November 22nd, 2011:
So remember a couple months back when the shutter on one of my cameras went out during a shoot? Well, after that I started researching how much it would cost to fix and I realized I qualified to join Canon Professional Services as a Platinum Member, which would offer me 60% off Canon repairs, free loan equipment while gear is being fixed and free Fedex for repairs, and half a dozen free camera cleanings (worth $30 each). The $500 membership fee seemed pretty steep at first, but I instantly saved about $380 on the replacement shutter to my broken camera and having my 35mm f/1.4 completely overhauled back to factory condition. Then a week after I signed up, I received a welcome kit in the mail which included 2 “Pro Straps” (which were branded CPS in big letters all over and go against my love of simple black straps), a CPS embroidered Thinktank laptop bag, a hardcover book about Canon lenses, and a few sets of Body/Lens Caps. All this stuff had a 99% chance of never being used and quickly went up on Ebay to sell for $187. So between the repair cost savings and selling the welcome kit I was able to cover the cost of my CPS membership.
Now that I have deferred the costs, I was able to get to the one benefit that I was most excited about: with my Platinum Membership, I can get free “Evaluation Equipment”. Meaning, Canon will ship me ANY of their lenses to test for a period of two weeks and all I have to do is pay return shipping. This is a killer deal seeing how lens rental costs between $20-$200 A DAY if I want to rent it from a local rental house. So in honor of being able to try all the Canon equipment I have lusted over for the last decade I decided to do blog post reviews and them as I try the new lenses. I know many of you out there won’t care about these posts, but a few of you will, so here goes.
f/14 ISO 400 1/1000 sec
The first lens I requested (the day after I signed up for CPS) was the Canon 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS (Macro means it can take pictures or really small things and ‘IS’ means it has Image Stabilization). Felicia and I have been talking about adding this lens to our kit for a while, and since we had two weddings and an engagement shoot coming up, this was the perfect time to try it out. This lens would have one main purpose for us – to take pictures of wedding rings super close up. Sure, it can be used as a regular 100mm lens too, and might see a little use that way, but the only reason I would be spending the $1000 is to get great ring shots, so that’s how I tested it. If you are interested in MTF charts, pixel peeping, light falloff, and scientific analysis of this lens, there are plenty of other sites for you to check out. This is more about actual usability to a working wedding photographer.
The first thing I found when shooting test shots at home was that a f/2.8 the depth of field was so insanely thin that almost nothing was in focus – I could capture a single diamond or just the edge of a wedding band and everything else fell off into a beautiful blur (image below). It was f/5.6 before enough of the rings were in focus to make me happy, which essentially limited our indoor shooting of rings without a tripod, flash, or super high ISO. I’m not saying that this lens doesn’t work at f/2.8 (just not for me) and I am only remarking that in a fast paced wedding day, setting up a tripod to get a ring shot is not an option, so I am limited to shooting rings outdoors at f/5.6 or greater or using flashes indoors to get the shots I want (like I said, perhaps the f/2.8 look would work for other photographers, or even for me in some other context).
This didn’t deter me from this lens though. We are usually next to a window or can take the rings outside if necessary, but it did get me thinking about lighting for such small objects. I started toying with 2 flashes attached to 2 Pocket Wizards Flex TT5s, bare bulb just out of frame of the rings at a ultra low power setting (1/64). Having the flashes so close to the subject let me create a fairly soft light from two directions. I quickly fell in love with this setup because I was able to create studio looking images quite quickly and it let me stay in the f/11 – f/22 range that I found still let the far side of the image fall gently out of focus. It also worked perfectly on a wedding day because I could just whip the flashes out of my bag, already attached to the Pocket Wizards and have this “studio” set up in 20 seconds. I quickly realized that this is how I would be using a macro most of the time.
f/2.8 ISO 800 1/50 sec
Depth of field is beautifully thin, but a tad too thin for me at f/2.8
f/5.6 ISO 400 1/60 sec
F/5.6 outdoors can capture rings sharply and still have them pop from their surroundings. At the same f-stop indoors I could probably have made this shot work if I was next to a window, propped myself against something and cranked up the ISO a little, but the success % of crisp shots would have been lower.
f/32 ISO 200 1/250 sec
f/32 puts everything in focus. It was just a little too crisp for my liking. Although the sushi does make me hungry.
f/4.5 ISO 1250 1/125 sec
If I backed up a little bit and shot items that were bigger than rings (like the cork/bowtie combo), the wider f-stops worked remarkably well and fit in easily with the rest of my wedding work, but I wonder if I could have captured this as crisply without the image stabilization.
f/20 ISO 160 1/200 sec
All in all, this is exactly what I dreamed a macro should be, and Canon did right to let me try it because now Felicia and I want it. Although, since I fell in love with using my flashes on the rings it left me wondering if the image stabilization was really necessary, because if I can control the amount of light, I can always shoot around 1/200th. Canon also offers a 100mm f/2.8 Macro without the stabilization for about 50% less which also weighs less (taking less of an impact on my shoulder as I lug it in my camera bag all day) and the reviews of its image quality are stellar. Before I run out and drop the $1K I shall have to test that version of the macro as well to see how it fares.
Thanks for reading, and if you’re looking to buy this lens, check out B&H, they normally have the best prices and always have the best service.
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