When did 135mm lenses become uncool?

<p>They never became uncool. The 135mm is of the best landscape, candid and portrait lens going. They were simply common and so inexpensive. You can perform magic with the 135mm. You could win awards with the 135mm. It can fire up your imagination and let you create a masterpiece. </p>

<p>My Pentax Super Tak F3.5 is almost as sharp as my Canon 50 F1.4 SSC at it's best aperture, has better bokeh, and more even sharpness starting at F4 and across the range till diffraction at F16, where F3.5 is better. It's not even considered their best 135mm. The SMC is suppose to be better. On my G1 it's a nice and small 270mm, and I don't need a tripod mount.</p>

<p>Louis, you're right. You can do wonders with a 135mm. Time to whip them out of their dark hiding spots and have a shoot-off. <br>

I always wondered why CMC forum doesn't have a POTW or Lens of the Week, or Emulsion of the week kind of thread....<br>

Three 135's I'm partial to :<br>

The old Nikkor-Q 135/3.5 ; 7 blades, and nice color/contrast<br>

Soligor Tele-Auto 135/3.5 : it's on my Miranda Sensorex right now, but i do have a Nikon mount for it.<br>

Accura Diamatic 135/2.8 ; need to scan the negs I shot with it this summer.</p>

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<p>In used gear there are 135s everywhere; they were popular enough that they sold tons of them. My standard lens trio is 24/50/135, and it never seems too heavy unless it's the FD 135 f/2 I grabbed. I have an 85 f/1.2L that I never use, and a 100mm macro that gets occasional use. As I don't shoot portraits I don't need shorter, and I don't shoot wildlife or sports so longer is unnecessary.</p>

<p>If I'm carrying a zoom it's usually a 24-70 or 24-85; a 135 prime makes a nice complement.</p>

<p>I use a Pentax-F 135/2.8 on APS-C from the sideline for kids' soccer. I like it a lot.</p>

One of the smallest 135's is the Sigma Mini Tele f3.5. I have one in OM mount and another in Minolta MD.

<p>I'm enjoying being uncool with the srt 102 and a 135/3.5 MD. <br>

<img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6021/5976179535_12d5ab19b4_z_d.jpg" alt="" /><br>

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<p>135s are the longest lenses that can be used with most 35 mm rangefinder cameras without using a reflex housing so they were VERY popular when RFs predominated. The focal length is less important with SLRs, but still useful if it does what you want.</p>

<p>Okay I have a theory so feel free to shoot it down...</p>

<p>Back in the 70's things in the US were way more spread out. We had bigger yards, the downtowns and commercial areas were back further from the street and we had more open parks. The beaches and other popular places were all open.</p>

<p>I remember in that time period even San Francisco and Los Angeles were more "roomy". So a 135mm telephoto lens could easily been used to more closely crop in those more distant subjects.</p>

<p>I typically used a 50mm lens as "standard" in those days.</p>

<p>Then I traveled to Hong Kong, Tokyo and Singapore. I traded that 50 for a 28 wide angle. Even to the point that I now consider a 35mm w/a as more normal than the 50.</p>

<p>Well, now the whole US is more compressed. Everything is built out to the very edge of the property line. There is no more open space.</p>

<p>Go and visit Disneyland and compare it to 30 or 40 years ago. They have squeezed a lot more stuff and a lot more people into that same 1950's space.</p>

<p>I think that's why it is less comfortable to use a 135 now than then. Our modern progress has moved everyone to wide angle and portrait lenses.</p>

<p>Just my thought.</p>

 

<p>Bill, I think Americans got BIGGER in the past 40 years, hence we use wider angle lenses.<br>

Just sayin' !</p>

<p>well <strong>I</strong> sure got bigger ! I went from a 50mm to a 24mm !!</p>

<p>LOL</p>

 

<p>I'm glad this got a good response. Also glad that some people still find the 135mm lenses useful.</p>

<p>oh... I didn't get <em>that</em> memo...</p>

<p>Yep, it was the Zeitgeist of the 70's I think .First ,you had the 50,but that came with the camera,right?<br>

Then,for no apparent reason,you got the 135. Too long and heavy for portraits,and way too short for wildlife. Later,much later,one had to have a "wider" lens, and that was a 35mm. Not wide enough for scenics. But much loved as a "normal" lens by many photojournalists.<br>

Me,I chose a 28mm,50,and 105. But they all have a place,and there is some excellent glass out there.</p>

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<p>Also, the 135 can be relatively fast (f2.5 to f2.8) without being excessively bulky like 200mm or higher. Manual focus 135's continue to be mostly bargains, but the AF versions often command princely prices (Nikon, Canon, Maxxum, Pentax, etc.)</p>

<p>Like I said. I do notice the trend but don't know the reason. I think many of the reasons posted are valid. I myself started out in the late 70's and my lenses weren't of the 135mm. But now I started to like the 135mm lens.</p>

<p>These days I tend to run 19-35 zoom and 135 SMC Pentax on film, with a 2x thrown in if needed. It's as nice as it gets.</p>

<p>Prime lenses, in general, have been out of fashion for a while. And longer primes seem to get lost in the shuffle because people who want telephoto go with zooms, which are obviously more flexible. The other issue is that on a digital camera with a 1.5 or 1.6 crop factor, the 135 turns into a slightly awkward fixed 200 or so, and truth be told both Canon and Nikon make good autofocus zooms in the 70-200 or 80-200 range. Some of this has to do with digital technology. Some of it is just, as someone else mentioned, changing tastes.</p>

<p>Since I have never needed the 135mm, I have never owned one for my Nikon bodies.</p>

<p>When I worked for a newspaper in the late 60s and early 70s, the 28mm, 50mm, 135mm combo was very popular. To obtain images that had a different look from my competition, I used a 35mm, 85mm, and 180mm lens combo. I also preferred the faster f/1.8 85mm lens to the slower f/2.8 135mm lens that was available at the time. For sports, I also preferred the longer 180mm f/2.8 lens to the shorter 135mm f/2.8 lens.</p>

<p>Later, when I started doing more portraits, I added a 105mm instead of the 135mm because I preferred the 105mm focal length for headshots, the 85mm focal length for head & shoulder shots, and the 180mm focal length for tight face shots.</p>

<p>However, I must admit that if I ever come across a Nikon 135mm f/2 at a bargain price, I will buy it even though I do not really need it.<br>

.</p>

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<p>I have a 135 mm f3.5 Pentax K and one M42 and up till I got the 100mm F4 Macro it was my favoite Gene</p>

<p>Just counted: I own 8 of 'em. (9 if I count my Maxxum 135 f2.8 AF)</p>

<p>Were 135mm lenses <em>ever</em> cool -- I mean, was there ever <em>really</em> a purpose for that particular focal length in the first place? I never had or wanted one myself. I think they only ever existed because that happened to be the longest lens that could be accurately focused on rangefinder cameras like Leica and Contax, given their measuring base, without a TTL reflex viewer. And the main reason they continued to be made for SLRs was habit, inertia. The truly distinguishable and useful focal lengths tend to go up (from 50) roughly by factors of two: 50-55mm, 85-105mm, 180-200mm... and people eventually figured that out. So most 135s are also older designs. But the question isn't why not 135; it's why 135.</p>

 

<p>I had figured the 135mm length had come from large format - that it was also just about the longest lens you could focus with an RF I had figured was just sort of loosely coincidental. </p>