Extension Tubes

IceAx

IceAx

IceAx

Soldato
Joined
4 Aug 2003
Posts
5,852
Location
Warrington
Lo peeps

As above are there good ones and bad ones, or are they all pretty much the same?

There are some mighty cheap ones on the auction site, quite tempted to get myself a set!

Andy
 
Looks like the cheap ones don't Auto Focus and only allow the lens to be used wide open, unless it has an Aperture ring. As for quality, as there is no glass in them, it's all down to build quality.

The Kenko ones are supposed to be quite good.
 
would only be using them for 50mm anyways so thats not a problem.

MF doesnt really bother me either, gotta be a bargain @ £18.99 delivered

Andy
 
-=BAF=-AXE said:
would only be using them for 50mm anyways so thats not a problem.

MF doesnt really bother me either, gotta be a bargain @ £18.99 delivered

Andy
Click to expand...

Unless your lens has manual aperture stopdown, which is a rare feature on today's automatic-everything lenses, then by buying extension tubes without electrical contacts, you will be forced to use the lens at maximum aperture.

If you're doing macro work you'll quickly find that f1.8 is not exactly ideal ! f22 is still a bit narrow at maximum magnification...

The Kenko tubes are the ones to get- Canon's offer nothing more yet they cost an absurd amount.
 
I've got some Pentax extension tubes I was using with a K1000 and a 80-200 Macro lens. I'll post some pictures when the film is developed, but can anyone explain in simple terms what exactly they do?

It appears they just decrease DoF and allow for focusing extremly closely?

Are there any good articles on this that someone could recommend?
 
I've got the cheap ones off the auction site, as everyone says they have no electrical contacts so the aperture at its widest, and force you to use manual focus. They do allow you to focus ridiculously close to things, but it's difficult with insects (my favourite macro subject) which are constantly moving. With this and such a shallow depth of field, it sometimes feels like a game of chance managing to get a decent photo.

I've actually been using mine about 5 minutes ago before I saw this thread, I'll check out my pictures and see how good they were.
 
Frosty said:
I've got the cheap ones off the auction site, as everyone says they have no electrical contacts so the aperture at its widest, and force you to use manual focus. They do allow you to focus ridiculously close to things, but it's difficult with insects (my favourite macro subject) which are constantly moving. With this and such a shallow depth of field, it sometimes feels like a game of chance managing to get a decent photo.

I've actually been using mine about 5 minutes ago before I saw this thread, I'll check out my pictures and see how good they were.
Click to expand...

Cheers matey

Can you upload a pic or 2?

Cheers

Andy
 
-=BAF=-AXE said:
Can you upload a pic or 2?
Click to expand...

Sorry, I meant to do this earlier but fell asleep! Think I'm heading for the same again, so I've not done any processing here apart from a quick resize for web.

As I said, with the breeze blowing flowers around and insects not keeping still, it's quite hard to get things in focus without auto-focus, these were the best of the lot:







The front 3 blades of grass in the butterfly one really annoyed me. I spent 5 minutes shuffling up to him on the grass commando style, until the lens was about an inch from him. He didn't seem to mind me being there, the sound of the shutter going off didn't scare him, so seeing what the grass had done I went in and got some scissors to give it a trim. Came back outside and walked right up this time, put the scissors round the grass (about 5mm away) and he still didn't move.

*snip* .. *gone* .. "damn"

Ah well, can't win them all..

These were all taken with the 300D and the 18-55mm kit lens at the 55mm end.
 
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