Canon EF 135mm F 2L USM Review | 54 Data compared

The Canon EF 135mm f/2L USM lens is praised by The Digital Picture for its exceptional speed and high performance, making it ideal for portraits and indoor sports. Pros include a wide f/2 aperture that creates excellent subject isolation with smooth bokeh, along with fast, accurate, and silent ring USM autofocus. Key drawbacks mentioned in the review involve significant corner vignetting when shooting wide open at f/2, which often requires correction. Furthermore, the lens lacks modern features such as image stabilization (IS) and robust weather sealing, requiring high shutter speeds to avoid camera shake.

The Canon EF 135mm f/2L USM is a highly capable telephoto prime lens that delivers strong overall performance for portrait, sports, and low-light photography, achieving a DxOMark score of 26 on a full-frame sensor. Among its main advantages (pros) are its bright aperture with a transmission score of 2.3 T-stop, minimal distortion (0.1%), and excellent control of chromatic aberration at just 4µm. It provides optimal sharpness between apertures of f/2.8 and f/8, significantly outperforming older alternatives like the Canon 135mm f/2.8 Soft Focus in edge-to-edge clarity and brightness. However, the lens shows its age when compared to newer optics in the database, ranking 74th overall and 5th among EF-mount telephoto primes. Key disadvantages (cons) include heavy edge vignetting at its maximum wide aperture, suffering from -1.33EV of shading at f/2. Additionally, its maximum sharpness score of 14 P-Mpix sits only mid-table for primes, falling well short of newer competition like the Sigma 85mm f/1.4 EX DG HSM, which offers superior sharpness at a lower price point.

The Canon EF 135mm f/2L USM is a lightweight, compact telephoto prime lens that serves as an excellent, budget-friendly alternative to heavy 70-200mm zoom lenses for wedding and portrait photography. Key advantages include its excellent build quality, featuring a durable metal barrel and a flat-ended lens hood. Its fast f/2 aperture lets in twice as much light as an f/2.8 lens, allowing for lower ISO settings in dim venues. Furthermore, it delivers smooth background blur with large bokeh. Autofocus is quick and accurate, enhanced by a focus limiter switch. Despite its 1996 release date, the lens produces sharp images with great color, contrast, and easily correctable chromatic aberration. However, the lens has notable limitations, including a total lack of image stabilization. Its fixed 135mm focal length forces the photographer to stand far away from subjects. This long working distance can make it difficult to shoot portraits at a flattering downward angle without using a stool. While it is sharper than some older Canon primes, it falls short of the sharpness found in modern RF lenses. Lastly, some minor purple fringing...

The Canon EF 135mm f/2L USM is highly praised as an outstanding, characterful, and inspiring telephoto prime lens that excels in outdoor portraits, action sports, and low-light photography. Its standout pros include a wide f/2 aperture that delivers "delicious" foreground and smooth background bokeh despite having only an 8-blade aperture. Additionally, it features a fast, swift, and silent USM focus motor with a physical focus limit switch (0.9m or 1.6m to infinity) to speed up subject acquisition. It is also uniquely compatible with EF 1.4x and 2x extenders—acting as a stealthy black alternative to bulky white zoom lenses—as well as extension tubes for macro capabilities. Reviewers and users highly value its exceptional image sharpness, excellent rendering of human expressions, and high croppability even when used on lower-resolution 20-megapixel sensors. On the downside, the lens is officially discontinued by Canon, which limits immediate buyers to remaining retail stock or the used market, with official repair parts only guaranteed for seven years post-discontinuation. It requires significant physical working room, meaning that using it indoors or in tight studio spaces often limits photographers...

The What's The Best review praises the Canon EF 135mm F/2L USM as the "king of portrait lenses," emphasizing its outstanding center sharpness at f/2 and exceptional corner sharpness when stopped down from f/2.8 to f/16. The prime lens delivers gorgeous bokeh and exhibits no noticeable chromatic aberration. It is built with a sturdy plastic body, a satisfyingly chunky rubber focusing ring, and a helpful focus-limiting switch that prevents autofocus hunting. However, the reviewer points out several drawbacks, noting that the lens has limited overall versatility and suffers from visible vignetting when shot wide-open at f/2. Weighing 750g, it is physically heavy, though it remains well-balanced when mounted on a camera. Finally, the lens lacks built-in Image Stabilization (IS), which stands as another notable limitation for users. If you'd like, I can provide more details on: How its performance changes on APS-C crop sensor cameras The exact physical dimensions and specifications of the lens How it compares to other wide-aperture lenses under £1,000

The LensTip review for the Canon EF 135 mm f/2L USM highlights it as an "old but hale and hearty" portrait classic that, despite launching back in 1996, holds up incredibly well on modern digital sensors. The review heavily praises its excellent image quality in the frame center, very good sharpness on the edge of the frame, and a high-quality magnesium alloy build. Optically, the lens delivers big wins with lateral chromatic aberration amounting to near-zero, imperceptible distortion, negligible astigmatism, and splendidly corrected coma. Furthermore, its USM ultrasonic autofocus motor is commended for being practically noiseless, fast, and highly accurate, clearing the whole distance scale in just 0.7 seconds (or 0.3-0.4 seconds with the focus limiter engaged). On the flip side, the lens shows its age in a few key areas that serve as its main drawbacks. The most notable con is its poor performance against bright light, as it suffers from visible light artifacts, ghosting, and flares when a bright light source is inside or near the edge of the frame. Additionally, while full-frame edge sharpness becomes great when...

The Canon EF 135mm f/2L USM is highlighted as a classic, high-performance prime lens, offering impressive sharpness across the frame, minimal distortion, and a fast autofocus motor, making it ideal for portraiture. Its bright f/2 aperture produces a shallow depth of field, while the 1.7-pound, 4.4-by-3.2-inch body features a 72mm filter thread. Despite its strengths, the lens lacks optical image stabilization, requiring high shutter speeds, and is susceptible to color aberrations, specifically green and purple highlights in out-of-focus areas. While the Carl Zeiss Apo Sonnar T* 2/135 is recognized for superior optics, the Canon EF 135mm serves as a solid, cost-effective autofocus alternative.