Hurray for the Canon 60mm EF-S Macro

pyanez

Five reason to love this great lens:

I often get requests for macro lens recommendations -- here's 5 reason why I chose to buy and use this great lens. All photos take with one of two EF-S 60mm lenses, many more can be found in:

My PBase Macro Galleries

1. It's sharp, very sharp (this is true for almost all macros, but it still should be said):



or see the 100% crop insert (lower right) showing a tiny mite on a daddy-longlegs' leg:



2. You can use the onboard flash even at 1:1 WITHOUT casting a shadow on your subject - not many macro lenses can be used this way. Macro specialists seem to frown on shooting this way, but there's many a photo I would have never taken if I had to be carrying lots of extra gear and weight -- the surest way to screw up a photo is to never take it.

I think the built in flash can do very well used in conjunction with this lens-- you be the judge.



3. Some prefer longer (heavier and bigger) macro lenses, but I find this to be a very nice length on my 1.6X body. An added benefit is that on a crop body this makes for a very nice portrait lens without having to be 20 yards from your subject:



4. The lens is very sharp even wide open (obviously within the very shallow depth of field) and has great bokeh. This is not true of many macro lenses:



5. Focus is quick, quiet, internal and can be manually over-ridden, all which allows you to get in close to some subjects that would be spooked by other lenses "buzzy" sounding focus systems or extending front elements:



The list could easily be longer, but 5 is a nice number.

Cheers

Lord Vetinari

Lovely series of shots, well illustrating your points
Think the main point is that any macro lens in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing will give excellent results It's one of the few lens types that all major manufacturers get right optically.
But agree it's one of the few thay you can use the onboard flash with at 1:1

Brian V.

pyanez

Lord,

Actually, I think my posts shows that with this lens someone barely competent can get some decent results.

If you want photos from someone with a GOOD eye, here are a couple from my 11 year old daughter on her 1st (literally!!) DSLR photography attempt:





That is actually one of the points I should have made in the main post: this lens is also much more forgiving than longer macro lenses, especially for beginers.

Awais Yaqub

Fantastic work

dmurray407

I agree-this lens is wonderful. I wanted to get a little closer, though, so I purchased the Canon 100mm macro and it's not nearly as forgiving, and, as pointed out, you have to be a really long way from your subject to use it as a portrait lens! I had it (the 100mm) on my camera taking some butterfly photos this weekend and wanted to take a few photos of the fall colors while I was outside and really had to work the get everything I wanted in the frame.

pyanez

Dmurray--

I think I understand what you are saying, but I thought I would clarify --

You can't "get closer" with the 100mm when shooting macros, they both are 1:1 macro lenses, and will allow exactly the same amount of magnification of your subject as the other lens.

On the other hand at 10 yards the 100mm WILL get you "closer" to say a persons face than the 60mm would from the same spot.

This is an important difference.