James, are you referring to the Rokinon 85mm 1.4?

Yes, AKA the Samyang (and about 5 other names!). Sorry I didn't make that clear. I'm very keen to see how it stacks up against my Takumar 85mm f/1.9, which I love.

The Rokinon/Falcon/Vivitar/Samyang 85 1.4 is an excellent lens. For the money, it's a real no brainer. My guess is Samyang saved some money making the lens all manual and passed the cost along to us. Smart move on their part and hopefully a sign of things to come now that videographers are snapping up DSLRs. There's definitely a market for good manual focus lenses.

Hi Joel,

It's good to hear from you. Have you heard what the street price will be?

Hi Michael,

I was just using the LCD. I saw the Zacuto loupes at Expo last year, but I didn't have a DSLR then. I am wondering how I would like a loupe since I wear glasses. I heard through the grapevine that we will be seeing some new alternatives to loupes just around the corner. We'll see.

I have played around with a 7 inch monitor, but it was too big for handheld use. There is supposed to be a good 5 inch montior coming out soon.

I use the Multirig with both the Rokinon 85 and a Vivitar Series 1 70-210 with good results.

Thanks for the info Mark.
I haven't had a chance to try out the Rokinon 85mm with my MultiRig yet, but am now encouraged that it will work alright with it. I tried it out with my Bogen fluid base monopod and didn't like the results too much, as I have never been the most proficient with a monopod, and there was still too much movement for my taste for a lens with no IS.

I do love flying a DSLR on the MultiRig though as it truly is effortless. I find it funny that so many are spending a fortune on DSLR rigs when this works so easily with a DSLR. I am even running it with a follow focus and loving it even more so.

135mm recommendation
 

Thanks to all who have posted helpful info in this thread. It's been very helpful to me.

This is my first post on this forum.

I have a question regarding 135mm vintage lenses. I would love to buy a prime 135mm at f2 or faster. The Canon 135mm f2 at nearly $1k seems high for the limited times I will be using this lens.

Can anyone make a recommendation about a solid lense I should look for that is easily adaptable to a DSLR?

Thanks!
Brett

Well for starters, the Canon 135mm f2 is not an old lens but part of Canon's "L" Series. Which are very highly regarded.

If you would like vintage old manual primes then there are plenty to chose from, although f2 or faster might make it harder to find. You will need an EOS to whatever the mount is on the lens itself to use it with a modern DSLR but most will work. The only exception might be of all things, a Canon FD mount which will require glass on the adapter to sue it for infinity focus.

You won't have exposure control or auto focus feature on the camera, but you will have aperture control on the manual lens itself, which for me is actually preferable and more natural.

As for lenses you could look into:
Vivitar 135mm f/2.5
Pentax Takumar 135mm f/2.5

There are lots of 2.8 manuals out there:
Konica Soligor 135mm f/2.8
Vivitar 135MM f2.8
Item image
Soligor 135mm f/2.8
HELIOS 135mm f/2.8
Tair-11 133mm f/2.8

jupiter11 135mm f/4.0

All said you can find lots of 135mm vintage manual lenses out there. But it might take some research and digging. The nice thing about all of these lenses is that they all have different characteristics (brokeh, flare, color etc.) to them and all can give you a totally unique look form each other.

These focal lengths depend if your DSLR is full frame or crop 1.6. An 85mm on a 7D or T2i has about the equivalent focal length as a 135mm lens on a 5Dm2, yet you can find 85mm manual focus lenses in the f1.4 range for little money, eg. Rokinon 85mm. On a crop sensor, the 135mm f2.0 is equivalent to a 200mm f2.0. A Canon 200mm f2.0 sells for $6000+ dollars. The savings on a 135mm lens cropped is enormous. 135mm to 200mm at f2.0 are rare in the vintage world just because today's modern lenses are sophisticated pieces of engineering and the lens arrays are designed by computers.

If you do find vintage lens in f2.0, they will be pricey, so it might be better just to go Canon because their color balance are uniform across their L line. That's one of the advantages of going all Canon. No funky color rendering issues.

Thanks for the feedback.

My hope was to avoid paying $1k for the current Canon 135mm f2 lense by purchasing a vintage lens I can adapt. It is important that it be 135mm at f2 or faster.

This discussion of old lenses made me wonder if I could save by purchasing something old, but it sounds like vintage may not be the best option for a fast 135mm.

Other ideas are certainly welcome! Thanks!

Bret are you wanting to shoot with a focal length of 135mm, or use a 135mm lens to obtain a 200mm focal length.
As was just said, if you are looking for a 135mm focal length then you can look for glass that's 85mm (which is 135mm on the Canons cropped sensor). If you are looking for the later, then you can find fast glass in the 85mm range. An example is the new Rokinin (Samyang, Vivitar, etc.) that's 85mm at a fast 1.4. the glass is pretty good, and build is nice, and it only goes for $250 New.

if you're wanting a 135mm lens to obtain 200mm focal length, then as suggested your choices will be more limiting, but they are out there if you want to look hard enough.

Thanks Michael,
I have an 85mm. I'm looking for a 135mm.

What would be your budget? I found a few Nikon AI lenses in the $400 range that should suit your needs. There are lots of folks on here who swear by them. I'll PM you a few.

Thanks Chris. We all appreciate the time you have invested in this & your willingness to share.

Thanks for providing the article- very informative. I've purchased a Vivitar Series 1 70-210 but now I'm unsure what kind of adapter to buy... (I'm completely new to the world of lenses) A store here in Amsterdam only had 130 euro adapters- almost 3x the price of the lens.

What adapter do I need from Fotodiox? (Chris said he bought his for $20 but I can't find these on the website)

TIA,

Jeroen