Help with macro lens

[Yamar]

I am new to photography. I recently got a Macro lens and i was able to get some great pictures (great for me) I took pictures of small objects but i also took some pictures of a baseball game. All of the suddden I really cant take a good picture anymore. It seems it does not give me too much room for focusing.
When i shoot at distance I cant zoom. I sent to the factory repair and now they returned it but I dont see a change on the lens other that the motor is now working.

I am wondering if there is a setting on the camera that may be responsible for this or is it the lens still?

I appreciate your help I am really alone on this

[private]

what lens do you have?

[Yamar]

yes good question. sorry i missed that info. Canon ef100mm f/208 macro usm

[Stryker]

These lenses are fixed, i.e., you cant zoom in or out with them, so there is nothing wrong with the lens in that regard. What did you send it to the factory for? Does your camera support autofocus on these lenses? Mine - a Nikon D40 - doesn't and I have to use manual focus with the Tamron 90mm macro lens I have.

[crunch]

Originally Posted by Yamar

yes good question. sorry i missed that info. Canon ef100mm f/208 macro usm

This is a fixed focal length lens, so it can't zoom in or out.

With regards to the focus issue, look on the side of the lens. There are two little sliding switches.

• The 1st one is for Auto or Manual focus. If the lens won't autofocus at all then you've probably accidentally changed this from AF to MF.
• The 2nd is a focus distance limiter. The 1st setting allows the lens to focus from 0.31m to infinity (for macro work). The 2nd setting allows the lens to focus from 0.48m to infinity (for more general work). If you're not shooting macro, then set this switch to the second setting, else the autofocus will have a much larger range in which it tries to focus, which results in the lens struggling to focus, especially in poor light (like indoors basketball)

@Stryker: All Canon EF lenses have an autofocus motor in the lens itself, so any EF lens can autofocus on any EOS body. That's what EF stands for: Electronic Focus. AFAIK, there are only 4 manual focus Canon lenses in the current line-up: 3 tilt-shift (TS lenses) and a 1:1 - 5:1 macro (MP lens)

[Stryker]

Originally Posted by crunch

@Stryker: All Canon EF lenses have an autofocus motor in the lens itself, so any EF lens can autofocus on any EOS body.

Hmmm, didn't know that, thanks for the info. Being a Nikon user, I think I might be excused for that lack of knowledge. No wonder the Canon EF lenses are heavier, if the additional weight of the motor is taken into consideration. Not to say more expensive too...

[Yamar]

Thank you crunch.