Cannon 100mm F2.8 L Macro

Last week while I visited my brother I had the opportunity to play with this lens:

I had heard so many good reviews about the image clarity the brand new image stabilisation technology and the reliable L brand build quality that I had to give it a go.

Park cameras will be well known to you if you regularly research buying anything photography related within the UK - I am yet to read a photography magazine without at least a double page spread advert from them. The funny thing is that the best thing about them in my opinion is not their prices but the fact that the one store they have will let you try before you buy with anything in store to your hearts content.

so anyway my brother and I were playing with this lens and here are the things that stood out in order of severity:

1) The auto focus on this lens is insane - the bracketed focusing option speeds it up ten fold and it is near silent (not all USM lenses are e.g my 24-105). I found that with persistent focussing it was possible to continually track a moving object and keep it within focus - very impressed

2) The image quality is everything that its cracked up to be (more to see in a bit)

3) 100mm fixed focal is more flexible than expected - its fairly easy to take portraits as well as macro shots.

4) minimum focusing distance is short enough for 1:1 reproduction which means phenomenal macro shots are easily achievable.

5) The image stabiliser really does make a difference

6) F2.8 broadens the range of lighting situations you can shoot in dramatically - This is a bright lens!

Here are some test shots we took in store with my camera, completely unedited except reduction in size:

If you want a sense of scale this is a 77mm lens cap

Exif:     f/5 exposure time: 1/50 ISO: 1600 as you can see the stabiliser comes into its own at only 1/50 hand held complete clarity is achieved.

Exif: same as above, this is clearly overexposed because I did not change the settings on the camera so it doesn't give the clearest picture of image quality but it does give you an idea of what you can fit into frame - I was about 4 or 5 paces back from the subject - you would have to be a fair distance to get a whole person in but a head and shoulders is very easy to achieve.

Its easy to assume that because it has macro written on it that you cant take decent picture of anything unless its tiny - certainly not true this would/does make a superb portrait lens.

In combination the low f stop and the image stabilisation mean that you can take bright clear pictures in normally unworkable lighting.

This was and now is even more so, firmly on my wish list the only problem being that it costs just under that of my 24-105 L lens though that is relatively reasonable value for money given the results of this lens I would give it 92/100 the last 8 being lost to the the cost.