Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM Lens

I purchased my 100 f 2.8 macro in the mid 90’s. Actually I have all three macro lenses, the 50 and the 180 in addition to the 100.

I've had this lens for 10? years now. It's been a long time. I've dropped it face-first and it took no damage to the elements. It's very well-built. This takes razor-sharp images and has fantastic image quality at any distance. For macro, it's awesome. I use a hand-held flash with a softbox on it and manual focus for most of my macro endeavors. Macro is a specialist's technique on it's own so if you have problems it's %99.99 likely it's you and not the lens. Great lens! Worth every penny.

I've had this lens for many years now being used on my 60D THE PROS: The image quality is spectacular. Everything is very crisp above f/3.5. f/2.8 is nice but the DOF is way too shallow and the parts that are in focus are not as crisp. The autofocus is quiet but very slow and goes unused for the most part because the DOF in macro photography is often too shallow to use. THE CONS: For being a f/2.8, it's not a fast lens, meaning it's not good in low light conditions. I almost never use it even close to sunset unless I have my lens mounted ring light or a flash. It is heavy as well. Long term use of this lens becomes very uncomfortable on my neck. It is tough to use this lens for portraits. It being a 100mm fixed lens, you have to stand unusually far away from your subject. In retrospect, I wish I spent the money on a shorter, lighter macro lens that has better low light performance and is better with portraits

I use this lens for high school sports and macro and I'm very pleased with its results great boke and super sharp.

The short take: I have gotten outstanding macro photographs of subjects like insects and plants using this lens. Here are tips on what has worked for me: For macro work, I ALWAYS set the lens to manual focus, because the autofocus mechanism just cannot "find" extremely small subjects. As other reviewers have noted, you will need a tripod for macro work. For extreme close-ups or for telephoto work--at least in my opinion--megapixels matter. I traded in my Canon XSi 12 mp camera body for an 18 mp T2i. The increased megapixels allow me to crop macro images without loss of detail. I love the results! I ALWAYS use the optical viewfinder for composing shots. The only time I use the LCD is to check the exposure and the sharpness on images I have already taken. Perhaps other users are more adept, but I find that I can determine neither accuracy of focus nor depth of field using the LCD alone. Because of this focus problem, I initially hated my Canon outfit (after first making the transition from film to digital). But then I purchased a third-party focusing screen equipped with split-image rangefinder and microprism collar--just like my old film camera used to have. Now, using the optical viewfinder, I get nice, crisp results. I love it! The outfit (T2i + macro lens) is a little heavy. The lens weighs 20.5 oz. When I am out in the field, I use a harness instead of a neckstrap, to eliminate the stress to my neck. I have been using my EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro for three years now, and I strongly recommend it. I also find that Canon hardware and software is pretty intuitive, and that it lets me do what I want to do.

I've owned this lens for about three months now and it quickly became one of my favorite lenses. Shooting in macro has always been one of my favorite styles but I always had to make due with my standard zoom. This lens makes it so easy to create a perfect shot. When shooting in macro, I found it easier to use the manual focus because with such a narrow depth of field, many times it did not find the point I wanted it to focus on. However, It works great if youre shooting portraits. It being a f 2.8, it's shoots well in low light conditions and the motor is nice and quiet. Overall. I'm very pleased

I've always loved macro photography but didn't really have any dedicated macro lenses. I used telephoto lenses with extension tubes for the most part. My wife recently bought me an EF F/2.8 100mm Macro lens and what a difference. Like others have said, it is razor sharp; however, taking macro photos really does require a tripod and all your camera body has (such as mirror lockup and remote shutter release). When you do these, the 100mm macro delivers! You might also want to consider a ring light as your normal flash is useless. When taking macro shots, auto focus does hunt or doesn't work at all which isn't surprising IF you're taking handheld shots. If you're using a tripod then all works well unless the subject is in motion. When that happens I simply switch to manual focus and all is well with the world. The 100mm macro is my sharpest lens with greatest sharpness throughout the frame occurring at F/8. Does it matter that it doesn't have image stabilization? No. All manufacturers recommend turning IS off if you're using a tripod as the IS can, itself, add vibrations. Thus, that's paying for a feature in macro photography that won't be used much. Tests also show that while you might get 3-4 stops IS when not doing macro photography, you'll likely only get 1, maybe 2, stops off tripod for macro work. So is it really worth it? Not in my opinion.

I use the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro on a 7D body, making its effective focal length 160mm. Not only does this lens take wonderful macro shots, it's a fantastic performer anywhere its focal length suits you, with action shots as its only exception. Macro lenses just aren't fast-focusing, so you can't really fault its tendency to hunt. But once it finds its focus point, it's highly accurate and tack-sharp. I'm pretty sure this is the sharpest lens I've ever used. At the same time, that makes sense to me; when some of the things you can focus on are just a few hundred molecules wide, it HAS to be sharp to resolve them properly. If you're shooting macros handheld with this lens, use a single focus point on the 'AI' focus setting for best results, but the magic happens on a tripod with manual focus at f/32. (Don't forget to Enable Mirror Lockup to eliminate the vibration of the mirror slap.) The 100mm Macro has beautiful color and contrast, along with an almost complete absence of chromatic aberration and very little distortion: it's one impressive piece of glass, worthy of a red strip to be sure. Wide open, the 100mm Macro has a beautiful background blur, and a flawless, super-smooth bokeh. It's comparable to the 50mm f/1.2L in my opinion, pure butter. Grab this lens while there are still copies to be had. It's been replaced by the EF 100mm f/2.8L IS (haven't used that one yet, but I'd bet it's impressive!) The thing is, you can get this lens for a fraction of the cost of the L ...you'd be hard-pressed to find a better value...a MUST have Canon lens.

I use the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro on a 7D body, making its effective focal length 160mm. Not only does this lens take wonderful macro shots, it's a fantastic performer anywhere its focal length suits you, with action shots as its only exception. Macro lenses just aren't fast-focusing, so you can't really fault its tendency to hunt. But once it finds its focus point, it's highly accurate and tack-sharp. I'm pretty sure this is the sharpest lens I've ever used. At the same time, that makes sense to me; when some of the things you can focus on are just a few hundred molecules wide, it HAS to be sharp to resolve them properly. If you're shooting macros handheld with this lens, use a single focus point on the 'AI' focus setting for best results, but the magic happens on a tripod with manual focus at f/32. (Don't forget to Enable Mirror Lockup to eliminate the vibration of the mirror slap.) The 100mm Macro has beautiful color and contrast, along with an almost complete absence of chromatic aberration and very little distortion: it's one impressive piece of glass, worthy of a red strip to be sure. Wide open, the 100mm Macro has a beautiful background blur, and a flawless, super-smooth bokeh. It's comparable to the 50mm f/1.2L in my opinion, pure butter. Grab this lens while there's still copies to be had. It's been replaced by the EF 100mm f/2.8L IS (haven't used that one yet, but I'd bet it's impressive!) The thing is, you can get this lens for a fraction of the cost of the L: if you evaluate it fully, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better value...a MUST have Canon lens.

This now my favorite lens. Everything about it is great, especially sharpness, warmth and bokeh. One of superb lens for Macro and Portraits.

I bought this lens back in 2005 to photograph rare coins and after more than six years and thousands of photos I am still in awe of it. Surgical sharpness and fantastic manual focus, it still works perfectly and is a joy to use. Depth of field is limited but this is not an issue with coins. Build quality is as good as my 17mm-40mm L-Series Super Wide, amazing considering the price. HIGHLY recommended!

This now my favorite lens. Everything about it is great, especially sharpness, warmth. and bokeh.

Good built quality, feels and is very solid, but kind of heavy too though. I know it is made for macros but the portraits look great with this one, when shooting macros at very small distance, it is hard to focus properly because of the small depth of field, you sure need more skills than you expect in order to get sharp focused images.

This lens is very sharp! Whether you are shooting a macro or portrait, the result is what you are expecting from Canon! the built quality is solid. Although now Canon released a L version of this lens which has IS but if you shoot your object with tripod (which you should if you really want the best macro) then IS isn't important to you. the only L is the weather proofing. If you use this lens indoor or it doesn't expose to any water or rain then you should be fine. The quality between the L and non L are pretty similar. Only if you blow up the pics and the L will show a bit more detail. it won't matter to many of us. for a price like this with the quality, you just can't beat it!

.extremely sharp focus and clarity. .great for macro and portraits. .auto focus isn't very useful in macro unless the subject is flat(will keep switching focus between the bug or the leaf), you have to switch to manual or select focus to make the lens focus where you want. .makes bokeh like a champ at pretty much any aperture below 16 as long as the subject and lights are far enough apart.(easy since it's a macro) .very smooth manual focus. overall this lens's versatility is impressive for being fixed, and is on my camera more than any other lens i own.

This is a beautiful lens. Quick quiet auto focus. Sharp images. If you're into macro photography you'd do well to consider this lens.

This lens is very sharp and one of the sharpest lens I own. I tried to use it for portraits one time but it shows every detail of people's skin, so I switched to 50mm prime (which is another sharp lens) instead. One thing is that I don't like is that you have to stay one foot away from the object to focus when you use as a macro. I can tell this is not L lens because auto focus makes some noise inside. DOF of f2.8 is very shallow. After all this is a macro lens.

The Canon gods have listened! Got my new lens this week: SURPRISE: included was a ET-67 lens hood and a LP1219 lens case! This lens is superb - best Canon MACRO lens (non IS) available. Tack sharp, highly detailed images. Used AF first, then MF. Easy to use, with or without lens hood, AF or MF. Very pleased with this prime lens. Thank you Canon! (Used with a new EOS 60D).

MY ONLY QUALM IS THE DEPTH OF FIELD, AND TRYING TO BALANCE DEPTH AND AVAILABLE\E LIGHT WHILE TRYING TO KEEP THE SHUTTER SPEED DOWN SO I DONT HAVE TO PUT IT ON A TRIPOD. THE FOCUS IS INCREDIBLY SHARP, MY FAVORITE FEATURE. I WISH THE IS WAS AVAILABLE WHEN I BOUGHT THIS ONE. MY OVERALL IMPRESSION IS I LIKE THIS LENS BUT THIS IS NOT A LENS FOR BEGINNERS.

This was the first lens I got for my Rebel XT and I love it! I love the effect I can get with shallow depth of field with this lens. I've used it for jewelry, weddings, portraits, and many other types of photos. I love it as a portrait lens! My only qualm is that its auto focus is slow, especially in lower light situations.