OK, I am really irritated about this. You see the 135mm f/1.8 Zeiss owning the 135mm trophy. It was my favorite lens, better than the superb Canon 135 f/2. And it was so good I wasn’t even going to stock the 135 STF (until people started demanding it). So I couldn’t wait to write this up and say it was a nice lens if you couldn’t get the 135 f/1.8.

But it didn’t turn out that way. This lens is spectacular. Spectacularly sharp, but with an amazingly smooth background blur that lets the subject stand out in a unique 3-D look. It’s much easier to use than I expected, the learning curve was about 20 shots for me to feel comfortable. And it is a lot smaller than the lens-formerly-known-as-the-best 135mm. Actually, the f/1.8 is still my favorite, but not by much after trying this out. And not at all after I’ve carried it around for a few hours.

The one downside with the STF is that it does need good light, either outdoors or in a studio. While it states its an f2.8 lens, the apodisatic elements (the part that makes it soft focus) loses a full stop of light so it acts like an f4 lens. It’s not going to be very useful inside without some lighting.