Canon EF 35-135mm f/4-5.6 USM

This is the 'desperately dirty lens' of my previous post, now cleaned up and in use.

You don't see many of these lenses on the secondhand market. Maybe the photographers who own one want to keep it. Currently they are often priced at well over £100 when you do spot one.

The Canon EF 35-135mm f/4-5.6 USM was available new from 1990 until 1997 and is therefore suited to full frame cameras. However, I use it on a cropped sensor Canon where it provides a field of view of 55-215mm.

The casing is made of polycarbonate which makes it a lightweight compared to pro lenses. Rear element focussing was an innovation with this lens and makes it snappy on the AF. And there is a nice distance window to help judge depth of field. Close focus is 0.75m at all focal lengths. Contrast is very good and distortion is well controlled.

The usual lens hood is the EW-62 but that's not much use with crop sensors, thus the ET-62 which you see in the picture. I bought that separately.

The photograph was taken with a Canon EOS 40D and a Chinon 55mm f/1.4 M42 lens.