1 week ago
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Shooting portraits at f/2 with a 200mm lens produces backgrounds so obliterated they barely look real. If you shoot portraits and background separation is a priority, the focal length and aperture combination you choose will define your entire look.
Coming to you from Ben Harvey Photography, this detailed side-by-side video pits Harvey's own Canon 135mm f/2 against the new Laowa 200mm f/2, a lens that mounts via EF-to-RF adapter and quietly sidesteps Canon's restriction on third-party autofocus lenses in its mirrorless ecosystem. Harvey tests both lenses across full body, three-quarter, and head-and-shoulders compositions, keeping his subject and background at a fixed distance while he moves back to match framing as he switches glass. At full body distances, the 200mm produces noticeably smoother rendering immediately around the subject. But here's where it gets interesting: the longer focal length's compression pulls background elements closer to the subject, which can actually make certain shots busier, not cleaner.
At closer shooting distances, the gap between the two lenses narrows considerably. For head-and-shoulders work, Harvey finds both lenses deliver genuinely beautiful, distraction-free backgrounds, with the 200mm holding a slight edge that most people would struggle to call decisive. What becomes clear is that the 200mm gives you more control over what lands in the background of a tight composition, since the narrower angle of view lets you exclude distracting elements more selectively. The 135mm, a lens from the 1990s, holds its ground in a way that's genuinely surprising when you put the images side by side.
There are real practical tradeoffs that don't show up in sample images. Shooting at 200mm means standing 10 meters from your subject for a full body frame, compared to 7 meters with the 135mm. That's a noticeable difference in how you communicate on a shoot. The 200mm also takes 105mm filters, so if you shoot in daylight and want to control your shutter speed at f/2, you're looking at a large, expensive filter system on top of an already costly lens. Harvey also runs a second set of comparisons shot on a sunnier day with visible bokeh highlights in the background, and those comparisons show the 200mm pulling ahead more clearly, particularly in full body frames where specular highlights in the background reveal just how much smoother the out-of-focus rendering becomes.
Check out the video above for the full comparison and Harvey's final verdict on which lens he'd actually recommend depending on how you shoot.
English (US) ·