135 M

Two shots using my recently acquired 135 M and I'm pleased with it.




and




K10D probably f5.6 at about 1/180th ISO 100. It isn't as sharp as the 70 ltd but I may have suffered some camera shake.

Mike

Nothing much wrong with that lens. Or the pictures. Both excellent, though the first has more to say.

G

I find it always hard to use text in a photo, it draws the attention a lot and can't help but do the same with your first photo and therefore it doesn't work for me.
Maybe if you could throw the stone in the background more out of focus then it might have worked but I believe you already used the lens wide open or not, since the flowers are so closely placed against the stone?

The second photo is very nice, really like the bokeh of that one.

Beautiful, both of them, but I prefer the second one. Lovely colours and bokeh!

I've yet to give my M 135mm a run out yet, but from the results of these two pics I think it should be sooner rather than later. Really like the second one but the first I'd probably crop out the gravestone in the background so more emphasis on the followers and straighten it. I agree with Anvh the writing on the gravestone does tend to draw your attention first.

I agree about the lettering being too sharp but wide open this lens seems a bit soft so I thought it better for a stone subject to stop down a bit. The flowers were in fact about a metre or so from the headstone but access was poor so I had to shoot and then crop - I think this is about a 50% crop (ie I have discarded about half the image).

The second shot was rather a touching memento (is that spelt right?) on tree marking someone's final resting place.

Mike

I don't follow this business about not wanting to see the lettering. It's a picture of a grave, and the lettering on the headstone is an important part of that (for me, anyway).

G

True but I think if it were a tad more blurred but still legible it would be better.

Slight touch of gaussian blur in PP perhaps?

Hmm that's a sort of PP that I very rarely use. I do not wear a hair shirt but if I want something out of focus then I should do that in camera. Not saying others should avoid PP blur but for me I see it as a failure and I don't want to use it! Also I did try it and it looked fairly OK but still I think I'll stick with my mistake.

Mike

I don't thinks it's a mistake Mike just personal preference, as always with human nature we all like different things, if we all like the same it would be boring and there would be no creative talent. Love the sharpness and bokeh on the M 135mm though.

But the mistake was not to get closer and make a bigger effort to get the correct DOF either with this or a different lens.

Now, if I had got closer with the 135 so the hole frame was occupied by what you see now (rather than the 50% crop) then I would have had less DOF. True?

If I had used the 70mm at f2.4 which is quite sharp enough then I would have had to be closer still and I would probably have had similar DOF as I have got here at 5.6 on the 135. True (as an estimate clearly)?

I get quite perturbed by DOF etc.

Mike

I still like it just as it is. Wouldn't change a thing.

G

Both are nice, but I prefer the #1. And I really like it as it is. Stefan's right, the text brings my attention, but in a positive way - as just after quick reading names and dates I focus on the primary subject - which meaning is integral with the stone (if you see what I mean). Now the flowers in the vase have special meaning.