Focus gear for Canon 100mm?

After shooting with Canon 60mm for a year, I think it's about time to jump up to 100mm for macro shots.

However, I'm not sure about focus gear for 100mm lens. Though I've heard AF speed of 100mm is very slow and manual focusing is more efficient, but I guess its AF won't be that bad in my 7D with focus light. I want to know what you guys think about it.

(The lens I'm going to buy is Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM.. )

Hi partner,

I use my 7D and 100mm without the focus gear 90% of the time. You won't have any problem shooting a lot of great images that way. Especially true if you use a good focus light. A few minutes of practise in the pool is worth it to help you find the new minimum focus distance for 1:1 with the 100mm. It will help you find out pretty quickly what the AF will do for you. For really close shooting I use Spot focus, activate the AF On button, then rack the camera in and out manually the get the plane of focus I want to achieve. Lots of fun!

Good luck,

Steve

Depending on which housing you're using, I'd recommend the xit 404 focus gear. I have this for the IS version of the lens you're picking up and it's really nice to focus from the zoom gear on the housing rather than reaching over to the port. My $0.02.