Sturdy, sharp, beautiful background blur

dont pay retail price, can be purchased second hand at a reasonable price

Best head and shoulders portrait lens I can think of If you can find it at the right price. Beautiful background blur. Somtimes the soft effect can be useful. I would suggest a name brand soft filter such as tiffen. Excellent with black and white.

Customer Service

Not needed

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Cannon 80 1.8 Tamron 90 2.8 macro

Very sharp, when soft focus feature is not engaged. Beautiful soft-focus efect is quite handy both in portraits and in morning scenics. Surprisingly fast focusing for a non-USM lens. Very light. Very competitively priced.

No lens shade, so be careful with sun.
USM would be nice.

Excellent special purpose lens with a general purpose capability. Although it is not an L lens, it is quite close to it in sharpness and color rendition. Not everybody appreciates the soft focus effect, but for someone who does - this lens is a must. Too bad it is not USM...

Customer Service

did not need

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85mm f/1.8 USM
28-135mm USM IS
100-300 L f/5.6
100-400mm L USM IS

Very sharp and lightweight; dial-in softfocus settings

No USM or realtime autofocus override; loose manual focus ring

This is a fine lens: very sharp, light and, with internal focus, is really fast for a non-USM lens. The 2.8 aperture coupled with 135mm focal length makes for nice background blur not possible on a slow zoom. I don't use the softfocus feature much. However, the no. 1 setting at F4 is perfect for making older women look younger--they love the effect. No. 2 is too strong for my taste. Also the 135mm perspective makes subjects look thinner than when shot at 85mm or 50mm.

This is an old lens design (1987). The optics are great but the motor and focus ring could use an update, i.e, an USM motor and a smooth, big focus ring. Of course, that's why they brought out the L version of this lens for big bucks. This may be too long a focal length for most indoor studios but is perfect for outdoors.

Customer Service

NA

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EF85/1.8 USM

Not expensive
Quite sharp (when soft-focus is off)
Not a USM, but acceptably fast

soft focus is always out of control
Internal reflection in the lens is bad, never shoot against light, even with the lens hood on

Quite good for beginner

Customer Service

never tried

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Canon EF 85 1.8
Tamron AF 90 2.8

VERY SHARP, very fast focus, fast (aperture), small and light. For what I paid, worth every penny. The soft focus works great although at step 2 is much too much softness. Works well as a 270mm when coupled with 2x converter. Autofocus is very quiet for a non USM.

Lens flare (or maybe internal reflection?) is a bit of a problem with back lit subjects, even with a hood. Not very sturdy although I've never had to take this lens through any rough outings so I don't know for sure how tough it is.

Great lens to pick up if you can find it cheap used. Big time waste of money if you pay full price for this since it's focal length simply is not very versatile.

Customer Service

never had to service any of my canon products.

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various EF lenses (50 f1.8, 28-80 f3.5 USM, 50 f2.5 macro, 2x converter, 70-200 f2.8L USM) EOS 630, A2, 1-V hs

Canon quality, moderate price

only a little slow to focus

quite like it but 135 can be a bit long - bought it as 105mm lens I wanted wasn't available.
Soft setting 2 really is too much - practice with a roll before you use it.

Customer Service

haven't needed

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Sigma 28-70/2.8

The longest non-L grade telephoto lens available for EOS and, being a prime, nearly as sharp as the very expensive zooms in the same range. Good aperture too. I haven't used the soft focus yet as I dislike commercial style portraits but I have been very pleased with the results.

As it is a portrait lens, manual focussing should be easier as you usually have time to do it properly. MF ring is small and flimsy, as with most cheaper EOS lenses.

Not as sharp as my EF50mm 1.8 but a long way ahead of the zooms. Glad I bought it but I picked it up very cheap second hand (about $135 USD) and I don't think I would be so happy at full price.

Customer Service

Not required.

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EF 75-300 III USM - it isn't in the same ball park for sharpness and picture quality.

inexpensive, sharp, good build quality

None

I bought this lens because I wanted a not-that-expensive 2.8/135 lens for my EOS. The higher quality Canon ones were too expensive, so I bought this one, even though I did not care for the "soft" feature. The "soft" modes are pretty handy for portraits if you are into "romantic" style portraits, but the lens in itself is a pretty good one even when used as a standard tele. The relatively low (for Canon standards) price makes this lens interesting if you want to build a "complete" (28mm, 50mm, 135mm) prime lens Canon EF system without spending too much money.

Customer Service

not used yet

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None