Canon EF 135mm f/2L USM

Stand at the back of a dim church during a recessional, no flash allowed, and the EF 135mm f/2L is the lens that comes off the shoulder. You frame from forty feet away, drop to f/2, and the couple lifts off a backdrop of pews and stained glass that dissolves into soft color. Wedding and event shooters kept this lens in the bag for almost thirty years for exactly that reason. It reaches across a room, it pulls in light when there is barely any, and it renders the background as a wash rather than a distraction.

Canon built it in 1996 on a 10-element, 8-group formula with two UD-glass elements aimed at the secondary spectrum that wrecks fast teles wide open. It is genuinely sharp at f/2 in the center, where most fast 135s only manage acceptable, and the corners firm up to crisp by f/2.8 to f/4. The eight-blade diaphragm keeps out-of-focus highlights round and smooth, no onion rings, no hard outlining. Skin renders with a slight glow wide open that tightens as you stop down, and by f/2.8 the look turns clinical. Contrast is high. Flare is well controlled for a lens of its age, though a bare front element against a streetlight will still pick up some veiling.

It is a portrait and editorial lens first. Headshots, three-quarter length, stage and concert work, indoor sports from the baseline. The 135mm focal length has long been a portrait staple, far enough back that you are not crowding a face but tight enough to compress features, and the f/2 aperture extended that working length into low light where slower teles give out.

The honest weakness is lateral chromatic aberration. Shoot a backlit branch or a chrome bumper at f/2 and you will see purple-green fringing on the high-contrast edges. The UD glass tames it but does not kill it, and on a 35mm frame scanned at high resolution it shows. Stop to f/2.8 and it mostly clears. The other quiet cost is the weight and the lack of stabilization, which the EF mount never got on this lens.

Today it trades used for well under a fraction of an L-prime's launch price, and the people who skip it are usually waiting for the RF 135mm f/1.8L IS, which adds a third of a stop, image stabilization, and modern coatings at a much higher price. For film bodies the EF version remains the obvious pick, because the newer RF glass will not mount on an EOS-1 or an Elan without an adapter that defeats the point. One metering note: at f/2 in a dark venue you are working at the edge of usable shutter speeds, so meter Zone Light Meter wide open off the subject's face and let the app hold the reading while you wait for the moment. The 72mm thread takes a standard ND or polarizer if you need to drag the shutter for ambient.