Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* 135mm

The Carl Zeiss Sonnar T 135mm f/2.8* C/Y Mount is a classic manual-focus telephoto prime made for the Contax/Yashica 35mm SLR system.

At 135mm, it gives you enough distance from your subject to make it particularly useful for portraits, details and more distant subjects. Zeiss itself described the focal length as particularly well suited to portraiture, landscapes and subjects where you want to work from further away.

Inside is a relatively simple 5-element, 4-group Sonnar optical design, paired with Zeiss's T* coating. The f/2.8 maximum aperture also gives you useful control over depth of field and subject separation.

It's entirely manual focus, with the solid mechanical construction associated with Contax-era Zeiss lenses. There's also a built-in retractable lens hood, so you don't need to carry a separate hood.

Use it natively on compatible Contax/Yashica film cameras, or adapt it to many modern mirrorless systems if you want to bring an older Zeiss lens into a digital setup.

Best for

• Portrait photography
• 35mm film photography
• Manual-focus shooting
• Details and distant subjects
• Classic Zeiss lenses
• Contax/Yashica camera users
• Adapted mirrorless photography
• Photographers building a vintage lens set
• Collectors

What to expect

The 135mm focal length gives a noticeably compressed telephoto perspective on 35mm film or full-frame digital cameras.

For portraits, that means you can work further away from your subject while still filling the frame. The f/2.8 maximum aperture gives you room to separate a subject from the background without turning the lens into an enormous piece of glass.

Focusing is completely manual, and the closest focusing distance is approximately 1.6 metres, so this isn't designed for close-up photography.

The lens also has a 55mm filter thread and built-in hood. At approximately 585g, it has considerably more weight to it than many modern compact lenses.