Photos of this life: Lord Of The Red Rings

Last week I had the pleasure of being able to use a lens held in extremely high regard. I'm of course talking about the Canon 135mm F/2 L USM. First impressions of the lens are its not that large for a medium telephoto. After picking it up you notice a nice weight to it, comforting you about the amount of metal and glass that went into making it. The front element is very large, a dead giveaway that this lens is fast with an aperture of F/2 . Upon mounting to my camera I instantly noticed the combo being a lil on the front end heavy side. If you're not used to using heavy telephotos I recommend compensating for the front heavy combo with your shooting stance. Before I even took a shot with this lens i started to think about all the online reviews and forum talk regarding this lens. The majority of people who have used this lens mainly say one thing, this lens is SHARP! Could it really be that good? There was only one way to find out. Being an avid street photographer, the first thing i wanted to know was, can this lens hack it street shooting at night without flash? Although it sure is fast at F/2.0 there was another factor that presented itself. This is a medium telephoto, so therefore it has a fairly high magnification ratio. Basically that means optically its a lot closer to your subject than a shorter lens. This also means any camera shake/movement is going to be very noticeable at slower shutter speeds. Considering this lens has membership to Canon's "Holy Trinity of Prime Lenses" it did not disappoint. The photos this bad boy is capable of producing are nothing short of stunning. Auto focus is extremely fast and accurate, I wish everything was this nice. Bokeh from this lens is super creamy (although not as good as the 85mm F/1.2L II USM) and pleasing on the eyes. Being the longest and most specialty lens out of the trio "Holy Trinity of Prime Lenses" I had my doubts about its performance, but my worries were silenced instantly. This lens truly does live up to the name "Lord Of The Red Rings", its incredibly sharp, easy to use, fast, and doesn't get in the way of getting that shot. There really isn't much more you could ask for in a lens, except maybe IS (Image Stabilization) for video work. One last note, This past weekend someone asked me why I only shoot my street photos in black and white. It's not that I don't enjoy shooting color, I just made a decision to only post B&W street photos in my facebook album. With that being said, all the street photos shown on this post will be in color. If you wanna see the B&W versions head on over to my facebook page. Hope you enjoy these photos as much as I did taking them.