Canon EF-S 60mm F/2.8 Macro USM

21 07 2009

La fin-de-semaine dernière, je me suis acheté une superbe lentille pour faire de la macrophoto et, vu le prix relativement raisonnable, je crois bien que c’est le secret le mieux gardé dans les lentilles jusqu’à présent en ce qui me concerne.

J’ai toujours voulu touché un peu à la macrophotographie et je voulais m’acheter une bonne lentille tout en sachant que je ne pouvais me permettre financièrement une lentille de série L, la série de lentille professionnelle de Canon. Alors, l’an dernier j’ai loué chez Photo Service dans le Vieux Montréal la Canon EF 100mm F/2.8 Macro USM (ainsi qu’une lentille de rêve, la Canon EF 300mm F/2.8L IS USM…wow !) et nous avons été au Jardin Botanique pour en faire l’essai.

Je ne sais pas trop si c’était moi ou la lentille, mais cela n’a pas cliqué du tout entre moi et la 100mm Macro et je me suis dit que le temps venu, je ne pensais pas me tourner vers cette lentille pour un achat.

Pour m’aider à faire un choix, j’ai consulté les critiques d’usagers (ou les reviews en anglais) chez FredMiranda et après quelque temps, j’ai commencé à faire des recherches plus approfondies au sujet de la EF-S 60mm F/2.8 Macro, puisque les usagers l’avaient très bien cotée. Et j’ai finalement acheté la dite lentille le weekend dernier.

Voici le lien pour voir mes premiers balbutiements en macrophotographie. Je suis plus que satisfaite de cette lentille et elle est de loin la meilleure lentille que je possède à l’heure actuelle. Elle est hyper silencieuse et rapide comme l’éclair quand je suis en mode autofocus, entre autre. Elle rend les couleurs superbes et jusqu’à date je n’ai noté aucune aberration chromatique sur mes clichés.

J’en ai aussi profité pour m’acheter les filtres B+W 52mm polarisant circulaire multi-couche et le UV multi-couche pour équiper ma nouvelle lentille.

Alors, je n’hésiterais certainement pas à la recommender à n’importe qui qui veut faire de la macrophotographie.

canon_efs60_28macro_usm_586x225.png

Last weekend, I bought a lens, the Canon EF-S 60mm F/2.8 Macro USM and tried it out between rain downpours (really, what a crummy summer we’ve had so far this year… on July 15th, we beat our July average for rain accumulation).

I didn’t get many pictures in, but I put up a few in this new gallery. I will add more photos as I go along, we seem to be heading for a few sunny days this week, so who knows…

I also bought B+W 52mm Circular Polarizer (Multi Coated) and UV (Multi Coated) filters for this new lens.

Anyway, to help me choose which lens I was going to buy, I read the user reviews at FredMiranda. I had already rented the Canon EF 100mm F/2.8 Macro USM last year and the lens and I never hit it off (I’m not sure why exactly) so I was a bit reticent in choosing that lens even though the reviews were very good. So I went instead for the EF-S 60mm F/2.8 Macro because the magnification coefficient will be slightly higher once I get the money for extension tubes and the reviews were outstanding.

It is hyper fast and silent in autofocus mode. Colours come out looking great, not boosted at all, and to date, I haven’t noticed any chromatic aberration which really gets my goat in a photo. I would not hesitate to recommend this lens to anyone wanting to dabble in macrophotography.





Lusting for a Canon EOS 50D (continued)

16 06 2009

Ok so a follow-up on this post… I think I’ve determined which lens I’m going to get.

Right now I am strongly leaning towards buying the body-only version of the Canon 50D so I can get any lens I want to go with it: the two possible packages Canon offers when you go with a kit lens for the EOS 50D do not interest me.

I am thinking that maybe this summer or early fall I might get the Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM which, as you can see, gets wonderful reviews and yet has a very decent price tag. I have always been meaning to get into macrophotography and with this lens, I would get started nicely, I think.

I’d start using it with my old Digital Rebel XT to slowly get used to it. When I would get the EOS 50D a couple of months later, I’d only have the camera to get acquainted with.

Then somewhere down the road I would get extension tubes and depending on the results and usability of this kit, I might have to fork out more cash for a flash like the Canon Macro Ring Lite MR-14EX or the more expensive Canon Macro Twin Lite MT-24EX. Funny how the least expensive model has a better review too!

And if ever I get an iPhone

So can hardly wait to set these things in motion!

Edited June 19th 2009:

Well, I’ve been thinking. The EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro I’m definitely going to get but that doesn’t solve the problem of having a more Swiss army type lens for the EOS 50D…

So I was tempted in getting what Canon sells as the kit lens for the Digital Rebel line nowadays, the Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS but the reviews, while they say that this new version is better than the one I have (without the IS) on my Rebel XT, are almost unanimous in saying it’s pretty crummy glass. If I were to buy it at my camera store, it would come around to $249 CAN.

So I’ve been looking some more at the FredMiranda reviews and for not all that much more, I could get the Tamron AF 17-50mm F/2.8 XR Di II LD Aspherical [IF]. While still not an L series lens, it fairs much better in terms of user satisfaction. Photo Service sells it for $574 CAN.

So… This looks like I’ll get two lenses. The Tamron 17-50mm and the Canon 60mm Macro. :D

And the good thing is, I might get at least one of those two this summer.