Which Macro lens for Canon ?

[MeadsMan]

I think I have narrowed it down to three.The Canon 100mm Macro with i.s,the Sigma 150mm macro with i.s,or the sigma 150 mm without i.s. I would like to stay with a Canon Lens,but I am put off a bit,that it wont take my 1.4 converter,the sigma all ready has the edge considering focal length.My Subjects would range from Small reptiles to fly sized insects,I am concerned the working distance of the Canon wont be enough,and that it wont give enough magnification on small insects,I am not keen on cropping my images too much.I have heard the Canon is an amazingly sharp lens,and that it does not suffer any slow focus issues,it is rumoured that the sigma does on the older version at least.I know a lot of people use the Sigma 150 mm on here.May I ask why you chose it over the Canon Macro lens,and if you went for the Canon,do you think it will do all I want it to,I dont really want to be messing with extension tubes at this time.

Many thanks.

[matt_xyz]

The Canon 100 and the Sigma 150 have the same magnification, both are capable of 1x magnification so there's no difference in that sense. I went for the Sigma because of its longer working distance and longer focal length which will tend to produce slightly cleaner backgrounds. When I bought mine it was also significantly cheaper than the Canon. Basically you can't go wrong with the Sigma, it is a fantastic lens. If anything happened to mine I would buy another one without a moment's hesitation.

Matt

[pressld2]

I'm a Nikon user so for me the choice was between the Nikon 105 or the Sigma 150. I too went for the Sigma for the same reasons as Matt and agree entirely with him that it's a wonderful lens.

Dave P.

[squishy]

I've heard the canon is slightly sharper wide open, but once you stop down past f/4 there is no noticeable difference between the two lenses. This might be of some importance if you plan to use it for portraits in low light, but for macro I never open wider than f/6.3 ish even when I'm trying to blur backgrounds, because the DoF is too small. So I'd just assume you'd get the same IQ from both lenses.

[glsammy]

I'm another Sigma 150mm user and like Matt, if anything happened to mine I'd replace it with the same model without hesitation. It works very well with my Kenko Pro 300 1.4X TC. If you look at my Gallery, just about all of my Sigma close up shots were taken using the 1.4X.

[Words]

I've not used the Sigma 150 but recently replaced my Sigma 105 with the Canon 100L i.s. Image quality is excellent, and the i.s. is superb, and the lens is light to carry around. It's one of my most used lenses, but that's possibly because I also use it at night to photograph foxes and anything longer than 100mm would be simply too long.

[MeadsMan]

Thank you to all who took time out to reply,I appreciate it.Can anyone tell me roughly in centimetres how much further the working distance is from the 150mm ?

[Geoff F]

I would say that 100 mm is ideal for flowers, etc, but if you want to photograph insects I would recommend 150 mm; whatever the brand.

Currently, I use the Sigma 180 mm and often find the extra working distance very useful. But that is an expensive heavy tripod only lens; and I think that Sigma may have stopped producing it. The Canon alternative is very expensive.

Whether IS would prove useful will probably depend on exactly how you use the lens. For tripod use it definitely isn't needed. But would you also use it as a general purpose medium length lens?

[squishy]

At 1:1 the distance is 146mm for the 100mm and 194mm for the 150mm. So nearly 5cm at the closest focus. This seems like less than you'd expect, mostly because the sigma loses more focal length at 1:1 than the canon.

But the difference gets larger at lower ratios.

[david156]

Did read somewhere that the new sigma 150mm with OS will be released in Feb next year with one firm advertising it at £715.

Sorry can't remember the firm as the computer I had the info on has died!!!

David