Most of the time, a magnification is more than enough. Buying a macro lens can be expensive, although there are also relatively cheap macro lenses available. But extension tubes will always be cheaper. These tubes bring a lot of flexibility. You can use an extension tube with every normal lens. These tubes allow you to focus real close with nice magnifications, especially with super tele lenses. That combination is perfect for shooting frogs and other small wildlife that are difficult to approach.
An extension tube is nothing more than a spacer between a lens and camera. The extension tubes are hollow, without any glass. The only thing an extension tube has is the contact points for the communication between camera and lens. If you are in the market for extension tubes, make sure your set has those contact points.
Because the lens will be farther from the sensor, the minimum focal distance will decrease. Because the distance between lens and camera is larger, the image circle will become larger at the sensor plane. That will introduce a larger magnification. Because the distance from the lens to the camera is larger, you will lose the ability to focus on infinity.
In a sense, the complete focus range is shifted towards you. Let me give you an example. If I place a 25mm extension tube between the lens and the camera, this focus range will change from 0.
The magnification factor of the lens will increase when extension tubes are used. Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to reach the magnification of a real macro lens.
It is possible to calculate the additional magnification when using extension tubes. Just divide the extension tube length by the focal length of the lens. The outcome is the extra magnification on top of the standard magnification.
Although the differences between extension tubes and a macro lens are obvious, I would like to mention these nevertheless. There are three main differences. The macro lens can focus from a minimum focus distance up to infinity, and with extension tubes, that is not possible. The macro lens can reach up to a magnification of or even more. On the other hand, extension tubes are not expensive.
But the biggest benefit is the ability to use extension tubes with every lens you own. As a matter of fact, you can also use these tubes with macro lenses, reaching beyond the magnification. If I would try to compare a macro lens with a lens fitted with extension tubes, I would be comparing the image quality of the lenses themselves rather than the extension tubes. After all, these tubes don't have extra glass inside that can influence image quality.
In this case, I will reach a 0. This lens is famous for its image quality. I thought it would be a reasonably fair comparison. For the test, I have photographed a flat surface and aligned the camera and lens to my best ability.
I used manual focus and focused with live view right in the center of the image. If you compare these images, you see how the middle of the image is nearly the same in quality. There might be some small differences, but you have to look carefully to notice them. In the corner, it is a completely different story. The use of extension tubes on the mm lens results in a significantly reduced sharpness. But you can argue this is due to the image quality of the mm lens.
At this aperture, the lenses should perform at their best. The corners of both images show a clear increase in sharpness. At this point, diffraction plays an important role, reducing the overall sharpness of both lenses. This has to do with physics and is inevitable. The reduced image sharpness is most obvious in the center part of the image.
In the corners, the reduced sharpness is less obvious. The macro lens will produce a better overall result compared to the mm with extension tubes. But you have to be careful with conclusions.
The image quality is probably depending on the lens that is used with the extension tubes. An exceptionally good lens with extension tubes may outperform the macro lens. On the other hand, an exceptionally good lens may cost even more than a macro lens. In any way, I believe the macro lens wins the comparison.
These tubes are small, lightweight, and can be used with almost every lens, even a macro lens. Do you own extension tubes or do you prefer a macro lens? Perhaps you own both and use these tubes next to a macro lens or together with a macro lens. Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below.
Nando Harmsen is a Dutch photographer that is specialized in wedding and landscape photography. You can also use a teleconverter. For example, this was taken with a mm macro plus 1. At mm a good achromatic diopter Raynox or Canon are the best two options will get you more magnification much more quickly than extension tubes will:.
For example, 25mm of extension tubes will only get you to 1. It's not just the length of the mm macro which makes the 25 mm tube ineffective - it has an effect, yes, but it's not the main factor. It's because the magnification is already very high at 1.
I kind of agreed , but I use my diopters more than the raynox [ more of a fish eye look ] or extension tubes[ older kenko non EFS ones ]. And that means the change-in-magnification you get on a 50mm lens will be 0.
Note that the change in magnification is doubled, not the overall magnification of the system. That explains why compact cameras with a macro function only get decent magnification at the wider end of their zoom range, and why it's generally harder to achieve high magnifications with telephoto lenses. Footnote: of course the lens-to-sensor distance isn't clear in typical compound lenses, and is even less clear in internal-focusing designs.
But the formula above can still be used to estimate the effect of an extension tube on the magnification listed in the lens specs. Using diopters or step up and step down rings is a possibility if the two lens have different filter sizes. How do I go about combining these two? Coupling a mm step down and a mm step up ring? When using , I planed on cropping. Since I got the macro , I don't use them much. Right now even the mm takes back seat to the and cropping [ has IS and is 2.
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These capable cameras should be solid and well-built, have both speed and focus for capturing fast action and offer professional-level image quality. Extension tubes work best for adapting short focal lengths, close-up lenses work best for adapting longer focal lengths.
This makes it a good option for small animals and insects where a closer presence could cause them to flee. Extension tubes come in several varieties but they are usually discussed in three distinct categories. These are the most expensive kinds of extension tubes and they are manufactured by the manufacturer of your camera, such as Canon, Nikon, Sony or Fuji.
They allow full autofocus when used with compatible lenses, and you can communicate with the lens via the camera in order to change the aperture or engage image stabilization. Third-party tubes are any ones that are not made by the manufacturer of your camera or lens.
Popular third party extension tube manufacturers include Kenko, Vello, Fotodiox and Neewer. When it comes to buying lenses many people really prefer to buy the ones that are made by the brand that makes their camera.
In many cases but not all these do tend to be of a higher quality. The next type of tube you can buy is even cheaper than the previous ones. Most people will find that these cheap tubes end up gathering dust in a closet after a couple of shoots. By all means use them to verify that you might enjoy using extension tubes, and that you have a lens that would suit extension tube usage. But if you want to do some serious macro photography it is definitely worth paying for the more expensive automatic ones so that you can adjust your aperture.
In most circumstances the following procedure will work as a way to manually adjust adjust the aperture of a lens that does not have a dedicated aperture ring on it.
As you can see, it is a real pain in the butt to have to go through this process every time you want to change your aperture value! My first set of extension tubes was just such a set, and I think I used them once before deciding to buy some that included electronic contacts instead.
I have to be honest and say that I do not think the fully manual, contactless, super cheap extension tubes are worth the hassle at all. I tried them and hated the experience! So what about choosing between the OEM or the third-party ones? In the grand scheme of things, the price difference is a tiny fraction of the cost of my lenses. Having said that, for most people I do think that good third-party ones like the Kenko set are the best option. Sony do not make OEM extension tubes at all.
Given the age of E-Mount it seems unlikely we will ever see OEM extension tubes, so Sony shooters will have to use a third-party solution. The best ones are the Kenko E-Mount extension tubes. Avoid the Viltrox ones. I have heard some really bead stories about them. This mount is relatively new, so we may yet see Canon introduce some official ones at some point. For now, the best Canon RF extension tubes are the ones from Fotodiox. They are built like a tank with an all metal design.
This includes a metal mount with a full set of electronic contacts. In my testing they offered excellent AF performance and no issues whatsoever in controlling an RF lens from the camera. They are available in two sizes of extension: 35mm and 15mm. For Canon RF mirrorless shooters, this is undoubtedly the way to go.
If you experience areas of low contrast in your image, or odd looking bright sports or artifacts, this could be the problem. Another useful way to use extenders is to use them for stacking together two extenders that will not natively connect due to protruding optical elements. By using a 12mm extension tube between them, they will connect without a problem. There are very few photography accessories out there that can make such a vast difference to an image for such a small amount of money.
A while ago, you did an article on extension tubes, and I was quite interested, since I had been thinking about macro. I got it, and fooled around with it a bit, and liked it. I have 4 solid hours of editing work to d—spider! Jumping spider with mosquito prey, right on my kitchen counter. Always told the kids jumpers were nice, because they eat mosquitoes—now I have proof.
Dan Carr. Great post! Very amateur, but hey! Yeah they are such a cost-effective way to get into macro photography! Definitely worth checking them out. Glad I was able to introduce you to something new, Shabbir!
Thank you, I read guide to extension tubes and also found the linked article about FStops — extremely well written and easy to follow [and have read more than a few]. Thanks very much for sharing your work and for the time you invested. Thanks so much for the great article! Really informative and easily accessible for the amateurs like me! All it would do is to give your macro lens an even closer focussing capability. Sometimes, people use an extension tube with a macro lens, then back off the focus of the macro lens in order to achieve focus.
This at least partially depending on how far from minimum you change focus disengages the floating element group, which then degrades macro performance! You can see the difference! Fascinating comment, Jan. What you say makes total sense when you think about it, but I had never thought to express it to people before. Thanks for the hugely inciteful comment. Dan, thanks for the article. How would you go about calculating the new minimal focusing distance when extenders are inserted?
Appreciate you put the formula for the new magnification. This is a most excellent question, and one that requires significantly more mathematics than would be useful in a comment.
Thank you so much, Dan, for this well written and informative article. I read some reviews on cheaper, third party extension tubes that said they had trouble disconnecting them. Have you heard of any more risky things one should consider with cheaper extension tubes? Are there any brands that are most trustworthy for solid manufacturing, in your experience? I do landscape photography and carry a pack half my body weight, so fitting another large lens into my pack is the last thing you want to do.
If you like to photograph the wilderness, you should come visit Tasmania sometime, where I live. Every direction you point your camera is photogenic. I think you covered the most likely negative issues with cheaper ones, although one might consider that third party lens mounts sometimes have issues engaging the lock pin as well.
I have not had this happen fall , although with another accessory I have had it so that the pin did not engage. Kenko is a solid brand for third party tubes, these are in some of the photos on this page. If you are concerned, I would go with them, or the official Canon ones. How amazing that you live in Tasmania! I have actually been thinking about coming over to hike to Cradle mountain and photograph that area.
Have you been? Thank you so much for this, Dan. I really appreciate the free, articulate and solid advice. First, thank you for your informative article. I have used extension tubes with a 70mm macro lens in the past, with fair results. Since recently buying a mm lens for dragonflies and damselflies, I wondered about using extension tubes to increase the magnification and after reading your article I started experimenting.
The results appear to be promising, though my comparisons so far have been shots of a piece of kitchen paper, torn to length at about 40mm the length of a typical damselfy in the UK since the weather today is probably too cloudy and breezy to be a good day for these insects. The torn fibres are useful in imitating the hairy details of my eventual targets. So, extension tubes could be useful on a longer lens and I am looking forward to trying this in the field — double the effective magnification and the fibre details seem to be good.
In the past I have had to get much closer to the subject with a macro lens to almost fill the frame like this and of course that can make the insects nervous. What a fascinating idea. Thanks for sharing this!
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