Unsharpness as an unintentional mistake that made me very happy with the photograph.

Austin 1988.

Camera: Pentax 6x7

200mm Pentax lens

Tri-X film.

The Joyous capabilities of the 85mm f1.2 lens. On film.

Le Bouillon Chartier. Paris. 1992

Canon EOS-1 + 85mm f1.1.2

 Do you make photographs of people with wide angle lenses? We can cure that shortcoming. Buy a fast 85mm lens and feel the enlightenment surge through your entire system. Breathe. Then slightly compress your subjects.

I'm on the search for the perfect, fast, high quality 135mm f2.0 lens for my Nikon bodies. Any suggestions?

Latin Fashion Show on the Beach at South Beach, Miami 2001.

I'm 90% sure I'll be buying one of the Nikon 135mm f2.0 DC (defocus coupling) lenses in the next month or so. I keep stumbling across images from as far back as the first 135mm lens I owned for a Canon TX, in 1977, and being amazed at the pictorial effect of the focal length and the background rendering. I should have listened to my friend, Bernard, a few years back when he was extolling the virtues of his fast, Canon EF 135. He was certainly right to elevate this focal length's status to near legend. Especially the faster versions...

Like I said above, I'm pretty certain I'll get the Nikon DC lens because I had a loaner Nikon 105mm f2.0 DC  from Nikon for nearly six months, a few years back, and shot some of my favorite portraits with that lens. The image above is from one of the many 135mm's I've owned but I can't remember off hand which one. The sad thing is that the FujiFilm color negative film I used for the above image must have had a defect because I can't read the exif data....

It would either have been a Contax 135mm f2.8 or a Leica R series 135mm f2.8. Both were really good, but hardly stellar lenses.

Zeiss makes a nice 135mm f2.0 for Nikons as does Rokinon, but the problem is that they are both manual focus lenses and I want this particular lens to be an auto focus lens. When you are playing around with really tiny slices of sharpness, surrounded by intentional blur,  it's really nice to get the focus nailed down quickly and correctly.

Among the brain trust that constitutes VSL readers I am curious to hear of peoples' various experiences with appropriate 135mm lenses. Can you chime in and give me some advice?

I'd like to get this purchase wrapped up before my upcoming birthday.... I can't imagine a better self-present and I can probably stretch and afford a good one.

Thanks in advance.