Testing the Viltrox EF-M 56mm
Over the years, I’ve built up quite the Canon EF-M lens collection.
I have the tried-and-true Canon EF-M 22mm f/2 – a reliable, sharp, portable pancake lens that shines in every situation. The EF-M 32mm f/1.4 is the 50 mm equivalent, more for portraits and street photography. And then the EF-M kit zoom and 28mm macro rounds out the selection.
Viltrox, before Canon discontinued the EF-M line, produced three fast prime lenses, too, and I have two of them now: the 23mm f/1.4 and 56mm f/1.4.
I took the 56mm for a test drive around the block as golden hour was lighting up the neighborhood.
The Viltrox 56mm is a chunky lens, featuring a tough metal construction, a nice lens hood for protection, and a substantial amount of glass to achieve a wide aperture.
It feels like a quality lens. It performs like one, too: a bit of chromatic aberration wide open, but stop it down a bit and the image quality is excellent.
There’s one little hiccup, though, and that’s that the lens tends to render images darker than they should be. When you preview the image on the back screen, it looks great, but as soon as you snap the photo, the final image feels a stop or two underexposed.
I can adjust my Canon EOS M6 to overexpose a hair or two to get a properly exposed image, so it’s not a big deal, but know the preview image may be misleading.
Viltrox’s 56mm equals about a 90mm field of view on the M’s APS-C sensor, giving you some reach that’s nice for portraits.
For a little north of $200, the Viltrox 56mm is an affordable lens to round out your Canon EF-M set.