Canon EF 180mm f3.5L Macro USM Review
Several months ago I started to research the purchase of some new photo equipment. One of the items that was high on my purchase list was the Canon EF 180mm Macro lens. About a week ago I received my new lens.
A friend and reader of my website asked that I perform a review of this lens paying particular attention to how close you can get to your subject with the lens. This is certainly not a highly technical review that you typically see on the other review websites. This is just my quick and dirty test of this lens.
The Canon EF 180mm f3.5L Macro has the following specs:
- Maximum Aperture Range: F/3.5
- Minimum focal length: 180 millimeters
- Minimum Focal Range: 18.9 inches
- Real Angle Of View: 13.5
- Weight: 2.4 pounds
- Length: 7 inches
So I decided to setup a test subject and see how close I can actually photograph it and how it performed. Here is a photo with the very simple setup. I placed the subject, a 1oz. gold coin, on my kitchen counter and used a metal ruler to determine the optimal distance from the lens.
Simple Testing Setup
The specifications provided from Canon rate a minimum focal distance of 18.9 inches from the film or sensor. I wanted to find out the actual closest distance from the end of the lens.
I started taking photos with the subject at 9 inches from the lens and found that it was far too close at f3.5. So I moved the subject back a quarter of an inch to 9.25 inches. At this distance an image starts to emerge.
f3.5 at a distance of 9.25 inches
I then took successive shots moving the coin an additional quarter of an inch.
f3.5 at a distance of 9.5 inches
The best result at the f3.5 aperture was at a distance of 9 and 3/4 inches.
f3.5 at a distance of 9.75 inches
I took some additional shots at various apertures and it seemed to perform best at f8 with the available overhead kitchen lights.
f8 at a distance of 9.75 inches
I then started to explore at the lens maximum of f32 to get the greatest depth of field available. I started at 9.75 inches and worked my way closer.
f32 at a distance of 9.75 inches
The distance of 9.75 still seem optimal for all exposures, but the smaller aperture allowed you to still obtain some image sharpness as you got closer.
f32 at a distance of 9.5 inches
The sharpness starts to fall off at this distance.
f32 at a distance of 9.25 inches
This final image has now lost all sharpness.
f32 at a distance of 9 inches
All of these photos were taken with my new Canon 5D at iso-100. Here is an 100% sized image from the f8 photo taken at 9.75 inches.
f8 at a distance of 9.75 inches scaled 100%
Here are links to other reviews on this lens.
Philip Greenspun at Photo.net
Fred Miranda