Photos Got my extension tubes!

just ordered my extension tubes with electrical connectors for £35 won't arrive for a week or two though.

oh, and a 35mm prime lens from Jessop, next day delivery apparently. it's same price as Amazon, but with 4% cashback on quidco (hopefully i've done it correctly to get cashback)

 

If anyone is interested, I've got a spare set of the cheap extension tubes (Canon fit) the OP linked to. I'd be willing to send them to anyone who fancies them (although not for the next month while I'm stupidly busy with uni).

My experiences with this set, without the electrical contacts, is that they're only really useful for taking shots of small, individual objects, such as flowers or insects. The manual focussing wasn't the end of the world, but the lack of aperture control made them almost unusable for taking macro shots of my architecture models etc. The depth of field is so shallow, that only a tiny area is in focus, which can offer a nice effect occasionally, but is too limiting.

I did quite a lot of research into what the best / most affordable set of decent quality tubes were, and I eventually settled on the set made by polaroid which you can find here. For £60, they're excellent, with superb build quality (they weigh more than my 18-55mm kit lens). I see no reason at all why anyone would bother with a Kenko set over these at twice the price. Highly recommended to all.

 

Got my tubes this morning, fighting the cliche.


Macro W by wuyanxu, on Flickr

Biscuits by wuyanxu, on Flickr


i find focus to be useless. the DoF is so narrow (at least at widest aperture), focus is pretty much always out of range. i just mounted my 55-200mm and used the zoom dial as focus, changed to manual focus so shutter release isn't locked.

build quality is shocking though. the middle sized tube is broken probably due to some sideways knock. when attaching them to camera/lens, it feels very different to just mounting lens to camera. latter is a smooth click, consistent across all 3 lenses i've got; former gets harder to twist nearer the click.

i would recommend to either go cheap and get sub £10 ones with manual focus (since auto-focus is useless here anyway) or go for high quality metal construction for £50+. or just get a macro lens that allows you to auto focus.

 

Well, i jumped on the extension tubes bandwagon too and bought these bad boys a week or so ago.

Here are a couple of shots, check out my Flikr for more.


CPU by PGoodhead, on Flickr


USB Stick by PGoodhead, on Flickr


Camera Lens by PGoodhead, on Flickr

 

I've gone for something slightly different, just ordered a reversing ring for my 50mm prime. The delivery time (Amazon) suggests it's coming from America though, but I don't mind waiting.

Just a couple of questions though; for the guys who already have extension tubes and are shooting in a controlled environment, have you tried focus stacking to eliminate some of that super narrow DOF?

Also, from what I've seen, f/11 to f/16 is going to be a comfortable working range, but how are you guys getting light onto the subject. I have a pair of flashes and wireless triggers, but I'm thinking a macro flash bracket may be useful?



Edit:
Focus stacking.

 

Thanks Silver! +rep for that video. Very informative indeed!

 

So the reversing ring arrived.

Attached my Pentax SMC P FA 50mm 1.4 (set to f16) backwards to the camera and used a Sigma flash with an off-camera cord. It seems to work okay, although it's a little difficult getting stuff into focus (I use a split prism focus screen, where one half of the prism tends to go a little dark in low light.)

Also, I was using ISO 800, which looks like it kills fine detail in the smaller bugs.



IMG_0288 by silverfish51, on Flickr




IMGP1746 by silverfish51, on Flickr




IMGP1741 by silverfish51, on Flickr

 

Very nice, Silver51.

I enjoy taking macro shots, myself. I have a macro lens, but generally reach for the extensions, even though the macro lens is capable of a non-macro shot in a pinch.

The biggest improvement in my macro photo taking was the diy ring flash I built about a year ago. Here's one of many links describing how such a flash can be made: http://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-make-a-diy-ring-flash-tutorial Of course, the method only works where one already has a flash unit!

But if one has the flash and uses it with the ring attachment, one can stop the lens down for the best detail or best depth of field, and still have good reason to think that the flash will stop any hand shake or wind movement - and without a tripod.

One part of macro photography I really like is that I often see stuff in the photos I wasn't aware of until I took the shot. The white spider is a prime example. This particular shot may be one I took after I uploaded the photos to my computer and saw a spider I hadn't seen at all out in the world. I went out and found him again in order to get a little better shot. But it may be the first shot, too; it was quite a surprise to see a critter where I'd expected only flowers.

All three shots span about 2 cm.


DSC03294_1200x799 by MechDoc, on Flickr


DSC02219_IJFR by MechDoc, on Flickr


DSC03544 by MechDoc, on Flickr

 

Wow! What an awesome deal!

 

ebay is a good place to buy, and i think for better quality, amazon is better and some other professional camera store

 

I apologise for the thread bump guys, but I've decided to take on various subjects of watch movements for my GCSE photography course, and tried out a couple of the canon extension tubes in school. They were relatively cheap, but by god they were incredible!

What I need is a recommendation for a nicely priced set of tubes to fit a Nikon D50. I was truly blown away by what I experienced when this thread first showed up, and doing it in person was even more amazing!

Edit: She had metal built ones with the connectors to change AF and such. They were secondhand and cost her about 40GBP. What kind of price would I be looking for new, or used for a Nikon fit?

 

Awesome bump. because I've gone to the dark side (or the light side?) I have sold my previous tubes and now considering other options.

Have tried reverse mounting a lens, but because lack of aperture control, it was impossible to see and focus unless in perfect lighting.

Have ordered a lens reverse coupling ring. to reverse mount my 85/1.8 onto the 24-105. hopefully this will work out well. the 85mm will just act like a magnifying filter.

Reason I haven't gone back to extension tube is that the previous tubes had left me with very bad experience, it was built cheaply and sometimes just locks the shutter and throws up error.

There are 2 kinds of extension tubes: AF and manual. I've heard good things are Polaroid AF tubes. for manual, any will do to be honest, it's just a tube.


edit:
thread I asked about this on Talkphotography
http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=458133

 

Nice thread! I'll wait for some other suggestions because I feel aperture and manual focus are going to be crucial to me, especially with the nature of some of the shots I'm attempting.

Actually, once I've completed the GCSE I may post a thread with the results. I'm really going above and beyond for this.

 

If you're planning on going manual, and you haven't got a dedicated macro lens yet I can highly recommend the one I recently picked on ebay - a Minolta MC Macro Rokker 50mm F3.5 the lens its self does 1:2, and with the included (make sure it's there) tube it goes to 1:1

For the price (I paid £90) I really like it, and it's quite versatile too it can stretch to landscapes.

Only downside is you need a mount converter - glassless ones are cheep (fiver) and fine if you don't want to focus to infinity (in fact it also acts as an extra [mini] tube as well). If you do (which you'll need for landscapes etcetera) then you'll need a converter with a lens which'll correct the focal point. The quality of the lens will vary from product to product.

***ohhhh and there's a mint 100mm F4 bellows in the US...temptation***​

 

Hmm, 90GBP is over my budget at the moment. I think I'll have to just get a basic set for now. What do ya'll recommend?

 

Of if you'll be manually adjusting the focus and aperture then just about any will do, as all you need is a tube to distance the lens from the sensor.

The longer the tube(s) the greater the magnification, but correspondingly the less light will fall on the sensor so you'll need to compensate with better lighting, wider aperture, higher ISO, or a combination of all three.

There's a Rokkor in the USA sitting at ~£60 at the moment with ~10h to go...

Only real advice I can give is to look carefully at the mounts and release mechanisms - avoid plastic levers etcetera as they'll obviously be weaker than metal ones - if you get some decent ones and stick with Nikon, then they'll last you forever.

 

Brilliant, thanks. I'm going to have a trawl through ebay and see what's available in the UK. I'd probably go up to about 30GBP on these.

 

Get these KidMod. I've got the same set, but Canon fit, and you won't be disappointed. I feel that getting anything cheaper will be a mistake, especially the really cheap ones. The build quality is superb, with metal lens mounts etc, and none of the silly screw fittings to add and remove the different sized tubes like many of the cheaper ones.

It's worth the extra over some random £30 ebay jobbies imo.

 

Thanks, I'll have a look around for a secondhand set.

 

Shots taken with my Nikkor Extension tube.

I joined the extension tubes cult


Pine Grove (2012-2013) -7.jpg by ZaPrime, on Flickr


Pine Grove (2012-2013) -8.jpg by ZaPrime, on Flickr


Pine Grove (2012-2013) -9.jpg by ZaPrime, on Flickr