Finally! I'm In Love...

[drisley]

...with my Canon 135F2L!

After 2 1/2 weeks, LOTS of phone calls to Adorama, haggling with customs because they wanted to charge duty on my lenses (not with NAFTA), my stuff FINALLY arrived!
http://www.fotop.net/albums/sharpnsmart/135mm/CRW_2323.jpg

I must say, the quality of the 135F2L is superb! I think it looks and feels even better than my old 70-200F4L. And I love that it's black! I wish my 300D was black now....
So, I ran outside, tested focus both with and without the new 1.4x tcon, and perfect! I think it's even faster than the 70-200F4L in that department too!
I took a couple pics both with and without the 1.4x to see if there was any noticable quality difference. None that I can see! The only diff is that without the tcon, the camera focused right inside of the flower :shock:
The 1.4x shot focused on the petals. Also, I grabbed a shot of a biker passing by with the 1.4x attached. Very sharp, however, it could have been better but I had the shutter speed at only 1/400s and I was in One Shot mode. BTW, the I got the lens hood for the Thrifty Fifty, now it looks totally nifty!

135F2L
http://www.fotop.net/albums/sharpnsmart/135mm/CRW_2329.jpg

135F2L & 1.4x Tcon
http://www.fotop.net/albums/sharpnsmart/135mm/CRW_2335.jpg

135F2L & 1.4x Tcon
http://www.fotop.net/albums/sharpnsmart/135mm/CRW_2338.jpg

[drisley]

Well, I decided to do another comparison both with and without the 1.4x tcon both shots wide open. This time I used my trusty old radiator again.
To me, the shot WITH the 1.4x seems a little sharper. But I'm sure that this is because of slightly different focus points, and the larger dof at f2.8.
I didnt shoot both at f2.8 because I wanted to see how they perform wide open.
[Ignore the Exif because I layered the images, then cropped them, so the Exif data saved with the images are wrong.]

135 F2L F2.0
http://www.fotop.net/albums/sharpnsmart/135mm/135mm.jpg

135 F2L & Canon 1.4x F2.8
http://www.fotop.net/albums/sharpnsmart/135mm/189mm.jpg

[roanjohn]

WOW!!! That is sharp!!!

I wonder how it compares to your 85 f1.8 :-) At f2..........I would be really interested to see the results!!!

Ro1

[drisley]

Sorry for all the large images but....

Here are shots comparing the 85F1.8 and 135F2L both at F2.0.
The 135F2L is just SLIGHTLY sharper, but it's VERY hard to notice. I think the main advantage is that the 135F2L shows no signs at all of purple fringing wide open, while the 85F1.8 shows fringing up until about F2.8 (although, most of the primes do).

85F1.8
http://www.mts.net/~lftbrain/85mm.jpg

135F2L
http://www.mts.net/~lftbrain/135mm.jpg

[Olegis]

Congradulation on your purchase ! This is very fine piece of optics and I'm sure you'll use iot to its maximum 8)
BTW, does the photo of the flower with the 135F2L & 1.4x Tcon seem sharper than the one without the extender, or is it just me ?

[drisley]

Olegis, yes, the 1.4x picture seems sharper, but that is because in the first image, the focus point actually was INSIDE the center of the flower.
So, the petals are slightly out of the dof.
The picture with the 1.4x tcon focused on the petals, so the petals are sharper.
I'm really impressed with the image quality of the 1.4x tcon. There is no noticable loss in image quality as far as I can tell. :D

[cmM]

Wow... that is nice !
No wonder this 135 2.0L seems to be one of the Canon most popular lenses.

[schmoelzel]

:D Seriously, glad you finally received your lenses..........that F2 does look good! Maybe when you sell it you can let me know!! Enjoy your new toys!

[roanjohn]

AMAZING!!!

This lens is no joke.........it is SHARP wide open!!!

Thanks for doing the test.

Ro1