love. The lens felt great, was a decent size, focused well and had incredible image quality! Viltrox released a 23mm 1.4 for Fujifilm X-mount, which I also ordered instantly. At this point, I basically stopped using my Fuji lenses and sold the 35mm 1.4 off.

The 23mm 1.4 was similar in every way to the 56mm 1.4 but with one huge exception.. This could just be my copy, but my 23mm focuses like trash! When it's in focus the lens is beautiful and sharp. But it's a lens I don't trust in the slightest! This will be a huge factor later on..

I knew there was an 85mm 1.4 floating around and the reviews were very mixed. I would really shoot over 100mm anyways so that wasn't a lens that I was dying for. However, very hypocritically, when I saw the 75mm 1.2 announced, I jumped on the preorder. Clearly, I just wanted the lens.

The Viltrox 75mm 1.2 is so different to the previous lenses. Firstly, it's huge. Tanking over the 23mm and 56mm in size, width, and weight. Autofocus is vastly better and image quality is a big improvement. All for a very low price too! The only issue I had was that it is equivalent to around a 105mm lens focal length. I've dropped my 75mm 1.2 out of my car onto concrete and it only scratched the lens hood!

The damage my 75mm 1.2 sustained

I purchased a Samyang 12mm f2 manual focus lens a while ago but only used it a handful of times. I hated it. However, Viltrox had so many people saying great things about their 13mm 1.4 that I had to try it out. I found a really cheap copy on eBay and considering it isn't part of their pro lineup,, it feels very similar in build quality! Again, I'm unsure if it's my copy (which maybe why it was being sold cheap) but after zooming in to 100% or more, the image starts looking a little weird. Pixel peeping but that's a massive annoyance for me. It has given me a decent super wide lens though if I ever need it! (I may still sell it yet, I'm undecided).

Finally, we come to the Viltrox 27mm 1.2 Pro. I mostly stick to primes. I pretty much used 13mm, 56mm and 75mm focal lengths for everything but my favourite range is around 23mm to 35mm. Remember I stopped trusting my 23mm, this meant that I was lacking a prime lens in that range. I kept looking at the Fuji 23mm 1.4 but that's pretty expensive and on the slower-to-focus side of things (so I've heard). Viltrox came out with another Pro lens, being the 27mm 1.2 Pro and having owned the 75mm 1.2, I knew to what expect. Decent build quality, a bigger and heavier lens than the non-Pro versions, and great autofocus and image quality. That's exactly what I got!

This lens now sits on my camera 80% of the time. I've pretty much turned into a prime lens only, but also Viltrox-only user! I'm renting a Fuji 16-55mm 2.8 in a couple of weeks so I'll be able to put it against the Viltrox lenses and directly compare one of Fujifilms greatest lenses with the Viltrox Pro series! I have a feeling that I may want to get the Fuji 16-55mm 2.8 after using it and comparing..

My Fuji XH2 paired with the Viltrox 27mm 1.2 Pro lens

My Viltrox lens line up. From left to right 75mm 1.2 Pro, 27mm 1.2 Pro, 13mm 1.4, 56mm 1.4, 23mm 1.4