Beautiful portrait lens. The best ones listed below serve well with a one stop reduction, and some require two or even three stops. It is so sharp it makes you rethink the use of your zoom lenses. (purchased for $899), reviewed March 19th, 2012 Why so salty? There are only a handful of foolproof strategies for making a great photograph. It's not the most versatile lens, but it's very great for tight portrait shoots; background blur is creamy IMO; one of the best 'bokeh' lens. There is no agreement about what Bokeh means. Litepanels Studio X2 Bi-Color LED Fresnel Light. Of course, when it comes to astrophotography, this can create some challenges as well. Does the bright star reflection bother you? When I was teaching photography in 70's at a junior college, I critiqued students photos, but I never did so harshly. Nothing just makes sense about the review -- the writer does not really understand the lens he is reviewing, very basic concepts are wrong. I think prime users get too used to the idea of bokeh as the only answer. The focuser adjustment rotates roughly 270 degrees, meaning fine-tuning on a bright star is more precise. I actually have to walk 1/2 way up the stairs to be able get folk in the frame. I had a 70-200 f/4 that i used unstopped at 200 with awesome results. When attached to a DSLR camera with a full frame sensor, the lens offers a massive 15.5 x 10.6 field of view, or 18.8 across the diagonal. 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). EF-mount only, this packs more megapixels, a bigger sensor, and a high max ISO. No more inside shooting with flash! AF is accurate and very fast. Material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted or otherwise used without the prior written consent of The Imaging Resource. Heh, it's amazing how far Samyang has come since this article (I'm loving their 45 & 75 f1.8), and kinda amusing that they ended up delivering exactly what you asked for Kinda reminds me of that article by Roger Cicala about how long lens development takes. As in all arts the client's likes influence the result up to a point. In the past, Ive covered a number of different lenses, from the Sigma 24mm F/1.4 to the Canon EF 300mm F/4L. I cant wait to try this lens out during the winter months on some wide-field targets in Orion. It allows to push your main subject matter into abstraction wide open and get very detailed images stopped down. I want to see the bokeh and the sharpness at 100% mag, don't care about the photos. I would be careful with the Nikon 135 f/2 DC (I have one). ", I'd no problem with that. I would only recommend this lens for casual photographers where missed shot means nothing. Bye I do not think telephoto lenses would be suitable for use with your modified camera. Yep the speed wars in the 70's that gave us all these bokeh monsters were all about the fact that its hard to get usable images in poor lighting when your film was stuck at iso 80 (or even 400 when you were pushing it). . Round one of polls are now open, pick your winners and share your voice. I really wanted to use, and like, a 135mm f2 lens so I bought the Canon version. Do I wish it were manufactured with metal? Ive been using kit lenses for the past year, favoring the Nikkor 50mm 2.8. Stick to Andromeda, and skip the Whirlpool. I have the Canon 135 f/2 and loved it from day one. Holiday Savings $50 . My Nikon focus and aperture rings are a thing of highly finessed engineering beauty! I got mine for $60.00 on Craigslist but seen them on eBay for $100 and less all the time. The Sadr Region in Cygnus, including the Crescent Nebula by Eric Cauble. Click on following link to view images Perfect lens on the same level as CZ! If the telescope mount is precisely aligned to the celestial north pole, unguided exposures of one to two minutes are possible. I liked the extra versatility of the zoom and the ability to shoot at 200mm. Online since 2011, AstroBin is the #1 complete solution for image hosting of astrophotographs. Which Canon EOS M Would be Best for Astrophotography? While there are certainly pricey 135mm F2 lenses out there (such as the aforementioned Sigma 135mm F1.8 Art, or the Carl Zeiss 135mm) there are a couple that give you extreme value for the money. Nice article for beginners.It's all in the eyes of the beholder. Canon 135 mm is really E X T R A O R D I N A R Y lens. Add To Cart. In this new review, I focus exclusively on the unprecedented Samyang 135mm f/2, which is primarily designed for portrait and wildlife. The main problem with the old lenses is spherical aberration and colour error, especially pronounced on digital sensors. The 135L is half the weight of the 70-200 2.8IS. Samyang should definitely make 135 f2 with the same optical formula and AF for Sony EFF and also Nikon F plus Canon EF mount if possible. To see even more example photos using the Rokinon 135mm lens (or Samyang branded version), go ahead a perform a search on Astrobin or Flickr, with the appropriate filter. I have taken some of the coolest photos with this lens on a canon mark III which shoots ten frames per second. The Rokinon 135mm F2.0 is considered to be a full-frame lens because it can accommodate a full-frame image sensor with its 18.8-degree angle of view. reviewed August 2nd, 2017 This is an amazing lens.Very sharp wide open and no improvement when stopped own. Lenses with extreme sharpness and bokeh tend to be heavy. It also focuses really fast and accurate and is light. I took a few shots with the lens on my way home after buying it. Using a Canon EF 24-105mm Lens for Astrophotography - AstroBackyard The lens hood is not petal-shaped, which is great news for those using this lens for astrophotography. So I sold it for nearly what I bought it for and chalked it up to a learning experience. If you have the 1.8 version, way to go. A lot of lenses today are better than anything money could buy in 1980. The F/2.0 maximum aperture of the Rokinon 135mm lens offers a chance to collect a serious amount of signal in a single shot. Besides lack of IS, the only major issue I have with this lens is flare. Helps me as a beginner a lot 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. The 135 f/2 is not perfect. The next 200mm lens of excellent quality is the 200mm F4 Nikkor F which requires the Nikon F to EOS adapter. The shallow depth of field present at its maximum aperture does indeed create a pleasing bokeh. LENSES FOR ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY: Samyang 135mm f2 REVIEW - YouTube Far from being a generic run-of-the-mill image hosting website, it was created and is still operated by an astrophotographer, and boasts features that are very specific to astrophotography. This lens has the Pentax K bayonet mount, and requires the K-EOS adapter for attachment to Canon EOS cameras. @juksu - you're such a liar. The image below highlights the creative freedom this lens provides. 135mm F2.0 The optical design includes one extra-low dispersion lens element to control chromatic aberration, contributing to sharp, color-accurate imaging, and each of its lens elements features Ultra Multi-Coating to improve light transmission and reduce ghosting and flare. Super Sharp.Super Fast AF. It's bokeh is comparable to the 85mm 1.2 but IMO not as nice. The flat lens hood is great for taking flat frames after a night of astrophotography. Now - THAT's a lens everyone should have ;). Just plain black plastic (no interior felt as in newer lens hoods). Its a joy to work with every time. But the Rokinon f/2 version fits into a different market. Released only weeks apart, the Sony 50mm F1.4 GM and Sigma F1.4 DG DN Art are clear competitors. Cost. This lens is one of canons finest lenses i have ever used. Photography is full of fuzzy concepts. If you can tolerate vignetting, there are many normal 35mm lenses that are great wide open. Rokinon 135mm F/2 Lens for ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY. Olympus 4x Optical Zoom f/2 Lens; 25-100mm (35mm Equivalent) Show More. Its fast f/2.0 maximum aperture is effective in low light and enables shallow depth of field control. Samyang 135mm f/2.0 ED UMC Telephoto Lens for Canon EF Digital SLR Cameras This lens flares easily and the flare can be especially ugly if a sun or flash are in the frame. The screws should be set sufficiently tightly to prevent shift, yet not so tightly as to interfere with fine focusing. "That is why when SLRs came along the 200mm became the big seller and the 135 was largely forgotten"Did you notice that this 135mm F2 lens on an APS-C camera is more or less equivalent to a 200mm F2.8 lens on an FF camera ?So this lens can be seen as the 200mm F2.8 lens for APS-C camera users. All content, design, and layout are Copyright 19982023 Digital Photography Review All Rights Reserved. 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. The CA is pretty low wide open and it rivals my 200mm L lens. You can go lower, but you have to watch your technique. In 3 months I got loosy focus ring. I do not use burst mode, but the lens would produce movie-like frames. This thing is a beast in comparison. Also Nikon DC 135mm f/2 is a great lens, a little better than 135mm Canon So I feel I'm being cheated. But she might as well be in front of a green screen. The Olympus Zuiko 180/2.8 and 100/2.8 impressed me in the 1980s, but in the digital era they are not so sharp. Include the Carl Zeiss in your research though, it might be an interesting lens for you, even if it is a bit pricey for what you get. Rokinon 135mm F/2.0 ED UMC LensCheck Price (Amazon): https://amzn.to/2MOUFeOExample Images: https://astrobackyard.com/rokinon-135mm-f2-astrophotography/I've . All lenses mentioned below are adaptable to Canon EOS cameras with slim EOS adapters which allow the lenses to focus just slightly past infinity. If you must have autofocus, and care about weight, buy the Canon. There are times that making no comment at all is far more telling than posting negative - and sometimes offensive - ad hominem attacks on the author for daring to show some enthusiasm. I find neither the cat nor the duck particularly good. Aperture ring. 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. The colder temperatures will make DSLR astrophotography much more practical, and there are plenty of great targets to choose from. While they provide a very large flat field we noticed some CA. - in my subjects' skin. Looking forward to allow purchasing the Canon 200mm f/2.8L II USM. The Japanese word "bokeh" can be translated into English as "blur". The lens came in a handsome box, with core specifications and a lens construction diagram printed on the side. The one and only 300mm lens I tested is the Zeiss Tele-Tessar 300mm F4. Tack sharp at f/2. - posted in Beginning Deep Sky Imaging: I have recently received my star adventurer and as of now only have the star adventurer, benro tripod (super stable), and a unmodded canon t2i with only a 18-55mm lens. The 135mm f/2.0 ED UMC Lens from Samyang is a manual focus telephoto prime lens useful for portraiture and most telephoto applications. An h-alpha filter would still be useful for your D500, but much more so if it were modified! Can't argue with your reasoning, Juksu, about the framing of the article, but just stopping by to say I really liked that cat picture, am shopping for a new smartphone, struck that this type of photo is in another league - all newbie observations, of course, which sort of supports your thoughts that an article like this would be better framed as a "Love this new long lens stuff" sort of thing. The Heart and Soul Nebulae captured using a DSLR and the Rokinon 135mm lens. Orion's Belt : r/astrophotography - reddit.com I think the readers would welcome contributions from other members' experiences. Sigma 105/2.8 DG EX Macro (very sharp at infinity) Optics quality, sharp,very special picture, sharpness, clarity, weight, fast, accurate AF (fringe benefit of f/2), price, no IS, makes you regret buying any zoom lenses, compact, very sharp wide open, good color contrast, bokeh, this is the lens. Focusing a wide open F/2 lens is demanding of the optics, especially on a field of stars in the night sky. For this reason, a combination of a good light pollution filter, and the use of flat calibration frames are recommended. They were not however designed to be bokeh monsters though that was just a side effect of making them fast and people bought them for speed with bokeh being the afterthought so not Bokeh for the sake of Bokeh as he said. (For Nikon users there's the new 105mm too.). To actually learn to compose the photos so that the background complements the image instead of being something that must be blurred away. Excellent color and saturation, a virtually perfect lens. I do know, however, that I can take an equally framed photo I've shot with my Canon kit lens, both zoomed to 100% I run circles around this guy. The moment I tried the Samyang 135mm F2 for the first time after purchasing it, I immediately felt that it was a very special lens. To fit the Heart and Soul Nebulae in a single frame requires an extremely wide field of view (compared to the magnification of most telescopes). The Precious - sharp images, fast focus, perfect weight, reference-quality build. if you compare images taken with this lens to those from a 105mm f1.8 ais or a cosina 125mm and you'll see what i mean. Sharp without being harsh. You can barely tell it's a pond.#3: Duck.Birds with bokeh are fine. You got a criticism fine say it politely, and too the point. Of the old teles I've had, Nikon's 400mm f/3.5 was decent, Olympus's 300mm f/4.5 was good (it had a precursor to ED glass) Pentax's 300mm Takumar was TERRIBLE, Pentax's 500mm was terrible, Nikon's 135 f/2.8 Q was ok, and Sigma's 400mm f/5.6 "apo" was satisfactory. The flat lens hood design allows you to easily take flat frames with the Rokinon 135mm using the white t-shirt method or using a flat panel. These lenses go about as close as you could get without a dedicated macro lens. f1.4 was a necessisty rather than a creative luxury. A coupe of stage shows, one very recent, and a random collection using this lens exclusively By far the best one is the Tiffen Haze 2 filter. 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. The 50mm f/1.4 and f/1.2 is another story.While the 135mm f/2, in general, is a good lens, there are lots of lenses other than the 135 f/2 that will produce a very smoothly blurred background, including zoom lenses.It sounds like Micael is new to photography.Just my impression from this article. 135mm and 200mm lenses are suitable for wide angle star-field views, and comet and asteroid hunting, while 300mm lenses serve very well for the Andromeda galaxy, large emission nebulae, open clusters, and even larger globular clusters. Before I go any further, Id like to share a photo from Gabriel Millou of the Andromeda Galaxy using a Canon 1300D. I have done a review comparing the sharpness and quality of bokeh to the Canon 70-200 2.8. Otherwise this lens is absolutely incredible. Can I assume that this article applies only to full frame & not to micro four thirds? It's Film Friday, so let's take a look back at the film format that gave APS-C sensors their name! 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. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.No disagreement here. It's gross, all is a matter of balance and the perfect one, given you want sharp and fuzzy elements in your picture, is in the blend, and the way details seems to disappear gracefully (while keeping a level of readability). Digital Cameras & Digital Camera Kits | Camera Gear | B&H It starts out very sharp at f/2.0, gets even sharper at f/2.8, and softens only slightly at f/11. I really like how they augment my longer focal length scopes. (purchased for $700), reviewed October 9th, 2012 Although your target audience is beginning DSLR imagers, much of your advice also applies to using lenses with CCD cameras. Really, just an amazing lens, easily worth the $800-900 it commands on the street. thanks for the tiring patronising lecture and then agreeing with me. etc.. Ron. BTW, the 300-mm Tele-Tessar you describe -- what camera was it made for? Sony has added a full-frame 50mm F1.4 prime to its premium 'GM' range of E-mount lenses. Never before (nor after) have I seen a lens with this level of sharpness wide open. Sharpness, contrast and the natural vignetting on full-frame cameras is awesome! I've missed shots at wide apertures because the DOF is so extremely thin. As rest you do just by cropping or stitching. I owned this lens for a long time, then traded it for the 70-200 2.8IS II. I would love to see his test images. This includes everything from the rich star fields of Sagittarius, to a complete look at the Andromeda Galaxy. I need fast auto-focus, predictable focus lock and natural, vibrant color rendition. I have only owned my 135mm for less then a year, but already it is one of my top three most used and most fun lenses. This lens is very sharp, corner to corner wide open. http://www.idyll.com/laney2014 Second night out with mine right now and I am here in the comments looking for the part number or link! Prime lenses are typically lighter as they do not need the additional glass and mechanics required to zoom at varying magnifications. The spec sheet for the Rokinon 135mm F/2 boasts a number of qualities, with the ones listed below being the most important when it comes to night photography and astro. I have a 135mm f2.8 lens I've used for wide DSOs but mostly I use 200mm.