Field-test of Canon EF 35-135mm f/4-5.6 USM zoom lens.. Advances in lens technology certainly have certainly come a long way. The modern AF lenses for 35mm SLR cameras are more compact and lightweight than their manual focus counterparts available in the '70s and '80s. Take for example: Canon's own FD 50-135mm f/3.5 zoom lens. This lens weighs about 650 grams as compared to the EF 35-135mm f/4-5.6 USM's 425 grams. Of course, the FD lens has a constant maximum aperture of f/3.5 throughout its zooming range while the EF zoom has a variable type of f/4 at the 35mm setting and f/5.6 at the 135mm focal length. But the new lens has a wider focal length of 35mm compared to the standard 50mm of the FD zoom. Even if Canon has made the EF lens with a constant f/3.5 maximum aperture throughout the entire zooming range, I believe it will still be much more compact than its FD counterpart, given today's advanced technology. This zoom lens is among the first three Canon EF lenses to employ the Ring USM with Full-time Manual (FT-M) focusing feature. The other two are the EF 70-210mm /3.5-4.5 USM and EF 100-300mm f/4.5-5.6 USM. They were introduced together with the Canon EOS 10 camera (EOS 10s in the North American market) in 1990. Yes, that's right. This EF zoom lens is already ten years old. And in some markets, you probably wouldn't be able to buy it anymore, unlike here in Malaysia. This is due to the availability of the EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM zoom lens introduced since Spring of 1998. The new lens has a wider focal length of 28mm and of course, its built-in Image Stabilizer (IS) system for shooting hand-held with slower shutter speeds for blur-free pictures. Canon EF 35-135mm f/4-5.6 USM The zoom lens set at its 135mm focal length It uses a steel mount One of the first EF lenses to use FT-M feature For those EOS users who couldn't find this lens brand new in their respective countries, there should be plenty of used ones available as well. But I think many of them would consider going for the EF 28-135mm IS version since price-wise, there's not much difference between the two, brand new or used. This lens is best used for travel photography. It is because of this reason Canon developed it in the first place - a lightweight and compact zoom lens for users of its earlier beginner and amateur EOS cameras like the EOS 650, EOS 750, 850 and the EOS 700 that was introduced at the same time as the EOS 10. Back in 1990, these EOS users only have the choice of buying the EF 35-70mm f/3.5-4.5 AFD, EF 28-70mm f/3.5-4.5 AFD and the EF 35-105mm f/4.5-5.6 AFD zoom lenses before this USM version was made available. As a demonstration of how versatile the EF 35-135mm zoom is as a travel photography lens, almost all of the following photos shown from this page onwards were shot within the vicinity of Kuala Lumpur's Merdeka Square, including the shots showing the differences in the angle-of-views of its focal lengths. View shot at 35mm View shot at 50mm View shot at 70mm View shot at 105mm View shot at 135mm   Specifications of the lens are: it accepts any 58mm-size filter and attachment accessories, has a 12 groups/14-element construction, a variable minimum aperture of f/22-32, and a closest focusing distance of 0.75m. << Back to Main . 1 . 2 .