I’ve been keeping most of my camera gear info on my other blog, newschoolofphotography.com. But that’s becoming more of a community, and less about just me and my gear, so I’m moving all my personal gear info here. Sorry to bore those of you who don’t care, but I need to put it somewhere and the blog format helps me keep tabs on when I got what, and what I think about it and why…
This lens is a canon 135mm f/2.0 L. I sold my sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 EX DG for this lens. It was basically an even trade. The sigma was an awesome lens, but it’s very big and very heavy. It’s also a zoom, and I’ve been playing with the idea of moving to all primes. Primes are sharper and generally better lenses, but you lose the convenience of the zoom… For me this isn’t a huge deal with my telephotos because I’m usually at their longest end if they’re a zoom anyway. Also primes have faster maximum apertures so they’re much better indoors or in low light (like when someone might be shooting a new born baby). I haven’t had any time to shoot with this yet, I’ll be sure to update this post when I do.
UPDATE:I’ve only had the lens for a few days now, but so far I’ve been very impressed. I shot a few shots with it outside work on Friday and then around the house when I got home. Sunday I made enough time to get outside and shoot with it for 30minutes while taking Moseley for a walk on the beach. This lens is as expected so far. That is to say it’s VERY sharp and it AFs insanely fast. It also has wonderful bokeh that will be a lot of fun to play with. I tested it with the TCs and it works very well with the 1.4 turning it into a 189mm f/2.8 that I wouldn’t hesitate to use wide open. It also maintains it’s AF with the 1.4, and not only that, it’s still wickedly fast in the AF department even with the TC. With the 2.0 it works, but there is a loss to the IQ unless you stop down a bit (it becomes a 270mm f/4, but you can’t really use it until f/8). It’s not that it’s horrible, I just have another lens for that purpose. Amazingly the AF still works with the 2.0 on there…
So far I’m thrilled with this lens. I’ve even had to back the sharpening I do on my shots for the web down a bit… Here’s a sample gallery in case you’re curious:
