135mm f4 Tele-Elmar vs new 135mm APO f3.4

[LraStn]

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Wow, thanks everyone for this wealth of information! I really appreciate your input. So far I've ordered the Elmarit-M 2.8/135 to test, and will add others to that and post test pics in the next few weeks.

To answer a few questions that came up, I am using the M10 with Visoflex EVF for ease of focusing.  I don't use this focal length much and I do have a decades old Leitz 90mm 2.0 M, which I love in certain scenarios but still doesn't give me enough reach for some of the extremely long church aisles I have to contend with. My style is soft and painterly/impressionistic, so tack sharpness isn't at the top of my list. 

I should mention I'm trying to build a kit that includes some autofocus options as well for my assistant to use, capturing the fleeting moment when the groom sees the bride for the first time at the end of the very long aisle.

For that reason based on it's cost and weight and limited overall use in my kit, I'm adding the Panasonic 70-200 f4 and will pair that with one of these 135's long term.  

 

  

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[rsolomon]

On 1/3/2018 at 1:51 PM, adan said:

Indeed. Getting an M10 made using my uncoded (and uncodable) 135 much more seamless in concert with 3 coded lenses (21/35/75). 

I have the same 3 lens kit…. 21/35/75. Each surgically sharp, and I like each of them a lot!  I am considering going for a long focal length, my mind tells me I’ll be doing completely different types of shooting, perhaps tripod work, with that any thoughts of jumping to an  R , 180 3.4 Apo…. Perhaps add a 2x extender? 
 

While I carry at least 2 of the 3 current kit , I just don’t see myself walking the day and carrying the 135 …. To big ,to heavy. 
 

 

[MikeMyers]

On 10/19/2021 at 8:52 PM, rsolomon said:

I just don’t see myself walking the day and carrying the 135 …. To big ,to heavy. 

Maybe that's a reason I should be even happier with my 135mm Tele-Elmar, small and light, and easily fits into my camera bag.  

I was shooting some photos of boats in Biscaye Bay, Miami, with my 80-200 Nikon lens this morning, and wondered what I might get with the Tele-Elmar on my M10.  The day was gray and dull, everything looked so, well, dull.  The sun showed nothing for me to think I could wait a while for a better shot.  I took several shots, and this is my favorite.

I thought today was going to be bright and sunny, but instead it's looking like it will be raining shortly.

I like the lens, but I did better when I had the camera mounted on a tripod.  I wanted to get the shutter speed higher, so I set the ISO at 800, set the lens to f/11, and the camera selected 1/500th.  I've been trying to leave the camera on auto-ISO and aperture priority.  Maybe I should have left those settings, and gone back for my tripod.

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[lct]

Please correct me if i'm missing something but where did you see that the 135/3.4 apo is big and heavy? 105mm / 450g vs 107mm / 550g for the 135/4 v2 in my book.

[rsolomon]

20 minutes ago, lct said:

Please correct me if i'm missing something but where did you see that the 135/3.4 apo is big and heavy? 105mm / 450g vs 107mm / 550g for the 135/4 v2 in my book.

This comes from me…… someone who has never had one or used one 😊. I do lots of walking with my kit and I’m under the impression that the 135 is relatively ‘big and heavy’ compared to a 21 SEM, 35 Cron….. or even the 75 Cron. 

[rsolomon]

40 minutes ago, MikeMyers said:

Maybe that's a reason I should be even happier with my 135mm Tele-Elmar, small and light, and easily fits into my camera bag.  

I was shooting some photos of boats in Biscaye Bay, Miami, with my 80-200 Nikon lens this morning, and wondered what I might get with the Tele-Elmar on my M10.  The day was gray and dull, everything looked so, well, dull.  The sun showed nothing for me to think I could wait a while for a better shot.  I took several shots, and this is my favorite.

I thought today was going to be bright and sunny, but instead it's looking like it will be raining shortly.

I like the lens, but I did better when I had the camera mounted on a tripod.  I wanted to get the shutter speed higher, so I set the ISO at 800, set the lens to f/11, and the camera selected 1/500th.  I've been trying to leave the camera on auto-ISO and aperture priority.  Maybe I should have left those settings, and gone back for my tripod.

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Good to know, thanks !

[MikeMyers]

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Oops, typo in my above post - I tried to write that the selected shutter speed was 1/1500th of a second, but it came out in the post as 1/500th, and it's too late for me to edit it now.  Sorry.

[MikeMyers]

I took another photos with my 135 f/4 Tele-Elmar, after learning how to get the fine focusing tools working properly on my M10, this time using the Visoflex.  Similar photo, but shot wide open at f/4, allowing me to get a sharp image of the Margaritaville, while throwing the background a little out of focus.  I used many of the tools in DxO PhotoLab 5 to get the most out of the image, without "faking" anything.

Yesterday I wondered why the boat wasn't as sharp as I expected, but today, shooting more carefully, everything came out fine.  Obviously to me, 135mm lens, with the image cropped quite a bit, means my hands are too old to hold my camera steady.  I bumped the ISO up to 1600, so the shutter speed today was 1/3000th, which helped, and the camera was securely resting on a railing.  My new M10 grip helped too.  So did looking down into the Visoflex - speaking which, with a magnified image, I know how lousy I am in preventing camera movement.    I like this lens, a lot.  I am so thankful for the help of people in this forum who helped me figure out what was wrong with it - that the rear element was put in upside down is something I never, ever, would have guessed.  At any rate, I sent it back to B&H Photo, in NYC, who sent it to the right people to fix it properly.

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[sarav]

I owned both and sold the APO because of flare. With bright sky or sun just outside the picture you get a hell of giant flare who ruins the image. The APO is a winner in sharpness 'til f4-f5.6 (f4.8?), from f5.6 the advantage is minimal. The Tele-Elmar is a very nice lens and a bargain; its OOF rendering is beautiful.