Sony 135mm F2.8 T4.5 STF A-mount lens reviews
 bhendjol#5215 date: Apr-12-2009 | |
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sharpness: 5 color: 5 build: 5 distortion: 5 flare control: 5 overall: 5 | tested on:
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| ownership: | I own this lens |
| compared to: | missing |
| price paid: | 900 USD (new) |
| positive: | bokeh, bokeh, bokeh, oh, and also sharpness. |
| negative: | manual focus. |
| comment: | Money well spent. |
; 14MP| Darren-Francis#4783 date: Feb-1-2009 | |
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sharpness: 5 color: 5 build: 5 distortion: 5 flare control: 5 overall: 5 | tested on:
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| ownership: | I own this lens |
| compared to: | The world |
| price paid: | missing |
| positive: | Unique one of the kind lens. Bokeh machine! |
| negative: | Manual but I'm fine with it. |
| comment: | I like this lens alot. If you are looking for something unique or you love bokeh, this is the lens for you. STF http://www.darren-francis.com/p892748637/?photo=189598339 To view more of my works, visit my gallery: http://www.darren-francis.com |
| Dipsausje#4447 date: Nov-29-2008 | |
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sharpness: 5 color: 5 build: 5 distortion: 5 flare control: 5 overall: 5 | tested on:
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| ownership: | I used to own this lens |
| compared to: | Min 50/1.7 Tamron 90/2.8 Macro Sony 70-200/2.8G |
| price paid: | 999EUR (new) |
| positive: | Bokeh, bokeh, bokeh Excellent Sharpness & Colours Well Build Great MF ring/control |
| negative: | some purple fringing quite expensive |
| comment: | The 135STF is a speciality lens very easy to love. The sharpness and colours are absolutely stunning and it is clearly the bokeh dreammachine. You do 'only' get MF, but the focus ring and control is better than on any of my other lenses. One thing I do notice is that purple fringing occurs more often than with for example the 70-200/2.8G. All things considered, I think it's a great lens. Little update: I've bought myself a Minolta 7 a few months ago and now also an A850 and this lens really shines on FF, focussing is so much easier and more precise wit a good VF. |
| hRs#4428 date: Nov-24-2008 | |
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sharpness: 5 color: 5 build: 5 distortion: 5 flare control: 5 overall: 5 | tested on:
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| ownership: | I own this lens |
| compared to: | the world |
| price paid: | 13000 SEK (new) |
| positive: | bokeh bokeh bokeh bokeh bokeh and bokeh |
| negative: | some purple fringing... |
| comment: | if you too have a BOKEH-FETISH then this is the lens for you! it's not the best walk-around lens if you're not used to manual focusing. this lens is in a world of it's own. nothing can really compare in my opinion :D |
| Kirk#3822 date: Jul-9-2008 | |
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sharpness: 5 color: 5 build: 5 distortion: 5 flare control: 5 overall: 5 | tested on:
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| ownership: | I own this lens |
| compared to: | Sigma 70-300 APO KM 50/1.7 |
| price paid: | 1200 USD (new) |
| positive: | Bokeh Build Tact Sharp Colors |
| negative: | missing |
| comment: | This lens is simply "one of a kind". There is no comparable lens in any other mount. Although I listed MF as a negative, it is simply a mater of fact that goes along with what makes this lens great - the optics design that produces great Bokeh! And the areas that are supposed to be in focus are SHARP. The build of this lens is above average with all metal construction. The extra wide focus ring is well dampened and a joy to use. I second some other reviewers however that the lens hood feels cheap next to the lens itself. It would be nice for Sony to include a metal version similar to their high end CZ and G lenses. |
| AndrewJD#3093 date: Dec-21-2007 | |
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sharpness: 5 color: 5 build: 5 distortion: 5 flare control: 5 overall: 5 | tested on:
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| ownership: | I own this lens |
| compared to: | missing |
| price paid: | 120,000 Yen (New) |
| positive: | * Good build * Very good colours |
| negative: | * Finnicky Focus |
| comment: | A very good lens, but with a few... creative downsides. Anyone looking for this lens will likely be satisfied with it regardless of the few small negatives, but this is certainly a lens you need to know a lot about before buying. The lens itself is of a very good build, nice and solid and looks like it could withstand a lot of harsh use. Unfortunately it looks as though the lens hood wouldn't, as the plastic build feels a bit delicate by comparison. It is nice to have the damping, though. Also, the lens looks great on camera and balances really well with a combined with a vertical grip. However, it may scare small children. ;) The 'downside' to the lens is a very finnicky, small point that may or may not mean a lot to you. That is, the manual focus. Of course, the STF is fully manual. It has a nice, long focusing ring and has a very handy minimum focusing distance as well. However, the problem with the manual focus is two-fold. First, you may have a difficult time focusing on moving objects or with the lens wide open (despite acting like a 4.5, it is still technically at 2.8, with the dof the same to boot). However, this is only really a problem when shooting at something like sports or events, but you wouldn't choose a lens like this for that anyway unless you were confident to begin with. You do get used to it, however, and it isn't much of a problem on a full-frame camera. Second, the long focus ring makes it easy to get dust inside the lens. You need to be careful of this, and I give it a once-over before putting it away. On the whole, however, it is a wonderful lens to use and one I am definitely glad to have access to. It has been a big help to me on many occassions, and the fine boke is second to none. Colours are so vibrant I rarely find the need to touch them afterwards, and by its very nature the lens is optimized to work wide open and provide perfect sharpness and no flare. Of course, it is a specialty lens and probably not to everyone's tastes, but those that love it will love and those that don't will know the moment they touch it. |
| chmod007#3074 date: Dec-15-2007 | |
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sharpness: 5 color: 5 build: 5 distortion: 5 flare control: 5 overall: 5 | tested on:
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| ownership: | I own this lens |
| compared to: | missing |
| price paid: | 1200 USD (new) |
| positive: | Bokeh Colors Build |
| negative: | Loss of light |
| comment: | I used this lens for the October 2007 One Prime challenge, and loved it. It is expensive and not very flexible, but the results you can get are outstanding. The build is rock solid and MF is a joy with it. |
| BenKinetics#2654 date: Aug-25-2007 | |
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sharpness: 5 color: 5 build: 5 distortion: 5 flare control: 5 overall: 5 | tested on:
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| ownership: | I own this lens |
| compared to: | missing |
| price paid: | 970 USD 2nd hand |
| positive: | Incredible bokeh Very, very sharp Solid build Stunning colours |
| negative: | Manual focus |
| comment: | I've had this lens for a couple of days now, and it's not yet been off my camera - it just produces such outstanding results, especially when viewed full size. My usual procedure is to import pics into Lightroom and tweak levels slightly, but with images from this lens they just look perfect right out of the camera - the colours and bokeh are simply outstanding. I've put manual focus as a negative, but it's not really - this isn't a lens for grabbing quick shots, it's a lens for carefully crafting a picture, so manual focus is no big deal - I focus-bracket to make sure I get a sharp image. I don't get the lens creep that other people have mentioned. |
| vitor#2626 date: Aug-11-2007 | |
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sharpness: 5 color: 5 build: 5 distortion: 5 flare control: 4 overall: 4.8 | tested on:
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| ownership: | I own this lens |
| compared to: | Minolta AF 135mm F2.8 Minolta AF 200mm F2.8 APO G Sony 135mm F1.8 Zeiss |
| price paid: | missing |
| positive: | Very pleasing Bokeh Sharpness Handling Manual Focus |
| negative: | Manual Focus |
| comment: | This lens was one of those I didn't take too credit, I was completely wrong. This lens is a master piece, when you look at a photo at fullsize you just become a bokeh freak. The reason I have put MF in both positive and negative is that I like the way MF works on this lens, its possible to make precise focusing with the big and smooth focus ring. The negative is that sometimes I would like to have AF with this lens. Compared with the 135mm F2.8 the image quality is better overall (sharper, color rendition, micro details). Compared with the 200mm F2.8 APO G the only noticeable difference (until now) is the bokeh quality, better on the STF, maybe the 200mm is sharper but not by much. Compared with the 135mm F1.8 Zeiss it's hard to choose, I kind of use the Zeiss more for the convenience of AF. |
| pnaciona#2428 date: Jun-9-2007 | |
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sharpness: 5 color: 5 build: 5 distortion: 5 flare control: 5 overall: 5 | tested on:
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| ownership: | I own this lens |
| compared to: | 135mm f/2.8 100mm f/2.8 macro |
| price paid: | 1149.95 USD (new) |
| positive: | Sharp and beautiful bokeh 1:4 magnification |
| negative: | no AF (not too big deal for me) |
| comment: | Back in the days of Minolta, this was my dream lens. I vowed to get it when I finally get a chance. Well, it's no longer Minolta but it's still the same lens. This really is a specialty lens but since I don't mind manual focusing, I use it to photograph flowers. It focuses down to 0.87 meters for 1:4 magnification. Compare this to the Minolta 135mm which has a longer minimum focus. If you shoot a lot of portraits, consider getting this lens. Or at the very least, try it out. |
| H20boy#2312 date: May-14-2007 | |
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sharpness: 5 color: 5 build: 4 distortion: 5 flare control: 5 overall: 4.8 | tested on:
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| ownership: | I own this lens |
| compared to: | 85/1.4, 70-200 SSM |
| price paid: | $1200 new B&H |
| positive: | Very sharp, only 1 out of 10 pics need USM in PP! Very smooth focus ring |
| negative: | If only she were an AF lens :( Can price really be an issue if it produces images like this? Crappy ribbed focus ring. Sand, hair, dust gets in and its a bi*ch to get out! |
| comment: | I'm gonna have to say this lens is soooo very close to being my favorite lens. I used it directly after using my 70-200 SSM, and the images are ALMOST identical. You can barely see the difference in bokeh, but it has to be a just a bit sharper than the 70-200. This lens produces 'magic' all over the place. It just oozes with G quality and just takes beautiful images. If they ever made this lens an autofocus, I think I just might cry from sheer joy. If you can't own one of these, then borrow or rent one from Phototraveler on your next shoot. Check out the pics in the sample images database for more. I didn't really test the flare from this lens. The humongous hood surely can knock it down, and if this flare rating doesn't suit it later, i'll come back to update it appropriately. |
| paulobro#1939 date: Mar-10-2007 | |
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sharpness: 5 color: 5 build: 5 distortion: 5 flare control: 5 overall: 5 | tested on:
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| ownership: | I own this lens |
| compared to: | KM 100/2.8 D Macro Sigma 70-200/2.8 EX DG |
| price paid: | 1200 USD (new) |
| positive: | Excellent built quality, awesome image quality. |
| negative: | Price. Achieving proper focus' often tricky. |
| comment: | Superb image quality, really awesome bokeh (yes, that's what it is all about). It is kind of a niche lens, sure, but on its field it shines unsurpassed. To get it perfectly focused is certainly tricky, there's a noticeably steep learning curve — at least on my 5D's not so bright viewfinder — and as a rule (besides "focus bracketing") it does demand very good lighting and a tripod to get proper expositions (to be expected, being a not-so-fast-relatively-long tele). Let's say it takes time and a little sweat to make it work. But then when it works... |
| Kiklop#1702 date: Jan-25-2007 | |
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sharpness: 4.5 color: 5 build: 4 distortion: 5 flare control: 4 overall: 4.5 | tested on:
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| ownership: | I used to own this lens |
| compared to: | Minolta 100/2 Minolta 100/2.8 macro RS Minolta 80-200 G HS CZ 135/1.8 |
| price paid: | missing |
| positive: | Gorgeous bokeh Build quality Resolution |
| negative: | Manual AF only |
| comment: | For more detailed review please read my review here |
| ematsuda#1606 date: Jan-3-2007 | |
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sharpness: 5 color: 5 build: 5 distortion: 5 flare control: 5 overall: 5 | tested on:
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| ownership: | I have experience with this lens |
| compared to: | Minolta 80-200mm HS APO G Tamron 90mm 2.8 Macro |
| price paid: | 1200 |
| positive: | Very very sharp Bokeh is 2nd to none Great build |
| negative: | Expensive Manual focus |
| comment: | This is a luxury lens IMO. It has given me fits learning to focus it and I still have to shoot lots of frames to get it right. There's definitely a learning curve to this lens or maybe I need a split screen. If you do get it however, the pictures are absolutely stunning. Compared to the 80-200mm HS G, it's slightly sharper and has better bokeh - but that's just because it's a prime that specializes in bokeh. Compared to the Tamron 90mm, it's as sharp (the Tammy is very SHARP too) and the bokeh of course is much smoother. The 3 lenses mentioned are all awesome lenses IHMO, the STF is just gravy - something that I wanted rather than needed. I'm glad I purchased it though - the pictures really stand out from the rest given the correct subject. |
| terrylloydsmith#1507 date: Dec-5-2006 | |
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sharpness: 5 color: 5 build: 5 distortion: 5 flare control: 5 overall: 5 | tested on:
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| ownership: | I used to own this lens |
| compared to: | missing |
| price paid: | 1200 |
| positive: | Wonderful Performance Amazing Bokeh Build Quality |
| negative: | Really nothing for me except the cost. |
| comment: | This lens is an amazing engineering wonder. Minolta really knew what they were doing when they designed this lens. Everything said about the original Minolta 135 STF applies to this Sony version. I don't care that it does not have AF, I use manual focus in critical situations anyway. Focus is very smooth and positive. The picture quality is outstanding on my 7D. This is an exclusive lens for your Minolta/Sony. Cost is high but what the hey. |
rating summary
- total reviews: 45
- sharpness: 4.88
- color: 4.96
- build: 4.82
- distortion: 4.84
- flare control: 4.73
- overall: 4.85
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