(purchased for $900), reviewed November 2nd, 2015 But If you want the "look" you get with a medium telephoto at f/2, hen all those negatives become irrelevant. You may need to refocus your subject as the temperature changes throughout the night. Then you should have tried the 180mm nikkor ED, the old one, which is the favorite tool of a lot of astrophotographers. One of Canon's best lenses for a reasonable price. Try to have eyes and nose / lips all in focus. I got my first 400 around 50 years ago, and I must say that each step forward feels like a revolution, for a while. The 135L is half the weight of the 70-200 2.8IS. The presentation and hands-on look and feel of the 135mm F/2 lens is impressive considering the reasonable price of this lens. "Bokeru" is a verb, and it can apply equally to to optical and psychological effects, including the reduced mental clarity that can some with age. In general, prime telephotos should outperform zooms. As I posted on the Petapixel variant of this article, cropping a 85/1.4 shot to a 135mm-equivalent FoV gives you approx. However, for $15 I also bought an old Tamron Adaptall 2, 135 mm f2.5. thank you for that great review and also the explanations. never mind.. confirmed from others that F19 is indeed the one that is excluded on this lens! The North America Nebula captured using the 135mm lens with a clip-in Ha filter. This lens is available on Amazon for most camera bodies. This is one of my all time favourites. IS is useful in my f/4 zooms but I don't need it to hand-hold this lens. It allows to push your main subject matter into abstraction wide open and get very detailed images stopped down. (Actually if I can live with the DoF I prefer it to my 85/1.2 too, as there is much less bonus colour.) Seems to me that with your gallery and website of images you should refrain from passing judgment on who is and isn't a photography master. It requires the Contax-EOS adapter for attachment to the camera. For DPReview, it's also an opportunity for a good old-fashioned camera fight. The Sadr Region in Cygnus, including the Crescent Nebula by Eric Cauble. While some people LOVE the bokeh circles (first photo), others hate them and consider them a distraction.The 50mm f/1.8 is hardly a lens to talk about. If you buy a nifty fifty or a 100mm macro lens you simply cannot go wrongyou will get a great and handy lens for your money, with great image quality. A promising start, no doubt, but not a master yet! I am no stranger to the full manual control of this lens, for both aperture and focus. http://www.idyll.com/laney2014 Bokeh == Visual character of the lens optics to render light and color mixing together. If the title had been: "Testing My First Telephoto and LOVING IT!!!!!!!. (Suggesting that diffraction limiting is only part of the story with lens softness at tiny apertures.). Super Sharp.Super Fast AF. F2 allows higher shutter speeds in lower light without raising the ISO. If you want autofocus and great value for money, buy the Canon 135mm, as it has almost the image quality of the Samyang, and you can get it for under $1,000 new. I've owned a few L lenses and while their USM motors have always been quick to snap in focus, this 135mm is on a different level. 2. After the first exposure in M mode, the camera throws an error saying Error please press the shutter button again. Also, accurate guiding is essential. Of my last 3500 shots only 62 were made with the 135 f/2. I am a complete amateur at photography in general and this is all new to me so thank you for all the information and videos. So whats so great about shooting at 135mm anyway? The clip-in Astronomik 12nm Ha is one of their most popular filters ever and for good reason! This summer I'm going to try the lenses out for LRGB images to see how they perform. These were just a tad less sharp at the corners than their Canon competition, but certainly extremely sharp all over the field if closed down one stop or even half a stop. A camera tracker (or star tracker) is necessary for long exposure deep-sky astrophotography, but a compact model such as the iOptron SkyTracker or Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer will do just fine. Some lenses are incurable. I was expecting a lot more of an article that says "the best telephoto lenses for astrophotography". You're right, but a headshot is exactly where I want to see all those megapixels I bought put to use! Photos posted are pleasing but I'd be into seeing something new. It has just a hint of chromatic aberration on very bright stars and, if highly enlarged by 400-800%, the stars in the very corners barely begin to show a touch of astigmatism. Canon EF 135mm f/2 L USM (72mm filters, 0.9m/3' close-focus, 25.0 oz./708g, about $1,035.) This lens is available for several camera mounts, including Nikon, Sony, Pentax, Samsung, and Fuji. A series of such images can be digitally stacked to produce excellent results. The Nikon D810A, however, is modified for astrophotography out of the box. here some information (sorry only in italian) http://www.astrovale-usm/index.html I used this lens quite a bit years ago as my main working lens. But the Rokinon f/2 version fits into a different market. This is a stunning lens, clearly one of the very best lenses that Canon produces, this is in the same world class as the 35 1.4, 85 1.2 L lenses. http://www.radiantlite.com/2009/01/canon-135mm-f2l-usm-mini-review.html however i started to realise how every subject might actually be a cardboard cutout being photographed. (Dpreview), Use the 500 Rule to find the Perfect Exposure Length for Astrophotography, Use a DSLR Ha Filter for Astrophotography, AstroBackyard | Astrophotography Tips and Tutorials2023, Optical Construction: 11 Glass elements in 7 Groups. I will say that at F/4 this lens is extremely sharp corner to corner when used on my 60Da. If they could make 135 f2 lighter version with AF for Sony and price is slightly under Sigma 135 /1.8 and obviously Batis 135 2.8 it could sell like hotcakes. They're heavy, and expensive, but you can carry one lens instead of three, and can vary the compression and field of view to a significant degree - from nearly normal, to long portrait focal lengths. Don't know what the young man uses as his camera, and if he has tried to keep the noise under control, or even tried to focus on the eyes of the mallard, or the cat (their eyes are not truly in focus). This is actually worse than just plain obsession with blur. The EOS R6 II arrives in one of the most competitive parts of the market, facing off against some very capable competition. Still, all things considered, I prize this lens very highly and can not imagine giving it up. Really excels as indoor sports lens on a crop camera. She doesn't look like she is there. But that 10Mpix is more than enough to make a very good A3-A2 size print, but your technique needs to be very good as even slight misfocus is even more visible and the rendering faults as well. Your first serious portrait lens should be a modern stabilized 70-200 f/2.8. The background blur is amazingly creamy with this lens. One of my very best lenses! sigh, overdone bokeh and centre sharpness bear little relevance to the art of this hobby. The F/2.0 maximum aperture of the Rokinon 135mm lens offers a chance to collect a serious amount of signal in a single shot. Juksu, your point is well taken. I found this highly restrictive for shooting indoors where there was seldom enough distance between me with my camera and my subject(s). It could really use an update to its coatings. Best lenses for astrophotography: 50, 85 and 135mm - DSLR, Mirrorless & General-Purpose Digital Camera DSO Imaging - Cloudy Nights Cloudy Nights Astrophotography and Sketching DSLR, Mirrorless & General-Purpose Digital Camera DSO Imaging CNers have asked about a donation box for Cloudy Nights over the years, so here you go. 10/10 (Editor's Choice) Check Price. The article was based on the numerous lenses with which I have personal experience - that is naturally limited. Simple as that! The 135 is lighter, but that's its only advantage. And you can even crop a 135 efl with today's sensors should you actually need it. Is this Nikon already, Astro modified, without need for H alpha filters or any further modifications? It seems they are now quite comparable in quality to prime lenses. (purchased for $1,100), reviewed August 12th, 2009 - Actually though, it's performance is so good that you really have to consider it a bargain, even at the $800-900 street price. Today I want to talk about another such lens design: The 135mm F2 lens. Film Friday: DPRTV reviews Fujifilm's Acros II film, Fujifilm launches Instax Mini 12 instant camera, DPReview March Madness, vote for your champions, Canon RF 16mm F2.8 STM sample gallery (DPReview TV), OM System M. Zuiko 90mm F3.5 Macro sample gallery, Live from Japan: Highlights from CP+ 2023, Retro Review: 24 years later, the Sony F505 is still pretty cool, Hands on with the OM System M. Zuiko 90mm F3.5 Macro, New FAA rules make it easier for recreational drone pilots to fly in restricted US airspaces, Leica marks James Bond's 60th* with a special edition D-Lux 7, Film Friday: A closer look at the Pentax KX, an original K-mount SLR, Blackmagic Design announces a new Studio Camera 6K Pro, National Geographic selects Pictures of the Year photo contest winner, Sigma brings DC DN APS-C primes to Nikon Z-mount, Panasonic Lumix S 14-28mm F4-5.6 Macro sample gallery, Tamron announces 11-20mm F2.8 ultra-wide zoom for Fujifilm X-mount, Film Friday: DPReview TV steps back in time to shoot APS film, Finer Points: Here's an easy way to improve video autofocus, DPReview TV: One simple fix to improve video autofocus, Head-to-head: Adobe Super Resolution vs. ON1 Resize AI vs. Topaz Labs Gigapixel AI, Waiting for the fishy in the little dishy by Gil Aegerter, Lava Lizard on Marine Iguana by ZimmWisdom. Such "full spectrum" cameras are somewhat more sensitive in the ultraviolet, but much more sensitive in the deep red and infrared. It is a parade of photos that should have been galled out after a boring Sunday afternoon shoot of "Think I'll bring along a camera when I walk the dog", There are so many things wrong in this 'review' -- most of all the idea that 'you' should get this lens and somehow it magically makes the duck or the cat stuck right in the center of picture a great photo! Got it! Given the spot on DPR front page, lots of 'what-lens-should-I-buy' newbies will be spending their money on this one. As rest you do just by cropping or stitching. As the reader reviews below testify, this is an absolutely stellar lens, probably one of the sharpest and most distortion-free that Canon makes. You currently have javascript disabled. Digital camera types . For this reason, a combination of a good light pollution filter, and the use of flat calibration frames are recommended. That setup will give you all that you really need. There are quite a few other excellent lenses out there, and nowadays, quite a few that can be used wide open. Must have if you're serious about portraits. With an effective focal length of roughly 216mm when coupled with a Canon crop sensor body, the field of view is nearly identical to the one youd find on a full-frame camera with a 200mm telephoto lens. The 200f2.8 L is excellent - I am using it right now. Better than nothing I guess, would depend on how much it raises the price. Ive captured a lot of deep-sky astrophotography targets from the northern hemisphere, but Im usually in too deep to capture an entire region of space at once. @juksu - you're such a liar. In fact, a light-weight 200/2.8 seems more interesting to own (e.g., the Minolta 200/2.8). So there - it is not a perfect object. We were very impressed with X-T5's 40-megapixel APS-C sensor, check out some full resolution images! Wonderful image quality, lots of detail, contrasty, subject separation, fast and accurate AF, bright viewfinder, solid construction, unobtrusive in use, No weather sealing, makes all my other lenses look poor (even the 'L' zooms that, when I first got them, imagined could hardly be improved on). That whole rig comes to about $1200, minus the mount. It's kinda curious how topsy turvy things have gotten since this article, just 4 years later, I think 135mm is possibly more niche than ever yet Samyang finally delivered an AF version of this concept at a lighter weight for E mount, but also at a higher price. Can't argue with your reasoning, Juksu, about the framing of the article, but just stopping by to say I really liked that cat picture, am shopping for a new smartphone, struck that this type of photo is in another league - all newbie observations, of course, which sort of supports your thoughts that an article like this would be better framed as a "Love this new long lens stuff" sort of thing. RATING. From far to near, the AF is instantaneous. Nevertheless, it performs excellently on most star fields, and is too cheap not to acquire. That is why when SLRs came along the 200mm became the big seller and the 135 was largely forgotten. He has quite a breadth photos many of which are quite good. Also, we ought never question or diminish the joy of others. In the right hands this lens really does have "magic pixie dust", as a friend once described. Well, for me. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.No disagreement here. Instead it means the style of rendering. I have a vintage Nikon135mm f/2.8 AI-s which produces virtually the same bokeh and weighs a quarter of this or any other 135mm AF lens. Magical images, great AF, great close focusing abilities. etc.. Ron. This way you get both lenses with only one! Since Eric was so generous to share his images with me, I had to include his photo of the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex as well. This lens provides all of these requirements. This is a fully manual lens, meaning that it does not have autofocus, and you must manually select the f-stop . After weeks with a production Fujifilm X-T5, Chris and Jordan have some final thoughts. OTOH you can now get a 70-180 f2.8 zoom that weights virtually the same and is only a tiny bit longer (Tamron's on E mount, like 20mm longer than the AF SY or most other modern 135s), and there's lighter than ever 85/1.4s (eg Sigma's DN for L/E mount) that can achieve a very similar look while coming in at 600g, tho at an even higher price. Thanks.. the EOS-clip filters are compatible with all EF lenses but not with the EF-s. For those of you that like to pixel-peep, have a look at the single image frame captured using the Rokinon 135mm F/2.0 ED UMC at F/4. This is an amazing lens.Very sharp wide open and no improvement when stopped own. Many students just wanted to take better snapshots of family, vacation, pets, etc. Begun in 1975, the Pentax K-mount legacy continues to this day. It is a heavy lens. And now important part: This lens can be stopped down if desired effect is not required and no, with 85/1.8 you will never get this effect. From my purchase research, I found a consensus that stopping down optimizes sharpness but the diaphragm will make nine diffraction spikes when stopped down. I find 400gm as the tolerable weight limit for a lens on my panasonic gx85, and I am guessing following telephoto lenses would satisfy the itch to get good bokeh shots, 1. This lens has the Pentax K bayonet mount, and requires the K-EOS adapter for attachment to Canon EOS cameras. I just wish this lens had IS for low light and portraits with flash. Writer Anno Huidekoper takes a look at what this manual SLR can do and how it stacks up to its contemporaries. It's a technical review about a couple of lens attributes. Crazy fast AF! The Rokinon 135mm F2.0 is considered to be a full-frame lens because it can accommodate a full-frame image sensor with its 18.8-degree angle of view. I use it routinely in preference to many other multicoated filters I tested, including the new Hoya MC UV. Valerio, Electronically Assisted Astronomy (No Post-Processing), Community Forum Software by IP.BoardLicensed to: Cloudy Nights, DSLR, Mirrorless & General-Purpose Digital Camera DSO Imaging, This is not recommended for shared computers, Back to DSLR, Mirrorless & General-Purpose Digital Camera DSO Imaging, Buckeyestargazer 2022 in review and New Products. For the rest there is Sigma 135 /1.8 Art also fantastic value lens. Yes, it is about the same as 85mm f/1.4 blur factor is 60mm, while 135mm f/2 blur factor is 67mm. Manual focus on wide angle lens, for landscapes, ok, if you have a reliable manual focus system, which Samyang, at least in my mount, does not have. Is there a reason why a 135/2.8 or even 135/4 would provide significantly different images? Thanks! Imaging Resource 1998 - 2023. Some of the primes have a special look to them, but only the 70-200 is indispensable. Just place your subject against a distant background, and half of the job is done. The first shot I ever took with this lens was of my neighbor's cat, as it was sneaking around in a bush. Canon 135 mm is really E X T R A O R D I N A R Y lens. The original poster is right that it was a compromise though and stopping down was necessary for critical sharpness and a better image. If You can afford it, buy it! The lens is so crisp that the diaphragm blade pattern is visible on point light sources shot at large aperature. Here is a recent ones taken with the canon xs and a lens. Helps me as a beginner a lot Great question Scott I think it depends on the image. And it's not the one problem from my L lenses very sad =(, My favourite lens, hands down. Andysea, those are great images on your website. Be careful with the focus. This makes me feel I shall take the Zeiss 85F1.8 off my A6000 or maybe NOT, it's just another hype article about "A" lens. I've owned nice SLR gear since 1976, and am normally a wide angle shooter this is my favorite lens, of all time. http://www.flickr.com/photos/tbrigham/284303834/. This allows for less aggressive camera settings for night photography such as using a lower ISO setting and shorter exposure. I purchased this lens for the purposes of wide-field deep-sky astrophotography from my light-polluted backyard (shown below), and when traveling to a dark sky site. She's cold? Really like the large focusing ring. This way the focus will favor the red light which is more objectionable within a star image than a bit of blue. here are some links to some pics taken with the lens: Most small refracting telescopes start in the 300 to 400 mm focal length range, and even these are classed as widefield telescopes. Because of some residual chromatic aberration even with the aperture stop, the best focus lies not where the star image is the smallest, but rather just slightly away from infinity, at the point where the star image barely begins to enlarge. With todays huge variety of digital sensors, each with their own characteristics, in-camera and post-processing etc., much depends on the given combination of your photo gear to create a certain effect. If you have a more appropriate portrait lens like an 85, 90 or 100, the 135 does not bring you very much. I enjoied the use of this lens many years before the DSLR. I know taste is subjective, but it seems to me that some people have become obsessed with blur and bokeh. The Rokinon 135mm F/2 ED UMC lens. The 50mm f/1.4 and f/1.2 is another story.While the 135mm f/2, in general, is a good lens, there are lots of lenses other than the 135 f/2 that will produce a very smoothly blurred background, including zoom lenses.It sounds like Micael is new to photography.Just my impression from this article. Focusing should be done on moderately bright stars using the 10x magnified Live View. MCovington, my Zeiss 300/4 is the full thickness barrel version, made in West Germany, serial number 5990836. So, let's see where it falls short of perfection: It always happens to me with Samyang, it makes good glasses, fast and sharp, I want to have them, but they are not comfortable to use, not in Sony E, their focus is not precise, and they are not "so" cheap. With the 135 I imagine I'd have to get up on the roof. I have a 135mm f2.8 lens I've used for wide DSOs but mostly I use 200mm. http://www.idyll.com/laneysat I was very happy for this reason to eventually get a full frame DSLR in 2007 and sell the 85mm lens and buy a 105mm one to replace it. You got a criticism fine say it politely, and too the point. Sharp but smooth at the same time. Nice article for beginners.It's all in the eyes of the beholder. Above $2500 cameras tend to become increasingly specialized, making it difficult to select a 'best' option. When you buy a lens with fantastic sharpness and image quality at all apertures, you typically expect it to cost $1,200 on up. No rubber sealing against the camera body tend to give me the creeps when shooting in the wet. It's sharp, has very low aberrations, no real distortion and the bokeh is very nice. I agree to some extent with many of the critics of the article and disagree with much of its content, but I also have respect for the the author's right to express those opinions. Chris referred to the Canon RF 16mm F2.8 STM as 'a little gem'! I have done a review comparing the sharpness and quality of bokeh to the Canon 70-200 2.8. My tests on it are described on http://pikespeakphoto.com/tests/canonlens135.html, i have never been a prime lens fan, just seems to leave you feeling trapped in a single dimension. Thanks, I have never had a bad experience buying used Canon lenses from eBay sellers with 99.5%+ positive feedback. I like fast lenses, and my Nikkor 105DC is my favourite. The extent of this influence lies mainly in photographer's perception and creativity.As all arts photography may serve given needs due to numerous reasons with the resulting integrity of the work not necessarily suggesting art.The photographic gear (from lens cleaning tissues up to s/w) is just the tool(s) of a photographer in order to produce its work. Pentax seems to have put more emphasis than others on keeping the resolution uniform all over the field. I cant wait to try this lens out during the winter months on some wide-field targets in Orion. You may need to stop down to control star bloat, and thats exactly what Ive done with this 135. I wanted to add my experience with some lenses that I thought worthy of being considered too, and some of the equipment that I have used. Prime means that this lens is fixed at 135mm, it is not a zoom lens that allows for focal length adjustments. No more inside shooting with flash! I am still very proud of some of the photos I shoot with a Pentax O450 15 years ago - a good smartphone camera today is at least as capable. If you must have autofocus, and care about weight, buy the Canon. It is worth of it's price?Any links to astrophotos with this lens?Thanks. You can't really ask them to stand still while you move around. Or is there a use case for fitting the Samyang 135mm to a Panasonic gx85 (or Panasonic gh5) ?? My canon is clear modded and I use a an Astronomik EOS-clip L filter to block the uv and ir. Over the years, I have tried more than two dozen telephoto lenses, until I finally found three or four perfect solutions. Depth of field at f/2 on the 135 is so shallow that I usually shot it stopped down to f/2.8 or f/4 anyway. Lots of older lenses no longer satisfy. Far from being a generic run-of-the-mill image hosting website, it was created and is still operated by an astrophotographer, and boasts features that are very specific to astrophotography. The Samyang 135mm F/2 easily lives up to its hype and should be near the top of your list of purchases if you are new or experienced in the field of astrophotography. Thanks Gary! Hi Thomas As far as I know, the Nikon D500 is not modified for astrophotography out of the box (it includes a built in IR cut filter that blocks much of the 656nm wavelength). (purchased for $900), reviewed August 22nd, 2008 First of all, the background separation and the bokeh: I had photographed lots of animals in bushes before, but never before had I seen the bush melt away in the way it did with the 135mm lens. This is one of the sharpest lens i've ever owned. I was blown away when I loaded the photos into my computer. The author's recipe for a good photo is:1) Just shoot blindly, with no regard to what's in the frame, because the lens will blur away everything on the background.2) If (1) does not work, just head on to https://www.bhphotovideo.com, download a jpg of the lens you were using, and photoshop it on top of the taillaits of the passig car that didn't get blurred out enough.3?) Rokinon 135mm F/2.0 ED UMC LensCheck Price (Amazon): https://amzn.to/2MOUFeOExample Images: https://astrobackyard.com/rokinon-135mm-f2-astrophotography/I've . You can also find him as @mwroll on Instagram and 500px. Sharpness, contrast and the natural vignetting on full-frame cameras is awesome! I just got the Samyang version of this lens and used it with my Canon 3ti on a Skywatcher Star Adventurer. Overall, the lens feels very solid and well constructed. It actually makes my eyes water as I try to resolve how bad the blurriness is. I need fast auto-focus, predictable focus lock and natural, vibrant color rendition. If you can tolerate vignetting, there are many normal 35mm lenses that are great wide open. Particular properties of modern 135/2 lenses are resolution with e.g. The image is a 90-second exposure at ISO 400 using a Canon EOS 60Da. "That is why when SLRs came along the 200mm became the big seller and the 135 was largely forgotten"Did you notice that this 135mm F2 lens on an APS-C camera is more or less equivalent to a 200mm F2.8 lens on an FF camera ?So this lens can be seen as the 200mm F2.8 lens for APS-C camera users. One is the price, which starts around $800 for the smallest units, and rapidly climbs into thousands of dollars for larger apertures. Several functions may not work. I'll walk you through all this inc. The 70-200L being a much more useful lens. It's tiny compared to almost everything else in the 85-135 range, and used properly, it can produce results that hold up to my DC (all other factors being equal such as subject distance, f-stop, lighting, etc.). The flawless image quality is only half the story though. The full name of this lens is the Rokinon 135mm F/2 ED UMC, with ED standing for extra-low dispersion, and UMC referring to the ultra multi-coated optics. Image quality, weight and value for money. (37% is difference, so you get little more, about 15.5Mpix) ". (purchased for $700), reviewed June 13th, 2009 If I got this lens, would it make more sense long term to get the Canon mount with a E mount adaptor so I could fit it more easily to a dedicated astro camera later? But first, there are several general rules which must be understood. We sell a wide variety of digital cameras from all the top brands like Canon, Nikon, Sony, Panasonic, Olympus, Fujifilm, Pentax, Leica, Samsung, and more. See the full-size version on Astrobin. Canon 300/4 ED IF AF (non-IS) It's gross, all is a matter of balance and the perfect one, given you want sharp and fuzzy elements in your picture, is in the blend, and the way details seems to disappear gracefully (while keeping a level of readability). If you have the 1.8 version, way to go. I disagree. My copy has very stiff manual focus though and is quite heavy. Off topic, If you shoot things in motion on a Canon body, and need some reach without massive bulk, this is the one I recommend. I think the bokeh won me over with the cat, as well as the fact that I like animals; the case for the duck was the same. image quality wise it is by far one the sharpest lenses ive ever used. Some noteworthy targets to try. It must not be confused with the much cheaper SMC Takumar, often deceptively advertised as SMC Pentax Takumar, which has the M42 camera thread, and is plagued with unextinguishable blue chromatic aberration. Focus end stop. That is the story.#7: Leaves.That doesn't work. Yes, there is some sharpness added when stopping down to f4 or f5.6 but after that it doesn't get better. However, I am convinced that its large aperture and fast F ratio would perform exceptionally well in three color or narrow band H-alpha and OIII photography.