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Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
Photography Culture

Can the Canon RF 135mm Reproduce the Magic the Old Lens Did?

Chris Gampat
No Comments
03/22/2021
4 Mins read
Dane Canon 135mm Creative Commons Permissions

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If we take a moment to consider some of Canon’s best lenses, lots of films will cite the Canon 135mm f2 L. No matter how far behind it was on resolving their sensors, that lens was magic. It was very difficult to take a bad photo with that lens. Arguably other, third-party options leaped ahead of it. And with the Canon RF lineup, they have a new start. And we really wonder if the Canon RF 135mm L lens will be able to compete.

So Canon hasn’t announced or created an RF 135mm lens yet. (At least, I’m writing this in December right now and know nothing of one.) But there are a lot of players on the market. The Sigma 135mm f1.8 DG Art lens is wonderful. So too is the old Zeiss Milvus 135mm f2! Then from another system, there’s the Sony 135mm f1.8 G Master lens. All are very capable. Lots of folks found the old Canon 135mm f2 L to be the best of many worlds. But personally for me, I fell for the first version of the Zeiss 135mm f2. 

Let’s take a delve into the image quality from some of those lenses, shall we?

Zeiss 135mm f2 Original

To me, older digital lenses have a beautiful character and softness to them. You don’t need to Photoshop skin, and part of that is due to the sensors from early digital. Now, you’d need to haze filter in some cases. But these lenses are and always will be wonderful. The first Zeiss 135mm f2 was totally just that! Honestly, I wish manufacturers would make lenses like this again. I don’t totally care for super high sharpness.

Pro Tip: We recommend that you communicate with the person that you’re photographing first to get insight as to what they want. Some headshots are more corporate oriented while others are for comp cards, actor profiles, and dating websites.
Zeiss 135mm f2
Leaning forward, neck upward and creating a straight line with the back. Bring the hair over to one side.

Zeiss 135mm f2 Milvus

Zeiss is following up their original 135mm with the Milvus version. This one upgraded the optics and made it weather sealed. This, too, was a wonderful lens. But to me, the original made skin tones look better. The Milvus lineup is manual focus lenses. And in the late days of DSLRs, Zeiss chose to embrace the vivid look. While nice, it didn’t always do great for someone’s skin.

Zeiss 135mm f2 Milvus. Photo by Simon Chetrit.

Zeiss 135mm f2.8 Batis

The Zeiss 135mm f2.8 Batis was also very good. But it was also sort of an odd lens. Part of this is because of the Sony platform, which makes photos look too clinical. But it’s also a very slow aperture 135mm lens. For what it’s worth, though, the image quality is very beautiful. 

Sigma 135mm f1.8 DG Art HSM

The Sigma 135mm f1.8 is a fantastic balance. There isn’t character per se, but there surely is a look. And it has a lot of micro-contrast to give a 3D style render. It’s also very sharp. We used it on the Canon system and the Sony system. In the image below, you can pretty clearly tell the differences.

Sony 135mm f1.8 G Master

The Sony 135mm f1.8 G Master is highly regarded by lots of photographers. Personally speaking again, though, it’s a very clinical look. I’m not always sold on it. But I’ll admit that I’ve seen some wonderful images come from it. I’m not sure, though, that I want to shoot with a lens and camera then spend an hour or so in post-production. I’m at a point where I want to stare at computer screens much less.

Sony 135mm f1.8 Alpha 

I’ve heard lots of folks say that they prefer the original Sony 135mm for A-mount more. That’s because of the character. And as you can see from these photos, it really did have a beautiful render to it.

Now, if Canon has all this competition, they need to find a way to outdo all the rest. Ideally, their 135mm needs to be faster or around f1.8. An f1.4 lens would be very cool! But it also needs to have something extra to make people flock to it. Maybe it will be the size? We’re not sure. What I think would be really cool is something like the Leica FLE elements inside a Canon RF 135mm lens. Just imagine what it would do for the bokeh!

What would you want in it? We’d like to hear from you in the comments below.

Lead image by Dane, and used with Creative Commons Permissions.

Bokeh Canon RF 135mm character f1.4 lens milbus sigma smaller weather sealing
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Chris Gampat

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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