At my workshop a few weeks ago one of the girls, I think it was you Amy Long, talked up this 135L. Now it definitely wasn’t the first time I had heard how wonderful this lens was but I had the 85 f/1.2 and I now have the 200 f/1.8 (all my lenses can be seen at the end of the post and in a previous post I did HERE) so did I really need a 135? The answer? Yes! Could I do without it? Of course I could but I am thinking it may almost replace my 85. I love the bokeh on the 85- just gorgeous – and it is pretty tack sharp right? Except it is heavy and cumbersome and honestly? Very slow to focus in low light and we all know I love some low light shooting. And, well, we all know the shortcomings of the 200…nothing right? Okay okay it is hands down the best portrait lens in the world (no chromatic aberration that I have seen, tack sharp, even more gorgeous bokeh) but it is even more heavy and cumbersome than the 85. I can only really use it when doing true portraits…not my usual lifestyle, running around after kids portraits. This 135mm seems to be the ticket! It is lighter, less expensive, smaller, and seemingly just as tack sharp. The bokeh is gorgeous. If you look closely at some of these you will see hashmarks in the glow of the light behind the kids-that is actually because I shot almost all of these throw the fence – literally shot a little more wide open than normal so I could blur out that fence and it created this gorgeous texture in the background. Look closely 🙂
Caveat…I haven’t used it at a portrait session as I just got it but I figured kids sports is a good enough test right? Yeah exactly…You should also take into account I was holding a wiggly 10 month old when I shot half of these…The thing to remember when shooting kids sports is that your shutter is the most important thing-it has to be fast to get that fast movement!
(Also posted on Photogingmama.com) Don’t forget, you can share this to Facebook or Twitter at the end of the post! Want even more tips & tricks from me? Sign up for our newsletter 🙂
You can see the hashmarks from the fence in the light behind Greyson…
Obviously my fisheye 🙂 Poor Hudson didn’t know what he was being born into! 
