Quote Originally Posted by HDNitehawk
Question? Were they hand held or off tripod?

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.


Quote Originally Posted by neuroanatomist
At narrow apertures, a loss of sharpness due to diffraction begins to show up. In theory, anything beyond the diffraction limited aperture (DLA) for your sensor will be affected. For the 7D, the DLA is f/6.8. Within a few stops ofthe DLA, it's not that noticeable - but once you get down to f/14 or so it becomes more evident.

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?


Quote Originally Posted by neuroanatomist
One other point for those using a 7D and a Canon macro lens for handheld shooting - if you set your autofocus mode to AI Servo AF, the 7D'sIntelligent Macro Tracking function will help counteract any back-and-forth movement you make while handholding the camera. That feature combined with the Hybrid IS in the 100mm L Macro IS lens means you're controlling for camera shake in all three dimensions.

I always do this as well. It's hit or miss, but it's certainly better than having the camera in one-shot.