New Member Registered: January, 2017 Posts: 19 | | Review Date: November 13, 2017 | Recommended | Price: None indicated
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | Size, looks, IQ | | Cons: | | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 10
Handling: 10
Value: 10
New or Used: Yes
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Amazing little looker! It's handy, rich in contrast, nice in bokeh and very sharp!
Got this few days ago and today went testing it for the first time - I am very pleasingly surpriced by the image quality it made. I started wondering if it's now my no.1 in sharpness when comparing 135mm primes. I'm gonna have to do some tests...
Cons? well, the built-in lens hood is plastic and there only 5 aperture blades but they are beautifully curved, so it's not really an issue.
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New Member Registered: June, 2016 Location: Almelo, The Netherlands Posts: 3 | | Review Date: July 3, 2018 | Recommended | Price: None indicated
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | Sharp, nice color rendition, good contrast, pleasing bokeh, CA control, nice solid build | | Cons: | Not yet discoverd | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 10
Handling: 10
Value: 10
New or Used: Yes
Camera Used: Canon 5D mkII
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Bought this lens together with 7 other lenses for about 18 dollars. All lenses in very good/excellent condition. I was curious about the image quality of this lens and started to google ........ not much info. So had to do some shots myself. I was impresssed in many ways. The lens handles very nice and is well build. The colors are nice and vivid with very good micro-contrast. There was a little purple fringing wide open but was easy to controle with Lightroom. The bokeh is very pleaseing; soft and creamy and not disturbing. Contrast is good and the sharpness is very good right from f/3.5 with a little vignetting and excellent/amazing sharp (hole frame) from f/5.6 (no vignetting) and more till f/11, here diffraction starts and sharpness drops a little.
I also think that this lens is one of the best 135mm lenses I have. I have not compared them yet but I think it's as good as my Super-Multi-Coated Takumar 135 mm f/2.5 6-elements and the Carl Zeiss MC Sonnar electric 135mm f/3.5.
One thing is certain ........ this is a keeper.
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New Member Registered: February, 2021 Posts: 3
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: February 4, 2021 | Recommended | Price: $90.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | Very sharp even wide open, great colors and contrast, excellent build quality | | Cons: | Close focus distance is ~1.5m | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 10
Handling: 9
Value: 10
New or Used: No
Camera Used: Sony A7
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Lens is very sharp. I have yet to bother with the aperture pin (M42 mount) and just keep shooting it wide open at f3.5. There is almost no difference in sharpness in the middle of the frame and the center of the frame. Most good vintage lens would need to be at f5.6 or even f8 to (maybe) get near this result.
Definitely the sharpest lens I have owned and I have had 10+ so far.
The build quality of this lens is just amazing. Everything is tight, smooth and well damped. The focus ring makes a very satisfying "thock" sound when hitting each end stop and considering the mass/size ratio I would guess that the lens is at least 50% brass. Lens like Helios 44 feel as if made out of tin foil after handling this lens.
The weight of the lens is ~400g and it is the width of the palm and I can almost touch my index finger with my thumb if I try to make "OK" sign around it. The only minus is the plastic lens hood that is not that smooth to extend.
A beauty and a keeper.
Edit: After using it extensively for the last two months I can safely say that this one is a favourite so far out of all lens I had. Not only sharpness but the color rendering is gorgeous. There is absolutely no color cast and the pictures have exactly the correct WB/tones without any color grading. Skin tones just look spot on while most other vintage lens get yellow rendering and modern ones blue rendering.
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New Member Registered: February, 2019 Posts: 15 | | Review Date: January 13, 2023 | Recommended | Price: None indicated
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Looks and feels well made | | Cons: | Overpriced | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 7
Handling: 7
Value: 7
New or Used: Yes
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I was lucky to get one in mint condition without paying the mad prices some folks are expecting for this little lens.
It looks lovey and - normally - it costs a lot, so many people will like it just for these two factors. It feels superb to hold in the hand, but so too does a good avocado. But what about the pictures it gives? I tested it on a Sony full frame.
I was surprised how good this was shooting in sunshine to infinity at F5.6 to F8. Excellent colours and rendition. Dazzling 9-10/10 sharpness in that range. F8 is superb! Overall image quality started to dissipate a tiny bit at F11 and weaken at F16. F16 is as far as this aperture closes; which is ordinary in terms of mechanics. The rest of the aperture range sees a decline in quality. Below F5.6 sees some purple fringing at F4 and F3.5 sees a significant loss of sharpness (it is quite a drop-off) and increased purple fringing and aberrations. To be honest, I was quite This puts it pretty close to many other 135mm lenses of good design such as the non-Zebra black Zeiss Jena 135mm F3.5 at 66% cheaper prices in 2023.
One thing I noticed is that the images were rather tinted blue/cyan around the whites and blues in full sunshine. This wasn't unpleasant but the normally warming tones that I'm familiar with at 135mm seemed a little cold, and a little too much in some images. Adding warming filters or UV filters just seemed to reduce image quality a tiny bit. The lens also seems to have a more sharply defined depth of field than many 135mm lenses that I've tried. This is excellent to me as 135mm ranges do tend to limit depth of field.
For closer work it is rather fine with close focusing to 3.5 feet, which is excellent for a 135mm vintage lens. Good - not very good - bokeh. Lovely at mid range, too. But so many other - and much cheaper - 135mm lenses can perform just as well. Of course, many people will repeat the mantra that 135mm = portrait work only. In this sense this is a nice lens, but so are many other 135mm lenses at fractions of the price. The second weakness of that argument is that many 135mm lenses are superb with infinity work and other distances, as this one is.
Design wise, the coatings look classy and expensive. The glass is heavy and looks classy and expensive. The forward lens barrel and hood are plastic and that all feels really cheap, but the Zeiss is almost all plastic in places as well. The only poor feature is the silly little aperture adjustment ring that is quite stiff to shift. It's so low in profile and thin that gripping it for a good in-control turn is fiddly.
In summary, it's just as fine as a much cheaper non-Zebra Zeiss Jena 135mm in terms of image quality and performance, but it looks and feels more classy. That doesn't make it take better images, though.
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