New Canon 100mm f/2.8L macro lens?

[spt29970]

Hi all. I have the non L series 100mm macro on my classic 5D and have also been thinking of "upgrading" to the new 100mm macro lens. I would like to get a discussion going about the difference between the two and whether or not the upgrade it worth is. I played with the new lens at my local camera store and as far as I can tell the major differences/advantages for underwater work include:

* The new lens is stabilized. The older lens is not. Moreover the stabilization is both TILT and SHIFT. I have a Macromate wet diopter for 2:1 magnification and have found it quite challenging to hold my rig still enough to get good focus/framing. The tilt stabilization might really help (but then again maybe not).

* The old lens has a switch for near/far focusing ranges to help prevent hunting, but in order to get the closest focusing I have to set the widest range and I find that it hunts quite a lot. The new lens has a three position switch which has a closeup setting that EXCLUDES focusing at infinity. I expect that this will help a lot in preventing that "oh ****" moment when you are about to fire and the lens decides to hunt into the blue and takes forever to come back.

* The new lens seems to focus faster, but it is hard to quantify. It might just be wishful thinking on my part.

* I have been very happy with the sharpness of my current 100mm macro, but the new one is L glass. Hopefully that means it is even sharper. I haven't looked at the transfer function curves yet.

In any case I would love to hear if anyone has any first hand experience with the two lenses.

 

[M_Bipartitus]

I can't find the link at the moment, but I recall the review I read indicates that the lens is slightly sharper and slightly faster focus. I had also heard on wetpixel.com that the new lens fits in some old 100mm f2.8 ports, but you may not be able to fit some filters as the lens is slightly longer. If I had the money, I would buy one as the old model is about my second or third most used lens.

As an aside, I often will use one of the custom functions to change the exposure lock button to focus lock to prevent the situation you mention with run-a-way focus. As soon as I tap on the control focusing stops, so I can try again or I can hold it down and manually focus.

 

[spt29970]

I do the focus lock trick too when I am doing super macro. I don't have a manual focus ring so I typically lock focus and then adjust by moving the whole rig in and out. Even in this case it is nice to get close with af and then tweak from there.