Canon 100 Macro vs Canon 100 L Macro IS

Since I had my Leica M9 (object of an up coming detailed post) I must admit that I have “stepped” away a bit from the SLR world. The feeling of shooting with Leica gears can only be understood when you actually shoot with Leica. It the sort of things that are hard to explain but very easy to understand once you are “confronted” to it.

But let’s get back to our topic of today’s post.
This is no scientific reviews and we are mainly focusing on the use of the Canon EF 100 Macro USM and the 100L Macro IS USM for HANDHELD video.

The camera used for this out of the box, literally, I just got home with this lens (Canon EF 100L Macro IS USM), is the Canon 5D Mark II in Av mode with an aperture set to f/3.2 and ISO set on AUTO. You will notice that he ISO will go up sometimes up to 3200.

The lighting is not what I’d call the most sexiest lighting because it is just a pain energy saver bulb with a disgusting colour temperature. The WB on the Canon 5D Mark II is set to AWB.

Shamelessly, the photos below of the gears are taken with an iPhone 4 under the same yucky lighting conditions.

With all the gears that I use, I can here some people yelling for scandal but with so much excitement, I didn’t want to waste time setting up a proper studio setting and to be honest, this is not about how the gear look like (you’ll find tons of them on the net) but how they perform in a “real” shooting situation, with mix and yucky lights.

 

 

 

At first, being a tech and new toys freak, I’d say that newer is better and when I saw the first images of the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, I suddenly felt that my Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM had some problems.

I have never been a big fan of the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM design, especially the top of the lens, but being the only 100 Canon macro lens at the time, it’s not like I had the choice and picked the “wrong” one.

So, I was willing to have the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM as a second macro lens and was trying to find a good reason to get it. I didn’t find any because I don’t use the macro lens that much, especially at this focal length.

Only recently, from a short chat on a social network that I found out that the new Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM had something that I didn’t know about (I said that I stepped away from SLR since the Leica M9 remember?) and that was the “Hybrid” IS on the new macro lens.

After a few searches online I had to find out by myself: I rang my local dealer and luckily he had a Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM in stock and that I could borrow.

This is one of the big benefit from buying local. You may pay for a bit extra but you are close to the people, real people, and you will have the service and support that you will not have when dealing with a website.

I’d like to thank Greg from Ted’s Camera in Canberra for this. You needs gears? Talk to Greg at Ted’s Camera Store in Canberra.

Now, obviously, I started playing around with the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM on the Canon 5D Mark II. I also use a Varazon viewfinder on the Canon 5D Mark II for focusing and for composition.

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I was a bit skeptical about the “Hybrid” IS and was pleasantly surprise to hear that the IS is automatically activated when you go live view with the camera. The IS noise is at very low level and changes following the steadiness of the camera. The IS noise gets louder, but very reasonable, when I tried to shake the camera a bit.

That being said, I would suspect that using the combination of the lens, the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, and live view would drain your battery a bit quicker and more importantly what would be the life expectancy of the IS inside the lens if you decide that this lens is your main lens for HD video? Remember that when shooting for photos (do we still shoot photos with cameras?) IS will be active during (auto)focusing and IS would remain active for a short time (less than a second) after capture, when the shutter release is fully pushed. Let me  know if you have any idea on this.

Look and feel, as mentioned, for me “newer is better” and the design of the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM is really more sexy than the non L version.

Manual focusing with this lens is more pleasant, for me, than with the non L version. Looking through the Varazon viewfinder, in live view mode, it was a wow at first view as the view is really steady.

I moved the camera from left to right and up and down and can clearly see that the IS is its job briliantly.

I shot a short clip with manual focus and a bit of panning to see if vertical movement are compensated. It is.

The focusing ring is a pleasure to use and the lens is very well balanced in hand.

As expected and with no surprise, when switching the lens with the Canon EF 100 f/2.8 Macro USM, at same settings, I saw almost the same thing in term of movement due to camera shake for the first few seconds. The view through the LCD screen in live view starts jiggling with my hand shake and my breathing.  The absence of IS in the early version is very perceptible at this focal length. Of course camera shake will amplify with the distance to subject.

The Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM would be undeniably a better lens for macro photography handheld with its 4 stop image stabilisation. In video mode, it will help you achieve better results hand-holding. I will be heading out tomorrow for more testing with photo and video samples.

In the mean time, no images from taken with these lenses yet, because I only want to check the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM in HANDHELD video.

Check out the video below. Could you say which video is using which lens?

The second video is shot exclusively with the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM with IS ON and OFF. I noticed during this short test that if you tilt the camera down, the IS noise is more perceptible than if the lens is held horizontally.

Tags: Canon, canon 100 f/2.8 Macro usm, canon 100 L macro IS USM, Canon 5D Mark II, dslr, ef, HD video, iphone 4, IS
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Tagged as: Canon, canon 100 f/2.8 Macro usm, canon 100 L macro IS USM, Canon 5D Mark II, dslr, ef, HD video, iphone 4, IS