Im currently shooting with a Canon 60D. With no general agreement about what Bokeh is it is little wonder that there is so much argument and disagreement. We always expect to see some drop in performance (particularly corner sharpness) when we move from testing on a sub-frame to a full-frame camera, but the 135mm f/2L turned in a really remarkable performance even at full-frame. You will never be able to beat this lense, believe me, i have tried them all. 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. I do not presume to further decorate the universe, and perceive them for what they are: interference. Crazy fast AF! Exterem apertures are extrems (wether it's full open or closed) that should be reserved for extrem cases. This is a very popular lens, and I am sure there are a ton of lens test reports for it available online. OM System's latest lens is a whopper of a macro, featuring optical stabilization, full weather sealing, up to 2x magnification and a whole lot more. in the rain. No rubber sealing against the camera body tend to give me the creeps when shooting in the wet. SIx months on from buying it this has become my favourite lens ever, beating my previous favourite (Leica's 4th version of the 35mm Summicron for its M-series rangefinders). A quick question, I have a Sony a6300 mirrorless camera which is great but the sensor is very close behind the mount. Rokinon 135mm F2.0 ED Lens. If you're using or are looking to buy the Samyang or Rokinon 135mm F/2, please let me know what you're imaging with it or any questions you may have in the comment section below. Olympus 75mm f1.82. when you hold the lens in your hand you know you are holding a fine peice of optical equipment. I typically shoot with Canon lenses, but the potential for low light photography (whether thats astrophotography or the ability to film at dusk) caught my interest. I will say that at F/4 this lens is extremely sharp corner to corner when used on my 60Da. Any good ones apart from the Big Boys. Touching the telescope, even ever so slightly, will introduce vibrations which will ruin the photograph. 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. Creamy smooth bokeh. (purchased for $900), reviewed December 14th, 2006 It's a technical review about a couple of lens attributes. The first shot I ever took with this lens was of my neighbor's cat, as it was sneaking around in a bush. This thing is a beast in comparison. You don't have to worry about shopping for a better lens anymore. 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? These are affordably available on eBay, and result in perfectly round star images, the way nature intended them to be. Perfect lens on the same level as CZ! Stick to Andromeda, and skip the Whirlpool. The logic of this article can be applied to a 200/2.8 as well. How well do Fujifilm's film simulations match up to their film counterparts? Looking forward to allow purchasing the Canon 200mm f/2.8L II USM. EF-mount only, this packs more megapixels, a bigger sensor, and a high max ISO. An h-alpha filter would still be useful for your D500, but much more so if it were modified! This lens is very sharp, corner to corner wide open. never mind.. confirmed from others that F19 is indeed the one that is excluded on this lens! The 135L is half the weight of the 70-200 2.8IS. I use it to photograph highschool basketball in poor light. I've missed shots at wide apertures because the DOF is so extremely thin. There's literally no story!#6: Purple Flower.The isolation works because it's the only color. The other one is the inevitable and persistent regret that, because of chromatic aberration, the full 75mm aperture of this beautiful lens can not be used in full visible spectrum photography. At under 900USD, it's a steal. 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. I've recently started using 135 and 200mm lenses from the 1970s with my mono CCD and they've proven very useful for imaging large emission nebulae. I'm thinking a modern (but expensive) Nikon 200mm f/2.0, 300mm f/4 or f/2.8 or a Borg telephoto/telescope would all be very good. At $900 US it a relative steal. To achieve creamy bokeh, a lens should have a wide maximum aperture and a long focal length. Nothing just makes sense about the review -- the writer does not really understand the lens he is reviewing, very basic concepts are wrong. Only con I can think of, and that may be a big one depending on how you plan to use the lens is the lack of weather sealing. See the full-size version on Astrobin. Big F-value.Light. Hi Trevor, Although if Bokeh and sharpness is your thing and you can live with MF the Laowa 105mm f/2 Smooth Trans Focus (STF) is amazing. 21P Giacobini Zinner NGC1499 California Barnard 8 Cr399 Coathanger North America and Pelican Veil nebula HORGB M11 cluster area This way you get both lenses with only one! We were surprised by just how much difference there was between these AI-powered image enlargers. 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). It's Film Friday, so let's take a look back at the film format that gave APS-C sensors their name! Oh yes, and it leads to lusting after other primes! 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. The Best Telephoto Lenses for Astrophotography. wew.. Without the blurb I would have taken it as a 24 hour news studio shot with back projection or a cut and paste layer.The other stuff is really nice though. This lens flares easily and the flare can be especially ugly if a sun or flash are in the frame. Same thing as people mistake "shallow DOF" to blurry background. Check out The following image was captured by Eric Cauble using the Samyang branded version of this lens. (purchased for $650), reviewed June 6th, 2008 Also, the lens can only be operated when aperture is set to 22, wondering how I could use F2. 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. Selecting between it and the 200mm Takumar was not an easy choice but, in the end, I chose the Takumar because it seemed to have slightly better contrast. Why would I want a 135/2.0 lens when I have a 135/1.8? The next 200mm lens of excellent quality is the 200mm F4 Nikkor F which requires the Nikon F to EOS adapter. f1.4 was a necessisty rather than a creative luxury. 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. Target for bortle 9 astrophotography? What's it got and what's it like to use? As I posted on the Petapixel variant of this article, cropping a 85/1.4 shot to a 135mm-equivalent FoV gives you approx. As it is it is earns a 9. Its fast f/2.0 maximum aperture is effective in low light and enables shallow depth of field control. Also, the newer and much more expensive 200mm F4 SMC Pentax with the K mount is decisively inferior, showing small but annoying red chromatic aberration. 30-35% diameter reduction is usually necessary on "good" lenses. thanks for the tiring patronising lecture and then agreeing with me. Available 03/21/23. I wish every lens was this good!! Last time I used a 135mm f2 was decades ago on a Canon F1. best lens, blur, sharp-super, no CA, minimal shading. I just got the Samyang version of this lens and used it with my Canon 3ti on a Skywatcher Star Adventurer. We have come to accept that most lenses are strong in only one or two of these three factors, that I personally focus on when researching lenses to buy. In this buying guide we've rounded-up several great cameras for shooting sports and action, and recommended the best. 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. It actually makes my eyes water as I try to resolve how bad the blurriness is. (Suggesting that diffraction limiting is only part of the story with lens softness at tiny apertures.). The best ones listed below serve well with a one stop reduction, and some require two or even three stops. #light_bulb I would disagree. You get what you get.#4: Cat in Underbrush.That's pretty good.#5: Woman with Blanket.It's like a snapshot. It is by far the fastest focusing, best bokeh, and lowest light lens you will ever find. And you can even crop a 135 efl with today's sensors should you actually need it. I had one question that i cant seem to find an answer to.. I can only guarantee that the TSAPO65Q would work very well. I used this lens quite a bit years ago as my main working lens. Today I want to talk about another such lens design: The 135mm F2 lens. Stuff I used to take the photos in this video:- The Canon 135mm f2 lens: https://amzn.to/346Paz7- Sony A7III Camera: https://amzn.to/2xM776q- Sony Grip exten. (purchased for $899), reviewed March 19th, 2012 Unfortunately, standard photography lenses are generally poorly corrected for CA at the red end of the spectrum, relying on the human eye's poorer resolution in red than green or blue. That means that it doesnt require a robust equatorial telescope mount as a larger, heavier telephoto lens would. Shoot shiny metal at a wide aperture and you'll see some very extreme purple fringing. I am telling them - don't! You can go lower, but you have to watch your technique. 85 Is a different story, my 85 gets used a lot. With this lens you don't need to do much if any post processing. 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. Add To Cart. Family moments are precious and sometimes you want to capture that time spent with loved ones or friends in better quality than your phone can manage. When stopped down to 49mm it really is indistinguishable from an APO, except it shows red chromatic aberration with modified cameras even with the UV/IR block or CLS-CCD filter. Another lens to consider at this focal length (at maximum zoom) is the Rokinon 135mm F/2. This free website's biggest source of support is when you use these links, especially these directly to it at Adorama or at Amazon, when you get anything, regardless of the country in which you live. The 135mm focal length is absolutely perfect for the Heart and Soul Nebulae if youre using a crop sensor DSLR camera. After several years off, the venerable magazine has held a public open call photo contest and selected nine finalists and one winning image for its 'Photos of the Year.'. Adam007,"a headshot is exactly where I want to see all those megapixels"No thanks. It can isolate subject while being tack sharp with beautiful creamy bokeh when used at f2. Preaching to the choir! Sharp, handy, strong colours and contrast. It is so sharp it makes you rethink the use of your zoom lenses. No one yet mentioned a zoom lens, I had an opportunity to test my Canon 24-105L f/4 on M31 Andromeda Galaxy and received wonderful results with Canon 60D unmoded, I set it to 105mm, No vignatting, slight coma on the corners and no false color on bright stars. And as this article clearly shows, no amount of blurr will make a poorly composed photo good. Perhaps you have seen the photos of masterful Russian portrait photographers such as Elena Shumilova or Anka Zhuravleva. Just plain black plastic (no interior felt as in newer lens hoods). Sure, if you scroll through his page there are quite a few lens tests on starshttps://www.flickr.chotos/ytoropin/, Community Forum Software by IP.BoardLicensed to: Cloudy Nights, Article: The Best Telephoto Lenses for Astrophotography, This is not recommended for shared computers, Review of Explore Scientific First Light 8, COUNTING SUNSPOTS WITH A $10 OPTICAL TUBE ASSEMBLY, Hubble Optics 14 inch Dobsonian - Part 2: The SiTech GoTo system, iStar Opticals Phantom FCL 140-6.5 review. Is there a reason why a 135/2.8 or even 135/4 would provide significantly different images? I had of course heard that this lens is supposed to be very sharp, but I had never before had such a full blown "wow" experience when reviewing the sharpness of a lens. Juksu, your point is well taken. Along with improvements in telescope mounts, camera technology, filters, and digital image processing, these have allowed amateurs to produce astrophotographs of nearly professional quality. When I was on my way home after purchasing my first 135mm lens (the Samyang/Rokinon one) I took a few quick snapshots just to try out the lens. Well, if you consider downloading a lens image from https://www.bhphotovideo.com, and photoshop it on top of my photos to cover mistakes, and demonstrate sharpness of a lens with a jpeg that is way oversharpened; if you call knowledge that "the long focal length compresses the background" , If you call blurr a bokeh just because it sounds better, and so on 1000 words would not be enough to point out what a mess this review is Then you are right, I absolutely do not know as much as he does. My first photo of the night sky is of Comet NEOWISE, however I know its not the best photo I could capture. A Canon 70-200L IS II at 200mm at f2.8 has all the same characteristics of the Canon 135L. The only downside with that lens is that it is manual focus, which might not be suitable for photographing sports or children. And because you can shoot between F/2 and F/4, plenty of light reaches the sensor in a relatively short exposure. I really like how they augment my longer focal length scopes. Agreed. But I hardly used it in the 30+ years. There have been a lot of Tele-Tessars over the years. Then you should have tried the 180mm nikkor ED, the old one, which is the favorite tool of a lot of astrophotographers. Barney and Chris have been shooting the new Sony 50mm F1.4 GM, and we have a bunch of full resolution samples for you to peruse. Besides, adding IS would mean adding extra elements and that would very likely reduce the image quality. Still - a great portrait lens when used at f/2.8 or f/4, with a creamy bokeh indeed. You might never need another lens in the overlapping range at 135mm there isn't much difference between the separation afforded by f/2 vs f/2.8, and the latest 70-200s are plenty sharp. The interest of a f/1.4 is to be able to be perfect at f/2.8, while a f/1.8 or f/2 might need to be on f/4 to have the same sharpeness and overall IQ.They are not meant to be used wide open, except in rare moments. Light falloff (vignetting) gets pretty high (0.73 EV wide open, but drops to 0.3 EV at f/2.8, and only 0.17 EV at f/4. But for me, the reason to get this lens is the Bokeh and DOF control. This article was originally published on Micael's blog, and is being republished in full with express permission. f/2! Aside from being much more affordable, telephoto lenses are easier to transport, easier to mount and easier to guide, and are much more likely to produce encouraging results to a beginner. I read and bought it. As you can see, the magnification of the lens used will dictate the type of projects you shoot. Micael Widell is a photography enthusiast based in Stockholm, Sweden. Another drawback is the focal length. And only the cat photo has something OK (but it is a cat shot You easily get them look good). We've combed through the options and selected our two favorite cameras in this class. The image below highlights the creative freedom this lens provides. The EOS R6 II arrives in one of the most competitive parts of the market, facing off against some very capable competition. 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. What's the best camera for shooting sports and action? My questions, for deep sky pics, should I get the 135mm lens or the RedCat 51 APO 250mm f/4.9 which you mentioned here as well? Voting ends March 8, 2023. For this reason, a combination of a good light pollution filter, and the use of flat calibration frames are recommended. 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. The Japanese word "bokeh" can be translated into English as "blur". The lenses I listed are certainly not the ONLY exceptional lenses made over the years. (purchased for $900), reviewed April 15th, 2011 Often need f2.2 to f2.8 to gain sufficient DOF for human subjects. Make sure to select your camera mount when checking the price (Check current price). Together they still weight less than any modern 135mm :>. The Rokinon 135mm F/2.0 ED UMC lens is a fantastic companion for the Canon 60Da, as it offers a useful "mid-range" focal length for a variety of deep-sky projects. The full extent of the relationship between Rokinon and Samyang is unknown to me, but the packaging on my lens says Technology by Samyang Optics. If the title had been: "Testing My First Telephoto and LOVING IT!!!!!!!. This photo was captured with the Samyang 135mm F/2 lens using a UV/IR cut filter and a QHY168C dedicated astronomy camera. To actually learn to compose the photos so that the background complements the image instead of being something that must be blurred away. Not heavy like the white tele-zooms. Moreover if we have a serendipitous moment regarding a new (or used) lens, that's a good thing. Taking images at this focal length from the city will swell issues with gradients, especially when shooting towards the light dome. (purchased for $725), reviewed March 26th, 2013 But when holes in text prompt me to look at the work of the writer, there is nothing professional there either. A promising start, no doubt, but not a master yet! Digital camera types . This allows for less aggressive camera settings for night photography such as using a lower ISO setting and shorter exposure. For that I would investigate alternatives just to make sure. A higher-res Blackmagic Studio Camera just dropped. Extrapolating from this, minimum recommended guidescope power is 120x for the 300mm telephoto, 80x for the 200mm, and 55x for the 135mm. There is some controversy about the use of UV filters, but I found that a good UV filter significantly improves contrast, sharpens small star images, and reduces chromatic aberration.