Canon's L series has a well-deserved reputation for quality, and this 135mm (216mm on APS-C cameras) is living proof... It's the longest focal length in test and is known for its sharpness, with the centre of images being sharp at f/2 and the corners becoming impressively sharp from f/2.8 until...

Came quicker than expected, in perfect condition. It's the MOST amazing lens I have ever used!!! I'm extremely happy with it.

The optical design of the lens is made of 10 elements in 8 groups including two UD elements. The min. focus distance is 0.9m resulting in a max. object magnification of ~1:5. The aperture mechanism features 8 aperture blades.

Canon EF 135mm f/2.0L USM is one of the fastest telephoto lenses currently being manufactured for the EF mount. Priced at about US$900 (as of June 2007), the lens is not necessarily going to be the first choice for mainstream consumers, but it remains affordable for serious amateurs/prosumers and...

Canon claims this lens as the fastest 135mm prime lens and we can't find a faster one available. So what use is a fast, short telephoto lens. We take a look.

Fast and silent Autofocus; Simple operation; Good optical quality with nice OOF ‘Bokeh

Price; Unusual size filters

Gary Wolstenholme reviews the Canon EF 135mm f/2.0L USM lens, the bright telephoto portrait lens ideal for portraits.

However, will a lens, designed to cooperate with a roll of photographic film, manage to cooperate well with digital detectors The 135 mm focal length is a portrait classic but only on full frame.

high build quality; excellent image quality in the frame centre; very good image quality on the edge of the frame; chromatic aberration amounting to zero; imperceptible distortion; splendidly corrected coma; negligible astigmatism; low vignetting on the APS-C sensor; fast; accurate and silent...

resolution on the edge of full frame at the maximum relative aperture a bit below decency level; huge vignetting on full frame by f/2.0; work against bright light could have been better

The Canon EF 135mm f/2L USM ($1,089 direct)($999.00 at Amazon) is a prime lens for Canon cameras with a focal length that is traditionally useful for portraiture. Of course, you won't be limited to that purpose when shooting with the lens; it does double duty as a medium-telephoto lens, and a sharp one at that. It's not a perfect lens—there's no optical stabilization. Still, the lens is quite sharp, even at the edges, and focuses with impressive speed. We didn't like it quite as much as another 135mm lens that earned our Editors' Choice award, the Carl Zeiss Apo Sonnar T* 2/135, which is sold in versions for use with Canon and Nikon cameras. That lens is, from what we could tell, just about perfect optically, and even avoids the green and purple highlights that show up in the out-of-focus areas of images shot with this Canon EF 135mm lens. But the Zeiss lens is manual focus only, and more expensive, so if you're willing to live with the occasional color aberration in the bokeh, t...

The Canon EF 135mm f/2L USM is a classic portrait lens with sharp optics and an impressive aperture, but it's not optically stabilized.

Quite sharp; Minimal distortion; Wide aperture

Lacks optical stabilization