As a photographer, I’ve learned to appreciate the subtle and not-so-subtle differences between lenses of differing focal lengths. I’ve used full-frame lenses as wide as 10mm, as long as 1200mm, and just about every focal length in between but, for some reason, 135mm lenses have never resonated with me.
Give me an 85mm or 105mm lens and I’m happy. Ditto 150mm and 180mm lenses. But mount a 135mm lens on my camera and something in my creative soul curls up and starts rocking back and forth in fetal position. Why? I don’t know, but when a friend recently bequeathed me his late father’s 1969-vintage Nikon F camera system, low and behold, the first lens I pulled out of the bag was a 135mm f/3.5 Nikkor-Q. Oh, happy days…
If it wasn’t for the fact I had a positive experience reviewing a Zeiss Milvus 135mm f/2 ZF.2 this past year, I might have let the lens sit in the bag for another decade or two, but I really liked the Zeiss 135, so I decided to give the lens a try.
Unlike modern 135mm fixed primes, many of which allow you to focus as close as 2.6'—or about a quarter life size, the 135mm f/3.5 Nikkor-Q only focuses down to a paltry five feet, which is fine for head-and-shoulder photographs but a total no-go when it comes to capturing tight facial close-ups. This was a key reason I found my earliest 135mm lens so frustrating to use.
I was about to toss the lens into a box of yard sale specials when I decided to give it a second chance to win me over. I mated the lens with my Sony A7R II using a Metabones Nikon F to Sony E-mount lens adapter and headed north up Ninth Avenue to see what I could see.
Modern digital cameras don’t always jibe with 50-year-old lenses, especially at wider apertures, where chromatic aberrations reign supreme. Stop most lenses down a few stops and the image quality vastly improves, and this lens was no exception. Even wide open, the image files were relatively aberration free.
I’ve long been partial to wider-angle lenses. Regardless, I can quickly adapt to longer focal length lenses and come away with photographs that satisfy my needs and/or my clients. Perhaps it’s experience or perhaps a greater level of patience since I first went out with a 135mm lens but, this time around, I felt far lower levels of resistance to the lens and before long I began seeing pictures.
As a street shooter, one thing I had to readjust to when using a lens triple the focal length of lenses I typically use, was the added space between me and my subject. As a wide-angle shooter, I usually work within close range of my subject. When shooting with a 135mm lens, I found myself waiting for pedestrians to pass and, in the case of buses, cars, and taxis, a red light to hold up auto traffic while I crouched in the middle of the street, framing my shot.
Head-and-shoulder portraits are easy with the 135mm lens, and the focal length serves well in maintaining a comfortable distance between the subject and the lens. There’s no denying that getting in real close to one’s subject can result in strong visual dynamics but, at the end of the day, you work with what you have and in the case of this lens, it means working with a wishy-washy close focusing distance.
As mentioned up front, I tend to get close to my subject and though this particular lens comes nowhere close to a macro lens, I was able to find and photograph abstract visuals along the way that hold their own when compared to photos taken with closer-focusing lenses I enjoy using.
After several jaunts with the lens, I must admit I might have passed judgement on 135mm lenses prematurely. Often, we dismiss things that don’t meet 100% of our expectations the first few times we try them and, for me, this was certainly the case.
Perhaps it’s experience, or maybe the fact I’ve learned to be a bit more patient when it comes to learning or experiencing new ideas (and focal lengths). Regardless, I doubt if the thought of mounting a 135mm lens on my camera will be psychologically traumatic moving forward. Truth be told, I’m probably going take it out for a walk during my lunch break today. (It’s real nice outside!)
Do you have a lens or focal length that you had to come to terms with? Let us know, we’d be curious to hear about it.
