A few notes I want to add.


By far the easiest way to shoot 1:1 with this lens is if you keep it in MF, and just move the camera back and forth. Using AF is cumbersome because between the time you get a lock and you press the shutter release, you might not be focused exactly where you thought you were. Even the IS doesn't completely overcome this. I kept the IS on, while mounting the camera on a tripod and using mirror lockup. I'm not sure if this had a detrimental effect on the image, but I suspect not.


The IS doesn't seem to make much difference when you are really, really close. I found that at normal shooting distances, the IS worked fairly well, but I still have to conduct more tests to determine whether or not it truly is an improvement over previous generations. I'm really not all that convinced of its performance, to be honest.