If you’re from Canon, I understand if you initially almost get a heart attack to see another post on my blog about Canon, especially since my last few posts about Canon were not very positive. Yes, there’s a lot that Canon needs to work on, and I’m quite sure that after the 1D Mark III autofocus fiasco the shit hit the fan at Canon in Japan. If you thought that was an isolated incident, think again. It appears to be part of a structural quality control problem at Canon and I’ve written about it here a few times. And after the release of the Nikon D3/300 and recently D700, I have it on good authority that the entire DSLR division at Canon was taken to their equivalent of DEFCON 1. Various Canon managers and engineers were hand delivered messages by actual ninja’s, threatening with “serious consequences” if things don’t get better in the near future. So I have to say, I’m very interested to see what Canon releases later this year.

Anyway, back to the topic. Last weekend I took some pictures with my Canon EF 135mm F2.0 lens, and I have to say, this is an incredible lens. Many reviews around the Internet will tell you this lens is sharp, and boy is it sharp! Even wide open at f2. Colors and contrast are great, and bokeh is very nice and smooth. This is a great lens for portraits (easily isolate subjects from the background), candid photography (you can get subjects close from a distance) and even some sports. I’ve posted some samples below, just some snapshots of my family, and with most of these pictures, using the EOS 40D body (1.6x crop), I was able to stand 8-12 meters away and give them more than enough room to walk around, while still being able to get them close on the pictures and throwing the background out of focus.

My daughter Sarah. I bite her at least once every minute.
135mm, f2, 1/250s, ISO 100

Sarah with my dad.
135mm, f2, 1/250s, ISO 100

Sarah with my dad.
135mm, f5.6, 1/250s, ISO 100

Sarah grabs everything within range.
135mm, f2, 1/250s, ISO 100

Sarah with my dad.
135mm, f2, 1/200s, ISO 100

Sarah with my dad.
135mm, f2, 1/200s, ISO 100

Sarah with my dad.
135mm, f2, 1/250s, ISO 100

Sarah grabbing flowers.
135mm, f2, 1/320s, ISO 100

Below is a 100% crop of one of the pictures above. Converted from RAW, no sharpening applied. You can see the amount of detail and sharpness you can get with this lens starting at f2.

135mm, f2, 1/250s, ISO 100

As you can see, the stuff Canon sells is actually pretty good if you can get a good working copy. This lens is also great for low light work. Together with the 24mm f1.4, 35mm f1.4, 50mm f1.2 and 85mm f1.2 lenses from Canon, the 135mm f2 is a prime that can deliver some of the most beautiful images.