L Mount Alliance Lens Range

[o2mpx]

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Considering Sigma, Panasonic and others who certainly have the ability, why is the tele lens range rather limited? Have been wanting to add a prime 135mm, and yet none are offered. Instead, we have many heavy and bulky zooms either at F2.8 or super zooms. 

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[Babylonia]

You are absolutely right.
But maybe it is a  tendency of this time?  Using "fewer" 135 mm lenses in general?
So it might be of less interesting to produce such a lens??

As the old version of Sigma ART HSM is discontinued.
https://www.sigma-global.com/en/lenses/a017_135_18/

Maybe there is a new version on the way?

And I don't understand why "Samyang" as a partner within the L-mount alliance.
Doesn't make their 135mm/1.8 offering for L-mount. It seems one of the best 135mm lenses offerings in general.

 

[Ning Ning]

You can still get the Sigma 135 1.8 
I have it and it's the "sharpest" lens I have in my bag. I am very enthusiastic. Even if there should be a DG DN in the near future, but I haven't heard any rumors yet, the “old” one won't be any worse, only cheaper.

[Babylonia]

But a new Sigma 135 1.8, shall be more small, and less weight I guess.
(That's more important "for me" as comparison with each other "if" there is coming a new lens model.
Or e.g. by comparison to "Samyang".  I find the old Sigma lens to "hefty").

[Markey]

I used 135 a lot back in the day but it no longer seems to be a popular F/L.

They need the sales to produce them and I guess that the evidence isn`t there or they would have done so .

[Maksim M]

There is still hope for Viltrox come to L-mount. They 135 LAB lens is very nice.

And Sigma, based on rumors, preparing 200mm f/2.

[wattsy]

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I'm old enough to remember when a 135mm was a common focal length to have as part of a three or four prime lens system but I think it has long fallen out of favour. The quality of zooms has been so good in recent decades that the f/2.8 70-200mm covers that ground.

[Oxfordian]

My guess is that Sigma will update the 135 HSM to the new DG DN / A spec at some point, which with luck will be around 50% lighter than the old version, similar to the size/weight improvement on the 85mm DG DN / A over the HSM model. If they manage this then the new version will be going in my kit bag.

[Babylonia]

Am 4.5.2025 um 22:57 schrieb wattsy:

I'm old enough to remember when a 135mm was a common focal length to have as part of a three or four prime lens system but I think it has long fallen out of favour. The quality of zooms has been so good in recent decades that the f/2.8 70-200mm covers that ground.

I am "old enough" to.
However in those old times (about 50 years ago), "when" I got a 135mm lens (Nikon) as by the general thought of a "perfect" portraiture lens.
It was not my cup of coffee. I did found it "to long".  I replaced it by a 85mm/F1.8.  A far better focal length for my purposes.

Fellow "students" at that time when I lent them my lens, were also particularly enthusiastic about using that 85mm focal length.
(They asked me if I didn't want to sell the lens).

Nowadays, due to a socially changing attitude in taking images with a smartphone.
Where people are more used to very short shooting distances of taking pictures  - "selfies with arm stretched".
An equivalent "using" focal length lens by 35mm sensor format, for portraiture seems to be shorten to, as "normal".
So even a far less usual choice or implementation to choose for a 135mm focal length.

Edited May 5 by Babylonia

[LocalHero1953]

135mm is about the absolute maximum length one can focus on a rangefinder. (I did so on my M3, but later sold body and lens for a M2).

I had a 135mm for my Pentax MX. Although it was compact, I'd have preferred their 150mm, which they advertised, but I could never find one. Perhaps 135mm hung on into the SLR era simply because there were plenty of 135mm designs around and adaptable. 

[Stuart Richardson]

It is a great focal length for landscapes in a country like Iceland. It is not so long that you lose your foreground (i.e. the literal ground), while still being able to fit in the peaks of the mountains and compress perspective. But this is not a lens I would particularly want as a super speed lens. It just adds so much bulk and then makes it impractical. A lens like the 135mm 3.4 APO Telyt M, only with AF is what I would want. Compact, super sharp, while being light and easy to handle. DOF is already really shallow at f4 of f2.8, making it even shallower is bordering on bokeh fetishism, lol. In the meantime I am using the Sigma 105mm Macro and 135mm Tele Elmar M in this role. They do it well.