[5711]

hi



i am currently looking for a lens to capture people, portrait and street, and wildlife

the main thing with me is, that i love to use fixed focallengths.



therefore my lens of choice would be the 135mm f2



ive looked around and noticed, that the imagequality is outstanding comapred to the older 70-200

and 100-400



i am using a 1dmk3 body



i did thest the 135mm f2 in a zoo and actually never saw such an outstanding sharpness with any other lenses i used before. (talked someone up who was using it if i could try it on my body). i could however upgrade some of my lenses to the l version, but i think that isnt worth it.



my question now is:



does this lens work good together with the extenders 1.4x and 2.0x?



did anyone ever try this?

i am wondering about image quality and how the autofocus speed changes.





pls keep in mind, that i am really serious about fixed focal. the main reason is, that i already have quite a

load of fixed lenses (14L 24 28 50L 85 300L) and want to have something in between 85 and 300.

there is a 200 f2,which comes at a horrible high price and is beyond my reach so i am thinking to add an 1.4x extender for pushing it nearer to 300.



since i am using a canon 1dmk3 i would prefer a canon lens





i was wondering if you could share your thoughts since at the time it is not possible to lend one of those lenses in my town, nor does anyone i know own it.



thanks in advance

cheerio

[Brightcolours]

You seem to overlook the very lovely Canon EF 200mm f2.8 L USM II. Not heavy, black, affordable and good.





A lot of lenses can not be used with the canon 1.4x and 2x extenders, this has to do with the design of the extenders with protruding front elements. The 135mm f2 L USM however can be used with them (I am not certain about the version III extenders, I have not read up on them) as the back element of the 135mm is quite a bit retracted:



It is the shortest lens able to be used with the extenders.



When the camera/lens combination detects an extender (or teleconverter) mounted between, the camera will throttle back the AF speed. They suppose a lens' AF is optimized in speed vs. accuracy for that lens, and for accuracy sake the speed gets halved with an 1.4x TC mounted, and halves again when a 2x TC is mounted.



If AF speed is your concern, you can either buy tele converters that do not tell the lens/camera combination they are there, or you can tape off the contacts on the TC/extender which tell the lens/camera combination they are present. This will keep the AF speed up (but can make the lens hunt for focus in less than optimal light conditions).



Obviously, with 1.4x TC/extender mounted you lose one stop in aperture (f2 becomes f2.8) and with 2x TC/extender you lose 2 stops (f2 becomes f4).



The image quality should still be ok, however do realize that the extenders basically crop the central part of the lens' optics and use that for the entire sensor, so especially with the 2x TC mounted you may be able to see some degradation of sharpness/resolution.

[5711]

thank you very much for this fast and very good response!!



i did certainly overlook the 200 f2.8 since it just didnt come to my mind.

well thats..disapointing.



well then as far as your feedback goes. i may give it a test with the 1.4x

as soon as i can get it borrowed



the 135 on a mk3 are about 175mm witht the converter it would be around 250

(i did the math without calculater as you can see, forgive me my laziness)

that was the main reason why i was thinking about this lens since the 200 is

almost too close to the 300 as it is and would leave me with a gap between 85 and 200.



the 1dm3 is a bulky body which rly draws the attraction of ppl making it sometimes

impossible to capture them without noticing using 85mm(why do i use it then? well, it had been

a once in a lifetime opportunity when i got it in 2008 for 1k euros, new and sealed <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> and yes i still had to have it shipped to canon for this damn af issue, which luckly was for free )



so as of right now, i still would be going with the 135mm



i am aware of the aparture drop



as far as an af speed halved is concerned i think this lens will be doind great, still.



i am just rambling on here sharing my thoughts.

i do highly appreciate your feedback and will take your advice with taping in consideration,

even though i do not hate anything more than confused autofocus.



so thank you very much, you did help.



cheers

[popo]

I have tried the 135L with Sigma EX DG 1.4x and 2x extenders, and the result was horrific. There was a glow everywhere and I would consider that unusable. I'm hoping the Canon ones would actually work better but I don't have access to one to try myself so far. It is listed as compatible with extenders. Maybe the extreme speed of this lens is too much for Sigma's offerings.



The overall AF performance with extenders is down to two parts, the body and the lens. At least the body should still retain the ability to focus using any f/2.8 sensitive points with a 1.4x extender. I don't recall noticing any difference in AF speed with the 7D when I tried it.

[5711]

fair enough, sigma is out of the race then

thank you for your reply



i will try to get a 135 and canon externders in my hands

and share some shots but i do however not know when this will

actually happen.



if the 7d had no downside regarding the focus speed i can only asume

the 1d is doing just as well



thanks again

cheers