Canon EF 135mm f/2 L USM
Before we start let me warn you this isn’t going to be an unbiased review, I will not be being objective, I am here to declare my love for this lens.
It took some doing to convince myself to part with the amount of cash that an L series lens costs. I was eyeing up the 100mm f/2 USM (not the f/2.8 macro) and I probably would have been happy with that lens if I hadn’t tried out some L series glass in LCE. After that I knew I wouldn’t be settling for anything less.
I am SO glad I did make that jump, the Canon EF 135mm f/2 USM is an exceptionally sharp lens, I thought my 50mm f/1.4 USM was sharp, but it is blown away by this. Even wide open at F/2 it just blows my mind with the level of detail it picks up and the depth of field gets silly small. I took the shot below at f/4 and uploaded the full size image to show off the detail picked up, you should definatly check out the face area, you can see the texture in the paint, every speck of dust, all of it! Take note that this image is 2922px x 4386px and about 2mb eek, still go look at it.
This lens suites my style of shooting so well, if you have ever ventured onto my flickr you’ll have seen low DOF portraits with a healthy helping of bokeh, this lens is already helping me take that to the next level. I’ve only had it week but it has quite possibly ruined me for all other lenses. Telephoto Primes Rock My Socks!
Comments
Adam
I still can’t get over the pure image quality of this lens.
Will Rick now be switching everything to L primes?
Rick
I wish dude, but they are not cheap. I’d love the 35mm f/1.4 L but it’s about £1200! Not I wont be picking that up anytime soon. Next for me is a new bag, I upgraded to one that I thought was HUGE about 5 months ago, now it’s way to small for all my kit. :( I need one roughly the size of a house.
Face
I like your face!
Adam
Yea true, they aren’t cheap. You looked at any of the f-stop bags? Some of them seem to be huge, they look awesome too!
Rick
Chris, don’t be silly. No one likes my face!
Adam, I hadn’t heard of them but I’m not into the style. At the moment I’m looking at some of the big Crumpler bags. I’m gunna go to the store and check them out in a couple of weeks, you can’t buy a backpack with out checking it out first!
Andy
Crumpler Muffin Full Photo bag is awesome dude, I’ve got one and its massive.
Dunno if it’ll be big enough for all the gear you got though, you can fit a 15″ lappy in it too. Theres enough space for about 5 lenses, 1 flash, body and some other smaller lenses (50mm’s).
Just thought I’d drop that by. I can wack up some pictures on flickr if you want cause I know crumpler have no idea how to describe their products.
Andy
Rick
The Muffin is one of the ones I have been looking at, picks would be awesome dude. Thanks.
Guido
Hey Rick,
Would you say you love the bokeh of the 135mm f/2 over your 50mm f/1.4? What are the differences in your opinion? (I know, I’m a Nikon boy and your comparisons won’t be accurate to my lenses, but still…)
Guido
Rick
Guido, there is no comparison, the bokeh is so much more dramatic from the 135mm, it brings the background much closer, it’s much smoother, makes the blobs of light much bigger and the quality of images through the 135 the lens is hugely better, I guess thats why it’s 4 times the price of the 50mm.
@Mitchy79
Just looking through your blog posts and found this older post. The quality of this lense is really amazing!
I bought my first DSLR in April this year and got a 50mm f/1.8 in July. Compared to my kit lense the sharpness of this cheap 50mm is such a big difference. But the quality of your 135mm is just amazing!
Anyway: at this moment I love my 50mm (maybe until I can afford a new love) ;)