
This loose component rattled away until I turned the lens back into the correct position and locked it onto the camera again. which it does when the lens is powered down normally. What has happened was that the lens was powered off the moment to contacts moved out of connection with one another - and the stabilizer insider (which spins) was not stowed correctly. It kind of rattled until I plugged it back into the camera and shut it down the right way by turning the camera off. The moment the electronic contacts on the camera body and lens separated, my 100mmL lens produced what I would accurately describe as a "clunking" sound. I didn't realize my camera was still switched on at the time. I think I know why someone may have referred to it as "clunky": I once managed to release the lens mounting-lock button by partially turning the lens in the mounting ring whilst walking with it. You might hear it in a quiet room if you are the person holding the camera but it's quiet. The lens is NOT clunky and the Image Stabilizer is not noisy. The most recent version was introduced in 2009. The price has also come down in recent years. It's superbly built and benefits from both the weather-sealing (which is NOT on the non-L version) and the effective Image Stabilization. The EF 100mm f/2.8L IS USM Macro lens is really worth obtaining. Not much noisier than the af of a USM lens (but different). Like others have said, there is a quiet whirring noise. It's one of the fastest, sharpest primes I've used, and I'll likely keep it as long as I used Canon DSLRs. But, as I used it more for portraits, I wanted IS, so I picked up the L version. I owned the non-L version for quite some time. I've never read those reports, and my experiences with it certainly do not match.
#Canon macro 100mm 2.8 l series
I don't have any recent experience with any other EF series Macro lenses, so I can't comment other than to say this is one of my favorite lenses and I highly recommend it. But then again, I'm not about to shake the you-know-what out of it.

With the lens attached to my camera body, I don't hear any rattling. My other zooms have louder IS sounds than this lens. You can hear a slight whirring sound when the Image Stabilizer is working, but it is very low level. I recently obtained this lens and it is easily the sharpest lens in my collection. What are people's experience with the 100L macro? Is is noisy / clunky? How does it compare to more modern lenses that are released today? Are there better options for macro now? Or is the 100L macro still considered a top choice?

I owned a sigma 17-50 for a brief period and that lens was quite clunky, I found it quite annoying. However not articles about this lens are a bit dated now. However, recently I've been reading user reports about noisy IS, and that the lens makes a rattling sound.Īlmost all reviews I've read are positive and don't seem to mention this though. I'm looking for a macro lens and am almost ready to pull the trigger on the 100 L IS.
