Canon 135mm f/2 L USM Review

 

The 135mm prime is not a popular lens between nature photographer, but if you are interested in portraits, it may be one of the best lenses you can get. The price is not out of this world, and it is one of the Canon "L" professional lenses, so I expected good image and built quality. Other than that, it has the ultrasonic AF motor, and if you use it on a APS-C camera, you get a 215mm f/2, that may be an alternative to the monstrous 200 f/2 IS, if you have a limited budget. Let's give a look to this interesting lens!  
 
Many thanks to my friend Sandro who loaned me this lens!  
 
As usual, I recommend to give a look to the page Testing and reviewing a lens: it will help you to understand better this review and my testing methodology! Specifications (compared with similar lenses)

 
 

Built quality and autofocus

The 135mm f/2 is smaller than what I thought - it has about the same size of the Canon 24-105. The built quality is excellent and, unlike the 85mm f/1.2 that I reviewed few weeks ago, it had the true ring type AF motor, that is pretty fast. It is not weather sealed and it has no image stabilization, but these are not an huge problem for a lens like this, that will be used mainly for studio work and portraits.  
 
There are not many alternatives to the 135mm. The 100mm f/2 is much cheaper, but it has lower built quality, a very poor reproduction ratio and I doubt that it has the same sharpness of the 135 f/2. I wouldn't even consider the 23-years-old 135mm SoftFocus, that nowadays is completely useless, if you want soft focus effect you can get it with Photoshop in few seconds. An interesting alternative might be the 70-200 f/2.8 L IS, that gives about the same background blur (it is not as bright but it is longer) and it is much more versatile. That said, the 70-200 is two times more expensive, much bigger and much heavier.  
 
Another question is that if the Canon 135 L can be considered a "poor man alternative" to the uber 200mm f/2 L IS. Yes and no: on APS-C, you get a 215mm f/2 equivalent that is pretty good for indoor sports and similar applications, but you won't have the same separation from background given by the 200 f/2 on fullframe, nor the reach given by the 200 f/2 on APS-C, nor the amazing four stop IS of the 200mm. That said, when you see the $5300 price of the 200 f/2, you may even think that these things are no so important ;-) Seriously, it depends by your necessities: if you are a pro sport photographer and you often take photos of indoor sports, the 200 f/2 IS USM is the way to go; if you take this kind of photos from time to time, you can save a ton of money by using the 135mm f/2.

 

Canon 135mm f/2 side by side with the Canon 24-105 IS. The 24-105 is here only for size comparison, they are not meant in any way to compete!
 

Background blur comparison

This comparison gives you an idea between the different amount of background blur at f/2 (135mm f/2) and the blur of other lenses that can be used for portraits, at f/2.8 (as the 70-200 f/2.8 IS) and f/4.5 (as many tele zoom, for example Canon 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 IS)

The f/2 aperture gives a visible advantage in comparison with f/2.8 and a big advantage in comparison to f/4.5. That said, remember that at f/2.0 you have a very thin depth of field, so it is not easy to get the entire subject in focus.
 
 

Image quality

I have tested the lens on my Canon 1DsIII (21 megapixel, fullframe). The lens was mounted on tripod; I have used mirror lock up and self timer. The following images are 100% crop from the unprocessed RAW file.

In the center, the 135 f/2 has already the maximum sharpness at f/2. In the corners, it is ok wide open, and it gets better when you stop down a little. That said, the 99% of the times the corners will be out of focus areas, so corner performance does not matter much in such lens.
 
 

Samples and comments

These are some sample photos taken with the Canon 135mm f/2 L USM on Canon 1DsIII. You can download either the untouched photo (JPEG converted from RAW without any additional post processing; minimum contrast and saturation, no sharpening, no AC, distortion or vignetting correction) or the post processed version. The untouched photo is a good way to see the real image quality of the lens, and the post processed versions allow to see the final quality you can get with good post processing techniques.

The 135mm f/2 is a very sharp lens; the sharpness is great even wide open at f/2. It has much, much less chromatic aberration than the 85mm f/1.2 and it has a very pleasing background blur.
 
 

Conclusions

Being a nature photographer, I have never had much interest in this lens, but I must say that I have been positively impressed. If you are into portraits, I highly recommend this lens: it gives very good image quality and pleasing background blur at a reasonable price. It is not cheap, but it is much less expensive than a 70-200 2.8 zoom or 85mm f/1.2 prime; other than that, at f/2 you already have a much more usable depth of field than the exotic 85mm f/1.2. Very recommended for portrait photographers!