CANON EF 100mm f/2.8 MACRO USM £420/$600

Canon’s veteran 100mm lens is cheap at half the price – if you don’t require the assistance of stabilization

There’s a lot to be said for image stabilization but, for extreme close-ups, its effectiveness is limited. Even Canon’s four-stop hybrid system, developed for macro lenses, reduces to three stops at 0.5x magnification, and just two at full 1.0x magnification. Indeed, for full macro shots, stabilization is no substitute for using a tripod.

The lack of stabilization in this older Canon 100mm macro lens therefore isn’t a deal-breaker, especially as it’s only half the price of the stabilized L-series lens in the UK. There’s less of a saving in the States, but the non-stabilized edition lacks weather-seals and its ET-67 hood has an add-on cost of around £30/$35.

Ideal as a combined macro/ portrait lens, this has a nearidentical focal length on full-frame cameras as the EF-S 60mm on APS-C bodies. They look similar, although the 100mm is bigger and has extra features, including a UD (Ultra-low Dispersion) element and a long-range autofocus limiter switch, but that’s unfortunately of no use when shooting close-ups.

performance

Compared with the Canon EF-S lenses, this full-frame compatible lens delivers better sharpness, especially at narrow apertures. This is important because you’ll often want to shoot close-ups with narrow apertures, to gain even a little depth of field. Colour fringing is minimal, and barrel distortion is low, but not quite as negligible as in the Canon 60mm lens. Manual focusing is smooth and precise, while autofocus is fast and quiet.