Any of you have experience with either of these two lenses? I'm considering one of these two as I add more Canon glass to the bag. Affordable L glass. I appreciate any input.
Mindy and I have the 135mm f/2L and we shot with it at Bownanza. I wish we had known you were considering it, you could have taken it for a spin. It's a very good portrait lens when you have the distance and it's my second favorite lens for shooting people. (Behind the 85mm f1.2L which is in a class by itself.)
I thought you did David. I really wasn't thinking about it at that point. I'd like the 85 but would have to go with the vanilla dollar wise and may yet do that.
It's a shame we don't live closer. We could just loan you both for a couple of days.
We also have a Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro, but it's not the L series and ours doesn't have IS. I'm not sure the L series was even available at the time I bought ours. It's fun to play with when you find an interesting bug or something, but we don't use it a whole lot. In macro use, the DOF can be ridiculously thin with large aperture, so you really have to watch that or you'll get unusable images. Technically, it can also be used as a portrait lens, but there are better choices for that.
It's a shame we don't live closer. We could just loan you both for a couple of days.
We also have a Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro, but it's not the L series and ours doesn't have IS. I'm not sure the L series was even available at the time I bought ours. It's fun to play with when you find an interesting bug or something, but we don't use it a whole lot. In macro use, the DOF can be ridiculously thin with large aperture, so you really have to watch that or you'll get unusable images. Technically, it can also be used as a portrait lens, but there are better choices for that.
I've also got the 100, 2.8 but not the L. You can get some very interesting close ups of just about anything with detail you can't see with the naked eye. Great for bugs. Makes almost any bug look like alien monsters.
I was playing with it last night with a rattlesnake rattle on a white piece of paper on my desk and came up with some neat screen savers. I'm convinced that you can take a picture of anything with it and make it look cool. Fun lens.
One good thing to do when trying to choose a lens is go to Flickr and put that specific lens into a search. For instance, "Canon 135mm f/2.0L." Then you can look through photos taken with the lens. When you see photos you like, you can usually see the aperture settings, etc. Through looking at a lot of photos, you can get a great feel for the lens capabilities and/or limitations.
One good thing to do when trying to choose a lens is go to Flickr and put that specific lens into a search. For instance, "Canon 135mm f/2.0L." Then you can look through photos taken with the lens. When you see photos you like, you can usually see the aperture settings, etc. Through looking at a lot of photos, you can get a great feel for the lens capabilities and/or limitations.
Never thought of this. I'm newer than new to photography and I have been trying to understand all the lenses etc. think this will help quite a bit.
Why a person shouldn't rush into things. I really wasn't in a hurry anyway. I'm thinking about the 70-200 f2.8 as my next Canon glass. Working on selling my Sigma that is just under that range due do it being an APS-C lens.
I have the older Canon 100mm non-L macro, but I find that I rarely use it. I don't know if the focus mechanism on mine is working perfectly, but focus speed is generally poor.
I also have the Canon 135mm F2L and that is easily my favorite lens. It's not my most used lens due to reach, but it produces such beautiful images.
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