Canon has a huge library of lenses, but some are more well known than others. There are a few hidden gems hiding among the more popular options, however, and this great video review takes a long-term look at one of them, the EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM.
Coming to you from Dustin Abbott, this excellent video review takes a look at the EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM lens. I personally love this lens; you can read more about it in my overview of Canon's portrait lenses here, but it essentially boils down to the fact that it is a dependable, high quality workhorse at an excellent price. When it comes to portraits, it often gets overshadowed by other lenses with much wider apertures, and while those are certainly fun to shoot with, if you just need great performance and sharp images and do not want to shell out for much pricier lenses, you really can't do much better (and it's sharper than a lot of those more expensive options). It also comes with a fantastic autofocus system and some of the best image stabilization available in any Canon lens. Oh, and it shoots macro images too. Check out the video above for Abbott's full thoughts.
This was the first L lens I ever bought after a friend let me borrow it along with a 5dmkii. It's been a wonderful portrait lens, considering the focal length and awesome sharpness. With the rise of DPAF it has been a sweet b-roll lens as well. I even use it for macro work every now and then!
One of sharpest Canon lenses, but also renders very nice colors. Nowadays I tend to move towards 35mm and less, but when I need something portrait alike, I really love this lens. I'm just unsure about IS stability, or I have somewhat faulty model, as with 1/400 shutter speed it seems to add blur and I have to turn it off, which was weird for me?
One of shot with it:
https://fstoppers.com/photo/277629
All the pictures in my portfolio, except the blue flower, are taken with this lens. Needless to say it's my favorite lens.
Have you tried shoting with times like 1/400 and smaller with IS? Any problems on that ?
this one for example, is shot at 1/100 with IS - Crop sensor camera, no problems at all: https://fstoppers.com/photo/392519
Wow. Not even all of the front antenna is fully in focus. The legs too for that matter as not all the hair on the legs are seen.
confined to home due to the coronavirus, I decided to recalibrate my lenses... the first time ever. It was a fun event with interesting results, but the most interesting of all was my beaten up Canon 135mm L f2.... the oldest of my lenses... no IS, no "mk II" or "III" no special coatings...... just "the beast". It's gone through hell. Of my 5 lenses, the ONLY one that required no recalibrating. The only one.
There's a bunch of these in a studio I work in, and they have a surprising amount of CA and, while not soft, they don't appear exceptionally sharp, just average. I was surprised about that actually.
That's really surprising! I've never noticed that with mine.
A really fantastic lens! I also remember it well. That and the 70-200 f/4 and tse 90 were my favorite Canon lenses.