The Limbo Connection's photos with the keyword: Canon EF 35-135mm f/4-5.6 USM

Even on a crop-sensor DSLR (the Canon EOS 40D in this case) the old Canon EF 35-135mm f/4-5.6 USM lens has its value for street photography. Mine cost me £37 on eBay. I had never seen a dirtier lens, but five minutes with a blower brush and a clean cotton rag had it looking OK and working well. I guess it came from a house clearance. Some you win and ...

The first conveyorized automatic car washes were apparently introduced in the late 1930s. They have a bad reputation for dislodging aerials and wing mirrors, and scratching paintwork - I don't know if it is deserved or not. I have noticed many 'hand car washes' springing up. I don't patronise them either. I have a bucket and a sponge and a hosepipe. It's therapeutic.

Canon EOS 30D and EF 35-135mm f/4-5.6 USM lens.

I had a brainwave. Instead of attempting to photograph the car wash through the hedge, I'd photograph it over the hedge.

Before I became a photographer I never noticed such detail as this. Canon EOS 30D and EF 35-135mm f/4-5.6 USM lens.

Walking along this street you see front doors and wheelie bins. The various architectural styles and materials are much more evident from a distance. Canon EOS 30D and EF 35-135mm f/4-5.6 USM lens.

Canon EOS 30D and EF 35-135mm f/4-5.6 USM lens.

The streets of England are squalid. It is a national disgrace. Our politicians are weak-willed and pusillanimous. It was not always thus. Canon EOS 30D and EF 35-135mm f/4-5.6 USM lens. The settings for this photograph were ISO 200; focal length 65mm; speed 1/200th; aperture f/8. I am astounded by the clarity.

Canon EOS 40D + EF 35-135mm f/4-5.6 USM lens.

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.

Ink bottles and a Helios-44 lens photographed with a Canon EOS 40D camera fitted with a Canon EF 35-135mm f/4-5.6 USM lens.

Canon EOS 40D + Canon EF 35-135mm f/4-5.6 USM lens.

Canon EOS 40D + Canon EF 35-135mm f/4-5.6 USM lens.

Canon EOS 40D + Canon EF 35-135mm f/4-5.6 USM lens. The lens was set at 56mm. The aperture was f/8. You're always alright at f/8. Shutter speed was 1/180th (you'd have drunk a lot of coffee before 1/180th was too slow for a motionless pair of watering cans). ISO was 800; the 40D was quite good for high ISO considering it came out in 2007. But it had a Byzantine menu system. Big failure, really.

Summer grows tired as the threshold of August looms. The early freshness and vigour has turned to lassitude. Canon EOS 40D + Canon EF 35-135mm f/4-5.6 USM lens.

Canon EF 35-135mm f/4-5.6 USM lens on a Canon EOS 40D.