![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/review\/canon-100mm\/IMG_2172-edit.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The specialty of a macro lens is in allowing you much much closer to your subject than a normal optic would .. with the ease of continuous focusing from infinity to the closest distance.\u00a0 No need to screw in additional rings or lenses or reverse your lens.\u00a0 A macro lens works as a close-up lens, and as a more usual optic.\u00a0 And that’s the versatility of it.<\/p>\n
The main feature of the\u00a0Canon 100 mm f\/2.8 IS macro lens<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0(B&H<\/a> \/ Amazon<\/a><\/em>) is that it offers stabilization.\u00a0 Now this might not seem such a big deal to photographers who work with a tripod and photograph more static subjects – but the moment you want to shoot on the move, and play around fluently with your composition and angles – then using the lens hand-held becomes a huge advantage.<\/p>\n Instead of photographing the usual macro subjects – flowers and insects – I decided to test the Canon 100 mm f\/2.8 IS macro lens<\/a> (affiliate <\/em>), during a portrait session with a model, Annisa.<\/p>\n In the photo above, my settings were 1\/200th @ f3.2 @ 400 ISO.\u00a0 In testing the lens with and without the IS enabled, there is a clear difference in the crispness of the (handheld) images.\u00a0 There’s no doubt that the IS works, and is a major improvement on the previous generation of this lens ..<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Of course, I had to machine-gun the series of images to get a few images which were critically sharp.\u00a0 This is because\u00a0the depth-of-field was minimal\u00a0at f3.2 at such a relatively close focusing distance.\u00a0 If I merely breathed, or the model moved ever so slightly, the photograph would be out of focus.\u00a0\u00a0 That I had to do this was no fault of this exemplary lens, but rather a by-product of the way that I chose to shoot – handheld.\u00a0\u00a0 The stabilization will definitely help with camera shake, but won’t affect how sharp my subject appears due to subject movement .. or my own movement towards or away from my subject, however small a distance it might appear to be.<\/p>\n One more photograph of our model, but this time at\u00a0 1\/100th @ f4 @ 400 ISO<\/p>\n … and it is super-sharp on her one eye, while in an enlarged view,\u00a0 her mouth goes gently out of focus at such a short focusing distance.\u00a0\u00a0 Once again, the\u00a0lens’ stabilization\u00a0is without a doubt a huge boost here in the results you can achieve.<\/p>\n I used the Canon 7D camera<\/a><\/strong> (affiliate<\/em>) for this photo session, so the 1.6x crop factor helped compress the perspective for portraits.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Minimum focusing distance: 12″ \/ 0.31 meters <\/p>\n The optical performance of this lens is very impressive!\u00a0 This lens is sharp.\u00a0 Even at f2.8 <\/p>\n Theis updated lens focuses noticeably faster than its predecessor. Macro lenses have a tendency to be slow to focus because of the extreme range that it can focus – hence the focus \/ distance limiters – but this lens has a very firm response when you initiate auto-focus. Fast and assured.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The lens offers the usual controls via the buttons on the left-hand side of the lens barrel: <\/p>\n If you need a stellar macro lens for your Canon camera, and would also like it to double up as an effective portrait lens, then this is it!\u00a0 Optical performance is truly great, and the lens handles well and offers stabilization.\u00a0 This is as good as it gets.<\/p>\n If you are interested,\u00a0you can buy the Canon 100 mm f\/2.8 IS macro lens<\/a>\u00a0via these affiliate links:\u00a0(B&H<\/a>\u00a0\/\u00a0Amazon<\/a><\/em>)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Other Canon photo gear<\/a>\u00a0that\u00a0I\u2019ve reviewed.<\/p>\n review: Canon EF 100mm f\/2.8L Macro IS lens The specialty of a macro lens is in allowing you much much closer to your subject than a normal optic would .. with the ease of continuous focusing from infinity to the closest distance.\u00a0 No need to screw in additional rings or lenses or reverse your lens.\u00a0 Read more inside…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30363,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,13,700,16],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1739","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canon","8":"category-equipment-review","9":"category-equipment-reviews-canon","10":"category-gear","11":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1739"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1739"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40537,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1739\/revisions\/40537"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1739"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=1739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/review\/canon-100mm\/IMG_2301-edit-900.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/review\/canon-100mm\/lens_1354.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nSpecifications<\/h2>\n
\nFilter size: 67mm\u00a0\u00a0 (the older lens has a filter size of 58mm)
\nWeight:\u00a0 1.38 lbs \/ 625g\u00a0 (ever so slightly heavier than the previous lens)
\nLength:\u00a0 4.8″ \/ 123mm\u00a0\u00a0 (a fraction longer than the previous lens)<\/p>\nOptical performance<\/h2>\n
\nThe edge-to-edge sharpness is superb, as you’d expect from a macro lens.<\/p>\nAuto-focus performance<\/h2>\n
Controls<\/h2>\n
\n– focusing ranges,
\n– auto focus\u00a0\/ manual focus
\n– stabilization on \/ off<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/review\/canon-100mm\/lens_1363.jpg\")
<\/p>\nSummary<\/h2>\n
Reviews of other Canon\u00a0gear<\/h2>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"