my 135mm f/2 L story

MMACory wrote:

Do you feel like the 85 1.8 is a nice complement to the 135 or do you typically gravitate towards the 135 (or 50)?

Thanks.

My 85 f/1.8 is my second best lens. Up until 5 days ago, it was my best lens.

I went up to the tip of Denmark last August with only the 6D and the 40mm pancake, and I came back with plenty of fine photos from a somewhat unspoiled area... beaches and fields, et cetera.

During the last weekend I spent an hour or two going through my old photos from 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006... looking to see what I did with my previous 135mm, about 15 years ago. Just to copy the best ones into one directory on my PC. I remember them now, 15 years later.

The 135 just gives you images that you look at and say, « wow, that’s a great photo ». The colors, the sharpness, the bokeh... all in the same image. Images that you will remember, fifteen years later.

I remember seeing somebody in this forum making a joke about using the 135 as « a walk around lens ».

Obviously, it’s a joke. Because it’s so long, it really can’t be « a walk around lens », but yet, it’s so fine, you end up trying to use it as your « walk around lens ».

Clearly as recently as a week ago I was thinking about the Canon 50 L, or the Sigma 50 Art. That is what I was going to spend my money on, to have one really good lens for my 6D.

50mm is more usable. 50 or 40 is what I « gravitate » to.

But then I just realized that what I wanted is a lens that is just like the 135mm, but is 50mm.

And then from there I realized that what I wanted, is the 135. Some of what it is, is because of the materials it is made with. But half of what it is, is because it is 135mm.

The « subject isolation », the bokeh, that comes from the length of 135mm.

Trying to think of a humorous way to explain it... I realized that I wanted to buy a unicorn, but I wanted my unicorn to have « two corns ».

And then finally I understood, that I wanted a unicorn.

Is 135mm too long ? Heck yeah. But just that same, that’s it.

This guy had a nice video : https://youtu.be/avL_NVu6WCM