Sony 135mm f/2.8 - f/4.5 STF A-Mount Lens

2014-06-04T20:00:00

This lens is pretty much unique across all lens brands and mounts. It is quite an expensive investment and so you need to ensure that the unique benefits are worth it, over the one or two draw backs. The major feature of this lens is how it renders the out of focus back and foreground of pictures. i.e. the "bokeh". There are lots of technical descriptions on the net of the lens' technical construction, based on its additional aperture, and so I will not describe that here. The result of this unique construction is that the bokeh it produces is superb - in fact I would say unrivaled. For people and flower shots it is fantastic. The lens is well built and is optically of top quality. It is very sharp with typical Sony/Minolta contrast and colours. The downside of its construction is that it is manual focus only. If auto focus is important then you need to look at alternatives. With older optical viewfinder camera bodies, the very shallow depth of field with the aperture wide open (the main reason you would use this lens) and the lack of auto focus could be frustrating. With the newer EVF Sony camera bodies with their focus peaking etc. these concerns are lessened. My only quality quibbles are that the lens hood does not fit on and off smoothly, and that the focus ring does not have the buttery smooth, damped feel of older quality manual focus lenses that I have used. I can live with these foibles as it does its main job so well! If you want super smooth bokeh, in front and behind the subject, the 135mm focal length is appropriate for your subjects (e.g. people, flowers), and you can live without auto focus, then this lens is superb, and unique!

Birma

Originally posted at

2013-07-27T20:00:00

This lens is the only reason to go with A-mount! The bokeh is extremely creamy and smooth. I guess they used 'smooth' in the name for a reason. It does take some practice to get the best out of the lens and the bokeh is best when used at 2.8 (4.5 effect) but when all the ducks are in a row and you've nailed the shot, you could find yourself staring at the photo all day long :-) I wouldn't have been able to use the lens without focus peaking function in a camera body. It helps tremendously and I don't know how people managed before without it. You may find that the lens will challenge your old way of composition. For example, instead of trying to keep distracting objects and background out of your subject, now you can consider including them to see if they become pleasing bokeh to compliment your subject. I am sure some other lenses, A-mount or not, can also produce pleasing bokeh under right conditions but based on many comparisons (you can search online), I still feel this lens comes on top. This lens is sharp and its transition from sharpness to defocused area is very smooth. If you are thinking about getting this lens, I'd say get it, learn how to it, and enjoy it.

AnonUser

Originally posted at