Originally Posted by HDNitehawk
All of these shots were hand held. Most of the time I was chasing the bees around, something that would probably be difficult to do with a tripod. I'm very impressed with the hybrid-IS on the 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS. I've been able to get a lot of shots that I otherwise would have been difficult to near impossible with a normal macro lens. If Canon ever makes a 200mm (or something close to) macro lens with hybrid-IS I will probably immediately buy it. It wouldn't even need to be that fast - f/4 would be fine.
Originally Posted by neuroanatomist
While this is definitely true, at what point does the diffraction actually degrade the image sharpness more than other factors such as hand holding the camera (even with IS)? The advantages of a greater DoF might outweigh a slight loss in sharpness. Shots I took of the bees at f/8 seemed to often lack enough DoF to get a sufficient portion of the bee in focus. I actually did open up the aperture after the butterfly appeared, but I never got a shot of similar quality at a lower aperture, it just didn't want to stay in one spot long enough.
On that note, for the first shot, is there enough DoF? I know this is sort of a subjective question, but would the shot have been more pleasing if the petals on the back of the bud or the stem would have been more in focus?
Originally Posted by neuroanatomist
I always do this as well. It's hit or miss, but it's certainly better than having the camera in one-shot.