Viltrox is making it easier for owners of Fujifilm cameras with silver bodies to accessories. The company has announced “the silver trio” of lenses: the AF 9mm F2.8 Air, AF 15mm F1.7 Air and AF 25mm F1.7 Air for X mount, which you can now get with a coat of silver, rather than black, paint.

Apart from the different coloring, the lenses are the same as the black versions that the company released throughout last year. However, those undeniably looked like many other Viltrox lenses, which themselves have similar styling to the lenses released by other third-party manufacturers. The silver versions might stand out just that bit more, and should better match the myriad cameras that Fujifilm makes in a similar finish. It’s easy to imagine these being mounted to an X-M5, or an X-T30 III.

Despite the “silver trio” name, these lenses join another two X-mount lenses that Viltrox was also producing in silver: the AF 35mm F1.7 Air and the AF 56mm F1.7 Air. 

Of course, there will be those who prefer the black versions, and some people will scoff at the idea that anyone cares about what color their lens or camera body is, and whether those things match. There will also be those that wish the emulation of Fujifilm’s style wasn’t just skin deep, and that the lenses would include things like aperture rings, which both drastically change the aesthetic, as well as the experience of using them.

But whether it makes sense to the function over form crowd, many photographers clearly care about the color and decoration of their gear, as evidenced by the fact that Fujifilm itself sometimes sees fit to create silver versions of its lenses to sit alongside the black ones, and the frequency with which companies like Leica produce equipment in new colors. It’s nice to see a company providing these options on some of its budget-oriented gear as well; the prices vary depending on which lens you’re looking at, but they all come in under the $250 mark.

The silver versions of the lenses are available now from Viltrox’s website, at the same prices of their black counterparts. Humorously, the versions of the lenses for Sony E and Nikon Z mount are still only available in black for the time being (though neither company is as prolific as Fujifilm when it comes to releasing silver cameras).

7Artisans is making its tiny, lightweight 40mm F2.5 lens available to more shooters. The $159 full-frame option launched for Sony E-mount earlier this year after its announcement at CP+, but is now available Nikon Z mount and L mount.

The lens is the same one we saw at the trade show in February. It has a clicking aperture ring, tiny function button, 46mm filter ring and a manual focus ring, as well as a switch to go between manual and auto focus modes. The latter is provided by a stepper motor, and the lens can focus as close as 0.4m (15.7″). Despite this list of features, which is about as complete as you could hope for a compact prime lens, it only comes in at around 90g (3.2oz).

Optically, the lens consists of 7 elements in 6 groups, with one aspheric lens and three high refractive index elements. It has a 9-bladed aperture. 

Zorta / 7artisans

When the lens was announced in February, options for small, lightweight lenses were relatively thin on the ground for Z and L mount users. However, there have since been a few new options released: Panasonic announced its compact 40mm F2, and Viltrox has come out with a tiny 26mm F2.8 pancake for E and Z. Both fit into the same role as a small, walkabout lens (though obviously the 26mm offers a very different focal length), though they are also a fair bit more expensive.

The Z and L mount versions of the 40mm F2.5 are now available through 7artisans’ website, though they haven’t made it to online retailers like Amazon or B&H at the time of writing.