Hey guys, I preordered the 135L and got it about 7 Dec. I shoot with a 5dsr, and I own the older 50L and the newer 100L Macro, having upgraded from the earlier 100 Macro. With the 5dsr, even the 50L is barely good enough for the 50mp beast!
I do a lot of product photography, from jewelry up to backpack-size things. Some shooters would use a 45 or 50 tilt-shift for these larger things, but I pretty much use my 100 for everything because it is my sharpest lens. I had tse-45 with my 6d, but on the 5dsr, the 45tse revealed its limitations real quick! There are sadly not a lot of Canon's lenses up to the 50mp resolving challenge, and I suspect Canon has a special 100mop camera body they are testing their new lenses on (just a theory). Also, I do a lot of focus stacking with helicon focus and an autorail.
So anyway, I got the 135 tilt-shift because of the MTF score was outrageous and because I wanted something as an alternative to a 60-image stack, lol. I imagined I would use the 135 for about 20% of my work, and the 100mm for the rest. Why do I not use Sigma? The AF issue is too wild. Why not the 180L Macro? That lens is too old, doesnt work with 50mp.
Well, the 135 is so sharp I use it for EVERYTHING now, and I only use the 100 macro for when I need to go 1:1 life size, which is very very rarely. BUt let me tell you, even at f8, full tilt, and at MFD, the DoF is NARROW. Look at the spider image below, shot at MFD at f8. Its front legs are blurry because they are outside the DoF!!! So this is maybe why it goes to f45. I DO NOT want to stop past f11, but maybe with all that extra glass sharpness I can do it and not lose much sharpness from diffraction?
I am told a person cannot stack with a tilt-shift lens, and when I tried it the results were wonky. Can anyone chime in on this? I imagined tilting to a certain focal plane, then stacking along that plane, but I may need to use different DoF math calculations? Well, I am iffy on stacking with a TS lens.
Things I noticed about the TS-e 135L:
-Front element does not move, while the 50 and 90 appears to move.
-It came with an extra knob, but no idea what the knob is for.
-The hood allows you to adjust a polarizer without taking the hood off!!!
-The resolving power is so HIGH if you have a 5DSr the missing AA-filter will be all the more apparent. Some of my shots look like 6d shots with the AA-filter removed. Heavy duty moire too. Be prepared for this (moire).