To me it is a dead spot between 85 and 200. Got it! Below, are a few examples of astrophotography images Ive taken with lenses of varying focal lengths. Just plain black plastic (no interior felt as in newer lens hoods). To achieve creamy bokeh, a lens should have a wide maximum aperture and a long focal length. https://www.dpreview.com/news/7777572944/video-using-the-5-700-canon-200mm-f2-on-the-new-sony-a7r-iii, DPReview TV: We share our 2021 predictions while freezing our asses off, Video: Here's how Adobe Lightroom Mobile works on the Zeiss ZX1, DPReview TV: How to set up Sony's 'Real-Time' autofocus tracking, 7Artisans releases a $195 35mm F5.6 golden pancake lens for Leica M mount cameras, OM System M. Zuiko 90mm F3.5 Macro Sample Gallery, Fujifilm X-T5 production sample gallery (DPReview TV), DPReview TV: Canon RF 16mm F2.8 STM Review, DPReview TV: Sony 50mm F1.4 GM vs Sigma 50mm F1.4 DG DN Art, The best cameras for family and friends photos in 2022, Best affordable cameras for sports and action in 2022. $581.00 for 7 days. Find out what happens when Chris shoots some very expired APS film using old Canon and Nikon cameras. (purchased for $650), reviewed June 6th, 2008 Finally, to prevent image shift during exposure, all telephoto lenses must be supported at two points: at the camera end, and at the far end with a large retaining ring. Stellarium has a great viewport feature that allows you to preview different lens and sensor combinations on DSO's before you decide on the focal length you want. Some people like these, and consider them decorative. My Canon EOS 60Da with the Rokinon 135mm F/2.0 mounted to a Fornax Mounts LighTrack II. In these situations, a portable, wide-field imaging rig wins. Not only does it let you travel light, but impressive wide field projects are often more successful when captured under a dark sky. I took a few shots with the lens on my way home after buying it. If you are a Nikon user, of course have a look at the Nikon AF Nikkor 135mm f/2D DC and compare it to the other lenses mentioned in this article. But you raise the exact point, that primes should be chosen with a 2x factor. For some objects a reflection can take away from the photo because it covers interesting details of the object (Think Alnitak in the Horsehead Nebula). Unfortunately it is not manufactured in a multicoated version, and produces prominent internal reflection artifacts on very bright stars. The optical design includes one extra-low dispersion (ED) lens element to control chromatic aberration, and ultra multi-coatings (UMC) to both improve light transmission and reduce flare. At f/32, it's pretty soft, but less so than a lot of lenses at that aperture. Its fast f/2.0 maximum aperture is effective in low light and enables shallow depth of field control. But that 10Mpix is more than enough to make a very good A3-A2 size print, but your technique needs to be very good as even slight misfocus is even more visible and the rendering faults as well. The 200f2.8 L is excellent - I am using it right now. I already did some trials with the Samyang 12mm lens. Rokinon lenses are made in Korea, and so is the Samyang variation. The focuser adjustment rotates roughly 270 degrees, meaning fine-tuning on a bright star is more precise. What next, an article extolling the virtues of 43mm, or 70mm? - 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. (Suggesting that diffraction limiting is only part of the story with lens softness at tiny apertures.). It also focuses really fast and accurate and is light. For example, the legendary Canon 85mm F1.2L weighs in at 1025g, and the Sigma 85mm F1.4 Art isn't too light either at 1130g. 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. There's literally no story!#6: Purple Flower.The isolation works because it's the only color. Other times, like the Witch Head Nebula, I love seeing the star responsible for the object in all its glaring glory! And if you want autofocus, I would recommend the Canon 135mm f2.0L, which is incredibly light for its performance at just 750g. It is really thanks to another commentator pointing out something that finally makes sense out of this mess: This article is by someone who just got his first first telephoto ever, and is writing about how he feels when he is trying it out. All lenses mentioned below are adaptable to Canon EOS cameras with slim EOS adapters which allow the lenses to focus just slightly past infinity. We were very impressed with X-T5's 40-megapixel APS-C sensor, check out some full resolution images! Zoom lenses are entirely unsuitable for astrophotography due to prominent aberrations of every kind. The Samyang 135mm f/2 lens is very wide in astrophotography terms. Exterem apertures are extrems (wether it's full open or closed) that should be reserved for extrem cases. Wonderful, smooth bokeh. The version I have has the mount for Canon EOS camera bodies, but there are several different lens mounts available on Amazon. 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. Voting ends March 8, 2023. http://www.flickr.com/photos/tbrigham/284303834/. I enjoied the use of this lens many years before the DSLR. Could use a few updates. Litepanels Studio X2 Bi-Color LED Fresnel Light. We were surprised by just how much difference there was between these AI-powered image enlargers. One of the prime examples of such a design is the "nifty fifty"the 50mm F1.8 lens construction that many lens manufacturers provide. Although this lens feels solid, it is rather light when compared to a telescope. I just got the Samyang version of this lens and used it with my Canon 3ti on a Skywatcher Star Adventurer. They're heavy, and expensive, but you can carry one lens instead of three, and can vary the compression and field of view to a significant degree - from nearly normal, to long portrait focal lengths. The APO showed no chromatic aberration at all with the addition of the Astronomik UV/IR cut clip filter (passing 380-680nm), but the telephoto lenses, even when stopped down, showed a tight bright red ring around all stars. Moreover if we have a serendipitous moment regarding a new (or used) lens, that's a good thing. This is actually worse than just plain obsession with blur. An update to the Mini 11, the new camera adds parallax correction capabilities, automatic flash control and a multi-function twist lens. Really, just an amazing lens, easily worth the $800-900 it commands on the street. How well do Fujifilm's film simulations match up to their film counterparts? Make sure to select your camera mount when checking the price (Check current price). That is why when SLRs came along the 200mm became the big seller and the 135 was largely forgotten. (purchased for $900), reviewed December 4th, 2006 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. Available Monday. Some real life images from my photoblog: http://hellabella.de, One of the best and sharpest lens around. Built quality is wonderful, focus ring is well-damped. As rest you do just by cropping or stitching. No rear seals - since the 17-40 Canon has added rear seals to L lenses, to help in weather sealing. Sme of the wide field are. It is harder work than using a zoom lens, and some shots I just cannot get at all (cannot get close enough, or far enough way) but the shots I do get are so much nicer looking than I get with any other lens that for me and my goals it is a fair trade off. Some of the primes have a special look to them, but only the 70-200 is indispensable. When i check a F stop chart, i see 15 stops if i count the main, and the secondary ones: 2, 2.4, 2.8, 3.3, 4, 4.8, 5.6, 6.7, 8, 9.5, 11, 13, 16, 19, 22. Because of some residual chromatic aberration even with the aperture stop, the best focus lies not where the star image is the smallest, but rather just slightly away from infinity, at the point where the star image barely begins to enlarge. Nothing else like it and the reason the two DC lenses have remained in production since they were introduced in 1993. https://www.dpreview.com/galleries/1180017085/photos/3721717/bokeh. Do I wish it were manufactured with metal? Is it possible to get good results on a Baader filter modifed Canon 450D and a good telephoto lens, or do I need to get a good APO? Canon CR-N700 4K PTZ Camera with 15x Zoom. Images that sing. I just wish this lens had IS for low light and portraits with flash. They seem to be really good for NB work. [emailprotected]. The lens is available on eBay for around $200. Thats quite a jump from 135mm, so the camera body you use with this lens may change the types of targets you shoot. One is the price, which starts around $800 for the smallest units, and rapidly climbs into thousands of dollars for larger apertures. This is a fully manual lens, meaning that it does not have autofocus, and you must manually select the f-stop using the aperture ring at the base of the lens. If you own an EOS Camera - It's a no Brainer, Buy one Because it's an L-series lens by Canon, you can be sure that the image quality and performance of the 24-105mm meet the demanding aspects of astrophotography such as focus and star quality. A series of such images can be digitally stacked to produce excellent results. Lenses with extreme sharpness and bokeh tend to be heavy. 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.'. It must not be confused with the much cheaper SMC Takumar, often deceptively advertised as SMC Pentax Takumar, which has the M42 camera thread, and is plagued with unextinguishable blue chromatic aberration. With the 135 I imagine I'd have to get up on the roof. The Canon EF 135mm f/2L USM Lens makes an excellent indoor sports lens. The Sadr Region in Cygnus, including the Crescent Nebula by Eric Cauble. Contrasty, saturated, nice colours. parts of your main subject extend beyond the DOF range it will never look flat. If you want the best value possible for your money, and can survive without autofocus, buy the Samyang. One of them is simplicity: A clear, simple subject that constitutes a shape, standing out and contrasting against a calm and simple background. You don't have to worry about shopping for a better lens anymore. Neutral yet very nice colours. Well, for me. They are by nature designed to compromise by magnification and distance, and are therefore not optically optimized at any single setting. I have the Canon EF 135mm, f2L USM. As in all arts the client's likes influence the result up to a point. When stopped down to 37mm, F5.4, it is almost identical to the Takumar except that on highly enlarged images it shows a hint of coma in the distant corners. We sell a wide variety of digital cameras from all the top brands like Canon, Nikon, Sony, Panasonic, Olympus, Fujifilm, Pentax, Leica, Samsung, and more. Check out (purchased for $1,000), reviewed February 4th, 2010 I will say that at F/4 this lens is extremely sharp corner to corner when used on my 60Da. 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. What is it like shooting with one today? And you can even crop a 135 efl with today's sensors should you actually need it. Fast. What I see is a photographer who should maybe instead stick to the kit lens, and learn composition first. I had both for a while. IQ will rival any other lens. Some reviewers have listed lack of IS as a "Con". These lenses go about as close as you could get without a dedicated macro lens. 1. At 135mm, you can get really creative about the object or objects you shoot and where you position them within the frame. reviewed August 2nd, 2017 One way to combat potential soft images and chasing perfect focus all night is to stop the lens down to F/2.8 or even F/4. There are quite a few other excellent lenses out there, and nowadays, quite a few that can be used wide open. I hear great things about the Canon 200/2.8 L but do not have one. Lens hood - when I bought this lens years ago the included hood was rather cheap (perhaps Canon has updated the hood) by comparison with other hoods. Back in 1999, Sony released the F505, their first digital camera with a Carl Zeiss lens. For my purposes, this is a spectacular lens. Great for portraits. If You can not, buy Canon EF 85/1.8, which delivers quite similar results. As such, it applies most directly here to areas of an image that are out of focus. Just place your subject against a distant background, and half of the job is done. 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. I just love the lightning fast & accurate focus of this lens. She's cold? It's small, light, cheap and extremely wide but is it any good? Extrapolating from this, minimum recommended guidescope power is 120x for the 300mm telephoto, 80x for the 200mm, and 55x for the 135mm. Some noteworthy targets to try. Pentax seems to have put more emphasis than others on keeping the resolution uniform all over the field. This includes everything from the rich star fields of Sagittarius, to a complete look at the Andromeda Galaxy. Personally, I can't stand these circles, and I see them as VERY distracting.Lots of fads come and go, and this is just another one of these fads that some photographers are obsessed with. For the rest there is Sigma 135 /1.8 Art also fantastic value lens. I see that many commenters did not get what this lens can do. Rokinon 135mm F2.0 ED Lens. Micael Widell is a photography enthusiast based in Stockholm, Sweden. To achieve creamy bokeh, a lens should have a wide maximum aperture and a long focal length. In this configuration, the lens is still a very fast F3.4. I also tested 200 f/2.8 tele and it is one of the most perfect lens in existence, as well as the 135. Stopping down would actually have improved the picture. These include canon lens for night photography along with good budget lenses for astrophotography. But first, there are several general rules which must be understood. Let's dig in. Maybe try a 400mm f/2.0 to see it that one's got enough blur. I have a 135mm f2.8 lens I've used for wide DSOs but mostly I use 200mm. During the frigid months of winter, my motivation to spend over an hour setting up my complete deep-sky imaging rig dwindles. These lenses can be had on eBay in mint condition for around $70, and are probably the most price efficient optical instrument in the world. But I would argue that a 135mm F2 lens produces even greater bokeh, thanks to the long focal length that compresses the background far more than the 85mm lens. Since Eric was so generous to share his images with me, I had to include his photo of the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex as well. He has quite a breadth photos many of which are quite good. 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. So I sold it for nearly what I bought it for and chalked it up to a learning experience. I love this lens, The Sharpest Lens available for Eos cameras IMO Tiring. Add To Cart. Seems to me that with your gallery and website of images you should refrain from passing judgment on who is and isn't a photography master. I cant decide whether to clean it up in processing or let it be. 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. If the telescope mount is precisely aligned to the celestial north pole, unguided exposures of one to two minutes are possible. I ordered this lens on Amazon, utilizing my Amazon Prime membership. Camera tech for video has come a long way in recent years, with faster autofocus, subject tracking, eye tracking and smarter lenses that stabilize the frame. I have done a review comparing the sharpness and quality of bokeh to the Canon 70-200 2.8. The closest Ive been to the 135mm range is 105mm on my Canon 24-105 zoom. But I would argue that a 135mm F2 lens produces even greater bokeh, thanks to the long focal length that compresses the background far more than the 85mm lens. 24/28mm, 50mm, 100mm, 200mm. I have had a blast with a samyang, but a used 135mm f2.8 is VERY . This lens is simply lighter, cheaper & faster (f/2.0 vs f/2.8). http://johncarnessali.com/camera-lens-tests/5109, After reading too many long, and arduous threads pertaining to the new Zeiss 135, I felt compelled to share my perspective on the wonderful Canon 135. Nice image, andysea. But even better BOKEH is the SAL-135F2.8F4.5 STF (Smooth Trans Focus ) which has even better BOKEH, albeit a manual focus lens. Such "full spectrum" cameras are somewhat more sensitive in the ultraviolet, but much more sensitive in the deep red and infrared. After weeks with a production Fujifilm X-T5, Chris and Jordan have some final thoughts. "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. Before I go any further, Id like to share a photo from Gabriel Millou of the Andromeda Galaxy using a Canon 1300D. You will see why. The 135 L handles this well. $399 00. however i started to realise how every subject might actually be a cardboard cutout being photographed. The latter are designed for crop sensor cameras and the back of the lens sticks too far into the body of the camera and would hit the EOS-clip filter. The Rokinon 135mm F/2 ED UMC lens. It's an ideal portrait lens. Yes, there is some sharpness added when stopping down to f4 or f5.6 but after that it doesn't get better. With this lens you don't need to do much if any post processing. That setup will give you all that you really need. Canon's 700-200 zooms have IS and are weather sealed two features that the 135 f/2 lacks. Most small refracting telescopes start in the 300 to 400 mm focal length range, and even these are classed as widefield telescopes. Nikon 300/4 ED IF, Sigma 50/2.8 DG Macro (not a telephoto, but good). The extremes are 2 and 22. I owned this lens for a long time, then traded it for the 70-200 2.8IS II. But do some experimenting before you decide. Will this ever get old? For portraits and with a high MP body I'd be more inclined than ever to just go 85mm, and for other uses it's hard to pass up the zooms' versatility, but I still there's still room for 135s in some kits and some formats. Well saturated but neutral. One very popular lens for bokeh fiends is the Canon 85mm F1.2it can produce extremely creamy out of focus backgrounds. It is NOT extremely sharp wide open, it often requires massive AF adjustment on DLSRs (sometimes beyond what the body allows as micro-adjustment) and AF is not reliable enough to consistently ensure sharp focus at full aperture. Also, when shooting the heart nebula, is the sky tracker a must or not required? There is no doubt that the 135L deserves it excellent reputation for image quality. I was blown away when I loaded the photos into my computer. As if absolutely clueless Youtube instructors who have no idea what they are talking about weren't enough. Hate these presumptuous kinds of articles and headlines. Definitely now on my to-buy list. I hope that this post has provided some practical insight into a popular camera lens for astrophotography. 21P Giacobini Zinner NGC1499 California Barnard 8 Cr399 Coathanger North America and Pelican Veil nebula HORGB M11 cluster area Now, I have to admit that up to this point, it sounds a little too good to be true. Agreed. If you buy a nifty fifty or a 100mm macro lens you simply cannot go wrongyou will get a great and handy lens for your money, with great image quality. If you shoot things in motion on a Canon body, and need some reach without massive bulk, this is the one I recommend. Canon 60Da DSLR and Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 L2 lens at 135mm, f/3.2. Be careful with the focus. The Rokinon website lists this lens as being useful for portraiture photography, and most telephoto applications. I do not presume to further decorate the universe, and perceive them for what they are: interference. AHAB. It's sharp, has very low aberrations, no real distortion and the bokeh is very nice. A lot of lenses today are better than anything money could buy in 1980. My Rokinon 135F2 on my crop body is fun to play with.. a budget lens with budget construction on a discontinued camera system.. but hey im just a ham and egger https://flic.kr/p/21nj82V, I had a Canon 135/2 for a while, but I decided I preferred the 100 L used not as a Macro but a normal lens (which my non-L USM 100 Macro was quite poor for). 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). This lens flares easily and the flare can be especially ugly if a sun or flash are in the frame. (purchased for $845), reviewed November 16th, 2005 Yet the Jaegers becomes essentially color free when stopped down to 3in. Already wide open this lens produce some high quality photos. Manually focusing a lens for astrophotography is nothing new, but the manual aperture ring adjustments may feel a little strange at first. It actually makes my eyes water as I try to resolve how bad the blurriness is.