Canon EF 135 mm f/2L USM review - Introduction

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Canon EF 135 mm f/2L USM

3 October 2011

Szymon Starczewski

1. Introduction

The Canon EF 135 mm f/2.0L USM was launched in April 1996 so dating back to an era by and large completely dominated by analogue photography. Despite the fact that 15 years passed by from its launch it is still considered to be one of the most interesting and best lenses in the whole Canon line-up. What’s more, during that long time since its launch the lens has paid for itself, covering the financial outlays of its design and production; that’s why right now it can be offered for a very affordable price for an L-series instrument. All of these make it a very popular instrument among the owners of Canon reflex cameras.

However, will a lens, designed to cooperate with a roll of photographic film, manage to cooperate well with digital detectors? The 135 mm focal length is a portrait classic but only on full frame. Nowadays Canon full frame reflex cameras have as many as 21 million of pixels, making it difficult even for contemporary optical devices. How a 15-year-old construction will deal with it? We decided to check it and perform a full test of that lens to find out these answers.

We would like to thank the Canon Poland company for borrowing the equipment necessary for testing purposes.

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You are also invited to get acquainted with our test procedure, described in the article "How do we test lenses?" If you feel it’s still not enough, please go to our FAQ section where you can find some further explanation.