New Lens

[Salty dog]

I broke my lens at Indy so I've been photo deprived. New lens arrived today. EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM.

I know there are some great photgraphers here. Some experienced hints on it's use would be appreciated.

I practiced on the Diva.

 

[JohnnyChance]

That looks like it will get the job done.

 

[l r harner]

nice pic i love my 30mm2.8 macro and since i can get to 2 cm from the front of the glass i can get good and close for some tight work

i am now lusting over a 16-80CZ 3.5-4.5 tho am not sure if it will be due for an upgrade with sonys new SLT cams on the way

 

[dmccurtis]

I don't know how much experience you have with macro lenses, but depth of field will be extremely thin at close distances. It can be tempting to shoot handheld and wide open, especially with the stabilization on that lens, but your best image quality will come on a tripod, stopped down, with stabilization turned off. Try shooting around f/8 or so. You should still be able to isolate the subject from its background, but you will get more than a thin slice in focus. Use your DOF preview frequently. The tripod is important, since your effective aperture will be smaller than indicated when shooting macro, so you'll be getting slow shutter speeds. Despite what Canon and others say, stabilization is not very effective in macro range. Lighting is very important too. Aim for diffuse lighting. Because you're so close, dust and small imperfections will be visible under hard, oblique light. Hope this helps.

 

[heldentenor]

Agree with everything dmccurtis says above. Sometimes hard directional light can be useful to isolate specific textures and increase contrast, but generally warmer, non-directional light with serve you best. Looking forward to the images to come!

 

[l r harner]

hahaha and get a a ringflash ok so if i had a 100mm macro i woudl want a ring too but so i coudl get all the light i could and shoot hand held

 

[dmccurtis]

Rings are nice for fill, but for key they have the same issues as any other harsh, directional light.

 

[l r harner]

i think the bestpart about a macro is that they make you look at everyday things differently( o ad most of them are primes and nice and sharp)

 

[mateo]

Yeah, macro lenses are fun This is a shot I took of my Yoshikane when it was new, this is highlighting what Helden said about using directional light to create an image focus and contrast.

Hmm... for some reason it's showing up rather pixel-y, sorry about that.

 

[Salty dog]

Thanks guys. I'm not one on reading directions and studying and stuff.

 

[l r harner]

thats less fun then jsut playing around till you see what happens when you mess witha few settings

 

[RobinW]

It's a wickedly good and sharp lens. I love mine!
You can also try using it for portraits, it does well there too.

 

[joec]

Here is a great site for anything Canon related. http://photography-on-the.net/forum/ I follow it when looking for some information on anything camera related. I have the Canon EF 60mm macro USM lens and love it.

 

[Justin0505]

True macro lenses are nice. I wasn't totally sure how much I'd use one so I got a macro extender ring to start off. I've really been surprised by how much I use it. The DOF really is very thin, even more so than with a true macro lens, but with my 50mm prime it actually works pretty well. -its on a crop sensor/ APS-C camera so I guess it actually equivalent to 80mm.

What body are you using the new lens on Salty?

 

[JBroida]

Here is a great site for anything Canon related. http://photography-on-the.net/forum/ I follow it when looking for some information on anything camera related. I have the Canon EF 60mm macro USM lens and love it.

+1 i use that lens all of the time... its awesome

 

[apicius9]

I somehow missed this thread, just posted in the 'dark room' one. Looks like you guys are using macro lenses a lot. I just mentioned over there that my 60mm Leica (old manual Elmarit) is so sharp that you see all the flaws, but maybe I should just make less flawed handles On the full format sensors, the DOF is even smaller than on my camera (micro 4/3 format), so I guess that's an additional challenge. But some of you guys really produce grat pics, I especially like what Jon and Sara usually show, great style. So much to play with....

Stefan