Dudewithoutape wrote:
What's wrong with the current 135? Why don't you use that?
Uh, that would be slow (hunts in low light action) AF....and the DC feature's a joke.
Pentax made the legendary A*135mm f1.8, which was a manual focus gem and is still regarded as one of the finest manual focus lenses ever made by anyone. I would hope that Nikon does make an AF 135mm f2G and even better a AF 135mm f.8G to rival that old Pentax. If were as good as the 85mm f1.4G I'd buy it in a heart beat, however, I know Zeiss has just released a 135 f2 which has a close focus ability, which is sorely missing from the 85mm f1.4G and other Nikon primes. It's a bit of a bugbear with me that most primes seem to have a minimum focus that is not really close enoough for many application, this is why the Zeiss looks so interesting, apart from the fact that is supposed to be a real gem.
There are a few different 135 f/1.4 manual focus lenses out there fron the late 70's and early 80's. I think they even had 16 aperture blades as well. They werent rediculous in size. Nothing like a 200 f/2. Do a google search and you find some history on them. I think someone in the alt forum did a review on one a couple years back. I almost bought one a few years ago for $650 but it needed an ai conversion to mount on to my camera.
Tommy_D wrote:
There are a few different 135 f/1.4 manual focus lenses out there fron the late 70's and early 80's. I think they even had 16 aperture blades as well. They werent rediculous in size. Nothing like a 200 f/2. Do a google search and you find some history on them. I think someone in the alt forum did a review on one a couple years back. I almost bought one a few years ago for $650 but it needed an ai conversion to mount on to my camera.
There was a 135/1.5 Vivitar way back when I had an EL and FE. The lens had some abberations wide open for sure.
Lee Saxon wrote:
There's a 135mm T1.3 [~ f/1.2] Master Prime...it's 7" long, 4.5" around, weighs over 6 lbs, only covers S35 [~APS] and costs $27,500.
It's not impossible, just really impractical.
Actually there are all sorts of PL mount Motion Picture lenses that are T 1.3/1.4 etc. (T is actual light transmission wheras F is theoretical transmission based on the lens formula) But yeah, as Lee stated they are huge and expensive and generally only show up on film sets. I've worked with them and they are breathtakingly sharp even wide open and have no distortion to speak of, at least compared to lenses we are used to in the still world. Also made of metal and individually calibrated.
That being said, they are starting to creep into the high end fashion shoot field where PL mounts are being used on RED EPIC cameras to shoot stills.
trenchmonkey wrote:
Uh, that would be slow (hunts in low light action) AF....and the DC feature's a joke.
+1
And, at least with the copy I had, the AF was very unreliable for accuracy even with lots of light (at or near wide open). Hence I used MF most of the time, which then negated any advantage over my 135/2 AIS.
would make for a great low light landscape kit that would not be too onerous to carry around. I take a fair amount of landscape images at dusk or at night and so fast, sharp glass is always welcome . . .
Canon's 135mm F2 L lens is small and inexpensive, so it would be unfortunate if the Nikon equivalent was huge and 3x the price because of the bells and whistles
Loren E wrote:
Canon's 135mm F2 L lens is small and inexpensive, so it would be unfortunate if the Nikon equivalent was huge and 3x the price because of the bells and whistles
That is an older lens, though not as old as the Nikkor. If recent history is any indication, most newly-designed, high quality Nikkor or Canon EF lenses will be more expensive than the ones replaced. Such lenses might be larger, but there is no reason for them to be huge.
