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135mm fast old lenses
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev
    I am interested to know that is the best fast 135mm prime lens?

    They are not very populat today, but on m43 they are quite good tele lenses.

    My personal favourites:
    1) Vivitar Series 1 135mm F2.3
    2) Soligor 135mm F2.0
    3) Nikon 135mm F2.0 AI
    4) Canon FD 135mm F2.0

    From all this lenses I had expirience with Vivitar only, and I really like this lense.

    See also:
    http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/97/more-2.0-lenses-please
  • 53 Replies sorted by
  • LittleDLittleD
    I'll post some with the Tair 11a 2.8 that i just had. The Sonnar, the Pentacon and the Jupiter have also their reputation.
  • stefanosstefanos
    I have to say my pentax 135mm f/3.5 isn't as sharp as I want, so I'm in the lookout too for something in that focal length.
  • AlexAlex
    I used the Canon FD 135 mm f2 to take pictures (Portrait) of party people. I had very good light conditions and I was very satisfied with the results. Good sharpness even at f2, very nice bokeh, very smooth to focus. In lowlight conditions and with shooting video you get the "long lens needs stabilization" problem. A problem at least when you have quickly changing motives ...
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev
    >In lowlight conditions and with shooting video you get the "long lens needs stabilization" problem.

    With good tripod or good rig it is not extreme problem (but still a problem, as holding steady picture with 270mm is not so easy :-) )
    All of the lenses mentioned in first post are real good if we start talking about building quality.
  • stefanosstefanos
    I wonder how big a difference there is between a 135mm and a 100mm. These 100mm macro lenses seem very attractive as they are very very sharp and quite fast like this, but I don't know how they behave at infinity. The tamron 90mm is a bit shorter. http://www.kenrockwell.com/tokina/100mm-f28.htm
    I mean the difference on M4/3 is 70mm between a 135 and a 100mm but in practically, is there a huge difference? If I could afford both focal lengths, i'd get both but...
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev
    Difference is not huge.
    But.
    Manual focus macro lenses prices in 90-105mm range are rising constantly. People sometimes become totally mad.
    Tamron 90mm, for example, is not worse than any of MF macros, it is lighter and sharper than most old macros.
    Only problem is that focus feel is worse on any AF lens.

  • stoneystoney
    The difference should be measured in a ratio. Since both lenses will have same crop factor, the crop factor becomes irrelevant. e.g. 25mm and 50mm has 1:2 ratio that is twice difference in FOV.

    100mm:135mm = 1:1.35 that is 35% difference in FOV which is not a huge difference. That's like difference between 20mm and 27mm.
  • stoneystoney
    lpowell came up w/ a set based on 1.4 ratio.

    14mm
    20mm
    28mm
    40mm
    56mm
    85mm
    135mm

    Well... it's not exactly 1.4 ratio, but that sounded clever.

    Using 2.0 ratio,
    12mm
    25mm
    50mm
    100mm
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev
    >1:1.35 that is 35% difference in FOV which is not a huge difference. That's like difference between 20mm and 27mm.

    For most people difference between 20mm and 27mm will be much larger than between 100mm and 135mm.
    Because people do not compare them relatively, they compare them to their FOV.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angle_of_view
    http://lens-reviews.com/Technical-Talk/Technical-Talk/lens-field-of-view-visualisation-tool.html
    http://www.sweeting.org/mark/lenses/canon.php
  • stoneystoney
    So... you are saying varying ratio that is lower in wide and higher in tele would give about same FOV differences to most people?

    e.g. 25mm:35mm = 1:1.4
    50mm:75mm = 1:1.5
    85mm:135mm = 1:1.6
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev
    I am saying that you compare lens FOV to your own FOV (or same with angle of view).
    Making such comparisons you see very large difference for wide, normal and medium tele lenses. As angle of view difference is large.
    In tele lenses you can have relatively large 1:2 difference, but FOV do not seem to be much different (if you compare it to your usual FOV).
    So, like 160/120 is very different to 100/120 and 60/120, but 4/120 and 10/120 are not much different.
  • stoneystoney
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Angle_of_View_F_V_Chambers_1916.png

    Hmmm.... the change in FOV accelerates as focal length gets shorter!!!
  • stoneystoney
    Applying varying ratio starting from 14mm...

    14mm * 1.40 = 20
    20mm * 1.43 = 29
    28mm * 1.47 = 41
    40mm * 1.50 = 60
    58mm * 1.53 = 89
    85mm * 1.57 = 133
    135mm

    something like that...
    very roughly...
    not so accurate...
    FOV topic is not fun...
    we should never talk about this again... haha
  • fosterchenfosterchen

    Vitaliy, it's been awhile since the last post on this topic, but I've just found some interesting 135mm lenses on Ebay:

    A Sonagar 135mm f2.8 (10 blade aperture), and the Meyer-Optik Pentacon 135mm 2.8 (15 blade aperture!).

    Anybody have experiences with either?
    The Meyer-Optik Pentacon is considered the 'bokeh king' in this realm, and the Sonagar is quite hard to find info on.

  • soundgh2soundgh2

    I have the Pentacon 135 2.8 15 bladed aperture M42 and it's very sharp with lovely bokeh.

  • vicharrisvicharris

    @soundgh2 That's a pretty cool looking lens! Do you have any examples from it?

  • soundgh2soundgh2

    Ill throw it on in the morning - super cheap too - clickless aperture nice colours good contrast and sharpness its a bargain

  • vicharrisvicharris

    It comes with clickless aperture? Awesome! Do you know if it gets close to color with any other glass you have, old or new?

  • soundgh2soundgh2

    Similar to Contax Zeiss colour wise slightly flatter colours but contrast is comparable.

  • fosterchenfosterchen

    I just bought the Sonagar 135mm F2.8...i will post results when I get it along with the right OM-M43 adapter! Pentacon was a little out of my price range for now.

  • DrDaveDrDave

    F2~wow that Soligor is kind of a cool lens, but pretty old. Good luck finding a cheap one. I tested a bunch of these and I was never that happy. The Sonnar 2.8 was good, but it is not 2.0.

  • vicharrisvicharris

    Flatter is better than crazy colors. Thanks @soundgh2

  • fosterchenfosterchen

    Some pics of the Sonagar from the Ebay listing. Seller says aperture has clicks.

    Sonagar 03.jpg
    1600 x 1153 - 393K
    Sonagar 04.jpg
    1192 x 1143 - 309K
    Sonagar 01.JPG
    640 x 480 - 22K
  • DrDaveDrDave

    If you have the lovely 55mm Vivitar macro you can get the 135 matching model. Also Komine made, it is a very nice, well built lens that has the slow spiralling extension like the 55mm. It is not as super sharp as the 55mm, however, but still nice. http://www.techtheman.com/2008/09/vivitar-135mm-f28-12-macro-from-komine.html

    If you don't want to wade through hundreds of 135mm lenses to find this one, you are looking for a serial starts with 28 (Komine) and a filter of 62. Most of them say "close focus" or some variant of that on the front but you can't always see it in the photos.

  • kavadnikavadni

    Minolta Rokkor MD 135mm can be found at f2.0 and at f2.8

    http://www.rokkorfiles.com/135mm.htm

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