I was very pleased this year when my wife Sara bought me a Canon 50mm f/2.5 EF Macro Lens for my birthday. I’d been thinking of buying a macro lens for a while so I could get extremely close detail shots of newborns and babies but hadn’t really done that much research. Imagine my surprise (and envy) when Sara then told me she had been speaking with one of my favourite newborn photographers, Carrie Sandoval, on the phone about lenses and newborn macro photography!! Hmmf.
Carrie was very helpful apparently and recommended the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM. Sara spoke with quite a few other photographers and in the end the general consensus was that I should see how I get on with the 50mm first and if I enjoyed macro photography I should upgrade to the 100mm. Sound advice I thought.
So far I’ve found the 50mm f/2.5 produces some excellent images and my copy is incredibly sharp from about f/3.5. The bokeh is also very smooth, it would probably make a pretty good portrait lens as well but I’m not sure it would replace my 50mm f/1.4. The only downside so far is the relatively slow focus and the noisy AF drive. So far I’ve found manual focus is easier for macro work anyway so its not that big a deal.
Overall I’m very impressed with the lens and think I might enjoy macro photography. I’ll probably end up upgrading to the 100mm at some point but so far the 50mm is giving me the images I want – thanks Sara….and Carrie!
by Alan
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