Using the Telezenitar 135mm f2.8 APO Legendary Russian Lens on Sony A7 ii

I have the Telezenitar 135mm with me for more than a couple of years now. To me it's a sharp and fast medium telephoto lens. The only "weakness" is that it's a manual focus lens. I used the lens on my Nikon D800e (the lens is in Nikon F mount) and after a few uses it ended up in the dry box until I even put it up for sale. (It never got sold as I had reserved it for a friend who eventually didn't buy it.)

With the Sony a7ii and its in-body image stabiliser (IBIS ; Sony calls it SteadyShot), it brings new life and interest to using manual focus lenses. Previously I have been using the lenses on the Olympus OM-D E-M5, which is one of the earlier mirrorless cameras with the IBIS. 

I have brought along this Telezenitar 135mm f2.8 in my recent travel to Bangkok together with the Sony Zeiss 35mm f2.8 and Canon EF 50mm f1.8 ii for a simple 35mm, 50mm and 135mm kit. What better place to use it than the local zoo? 

At the Dusit Zoo, I used the Telezenitar to shoot the animal stage performance in the seal pool area, in order to catch the seals in action, I set it to shutter priority at 1/1000, Auto ISO for the jumps and here are the results:

JPEG file edited in PhotoScape. © Edward Chen Photography

JPEG file edited in PhotoScape. © Edward Chen Photography

The above two photos are shot with focus peaking in red, which is really helpful for me. The area is prefocused to the rings and just wait for the seal to jump! It's quite an easy shot if we are given a little bit of time to adjust the settings.

Let's play ball ! © Edward Chen Photography

During the performance, we noticed "water dropping" from above when it's not raining and there's no water splashing from the pool. So as I looked up I saw this pigeon. (Yikes !)

Be cautious of "bombers" on top of you ! © Edward Chen Photography

More photos shot with this lens on the Sony A7 ii...

A squirrel in the garden. © Edward Chen Photography

What do you think of this lens and body combination?