Canon EF 100mm/2.8 Macro
Just recently I got myself a new lens to play with. I have always been fascinated by macro photography. Word of mouth said the Canon 100/2.8 is a good lens to start with. Nice for portraits and gives a 1:1 scale for macro shots. I am quite happy with the pictures but a little disappointed with the autofocus. In macro mode it feels really slow and often seems to fail even when there are high contrasts. Another thing that I did not anticipate is the small depth of field. With an object distance of 30cm you end up with a DOF of 6mm at an aperture of 2.8. (I found a nice calculator!) As a result you often might want a smaller aperture - which either requires a lot more light or a longer exposure time. So it seems like tripods are king for macro shots. Still a good lens. I hope to get a bit more into macro shots. It’s a whole different world in the small.
Yeah, depth of field is expected to be shallow–on the other hand, it’s also said to have a nice quality to its bokeh, which is one of the reason for its fame as a portrait lens.
If you have a lot of money burning a hole in your wallet :-) you could get a ring flash or even a Macro Twin (http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&fcategoryid=141&modelid=7282), that should also help in freezing any movement.
Well, there is a cheap version of a ring flash. It does not look very professional - but before I run around with a hole in my wallet… ;-) Maybe worth just the fun of playing with it.