I am looking for a fast street lens for my 20d and have considered the Canon 135 f/2 L but am now considering a 70-200 f/4 L for daytime work and an older manual focus prime for low light. I have read good reviews on the Contax f/2.8 135mm Sonnar lens and would be interested in hearing anyone's stories. Would i need an adaptor for my EOS body to accept the lens, and how easy are these to come about. The lens seems to be about £160 which, if the reviews hold up, could be a bargain.
It did reasonably well on my 30D. The problem was getting things in focus. If I were using a 20D or 30D, I wouldn't use manual focus lenses. That said, I know that many people do. I just didn't find my keeper rate on a 30D was high enough. It may also be that I've become a much better manual focuser since I had my 30D 3 years ago.
Justin - what did you have to purchase to make it compatible? i know you can now get ring adaptors from Russia which allow you to continue to use the camera's 'in focus' ability (ie the dot that comes up telling you its in focus in the viewfinder)
i know you can now get ring adaptors from Russia which allow you to continue to use the camera's 'in focus' ability (ie the dot that comes up telling you its in focus in the viewfinder)Yes, they're commonly referred to as focus confirm adapters around here. HappypageHK on ebay is the best source.
To be honest, I'm not sure how accurate focus confirm is. I think it's useful, but not foolproof. I always stop down at least 1-2 stops after I've focussed if I'm relying on focus confirm. I prefer to focus by eye with a good viewfinder (unfortunately, this excludes the 20/30D, which is otherwise an excellent camera) or, for critical focus wide open, liveview.
Others may chime in and advise you otherwise, but I think it's important to let people know that manual focus is difficult and can be frustrating.
Otherwise, the Contax 135 is an excellent lens. I'd love the 135L, but the contax is cheaper, smaller and produces a hell of a lot of 3Dness, which sometimes gets talked about here.
It's cheap enough for you to give it a go without great loss, I guess. Resell it if it doesn't work out.
Justin, i have heard of Happypage HK in relation to this lens for adaptors, i will check it out; is that all I need (plus the lens of course!). I grew up on MF lenses so im willing to give them a try. Do you know if i will lose any f/stops by using an adaptor? the prime reason for this lens for me is f/2.8 for outdoor low light street work so if i cant use it or have to use f/3.5 or 4, i will stick with the 70-200 f/4
Yes. It's all you'll need. No, no light loss (fstops). It's not spectacularly sharp wide open (though still good), and it only stops down in whole stop increments, so your next stop down is f4.
Thanks Justin, for the price used if it doesnt turn out then im sure i will be able to sell it for what i paid. in your oppinion is there a better MF lens in this range?
Not that I'm aware of. You may be directed towards the Voigtlander 125 Macro, but it's significantly more expensive than the 135L. Otherwise, there are Takumars, but I've never used them. The Contax is a good lens - I've had two and they were both good.
It's possible to do accurate manual focusing with 20D. At the time when I had 20D I replaced the focusing screen by this one. With standard screen it's impossible.
So called "focus confirmation adapters" (very misleading name, it's just adapter which has EXIF chip, it's cameras fault that AF doesn't work without this chip...) are not good for manual focusing. Due to structure how the camera has been built the depth of view sensor sees is about same as with f/5.6. Therefore it's not very reliable, this article explains this behaviour of Canon autofocusing system pretty well. I have only used in situations I have no other choice like rock concerts in ISO3200, f/2, 1/50s lightning (the Canon S-screen is too dark to focus at those conditions).
Contax Sonnar T* 2.8/135 is pretty good lens, not the sharpest one available and has some bad qualities for example bokeh-CA (thing in front of focus plane may have magenta edges, things behind focus plane may have green edges), but the reason why I did buy this lens is the nice way how Sonnar design smoothly moves from focal plane to bokeh which is more enhanced by ninja-star (almost) shaped aperture, hard to explain but few example photos should show it:
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Samuli Vahonen http://www.vahonen.com
