This piece of glass used to be the most popular tele lens, back in the day, for both its focal and aperture number. I have read somewhere that this lens was the standard for journalists and whatnot. No idea if this is the case nowadays, but it seems that everyone has this lens in their kit. And I believe I know why. True, there are many other lenses out there to replace this one, with (probably) better results, but for those older guys like me who started in the analogue world many moons ago, this lens is a sweet number. It brings back solid good memories, it is sexy as hell on a manual Nikon.
Almost the size of my Nikkor 105/2.5 lens, is a well made and reliable travel companion. It’s a product of the Japanese manufacturing of the 70s, when professionals were listened to and some lenses (and to a certain extent, some cameras) were beautifully tailored by Nikon.
Being a short tele, this Nikon Nikkor 135mm F2.8 AI it’s not very difficult to shoot it handheld, as long as you remember to keep your shutter above 1/125. At 2.8 and 4, some fall off can be noticed, but it goes away starting with 5.6. Many times, when using this lens I choose to shoot 400 ASA film, mainly because of the above (speed and aperture). That said, when light is plenty, I got very pleasing results with 100 ASA.
Main applications for this lens? For me at least these are architectural details, closeups of people and stuff in street photography, perhaps some landscape feature that caught my eye. What I do not use it for is portraits; I tried that and I didn’t liked it. My 105/2.5 is much more suited to this photography purpose. What’s funny is that I used the 105/2.5 (and still do) instead of the 135, but not the other way around. Just a personal thing I guess.