![]() ![]() If your subject is still, you can use a tripod – this will let you use a low ISO to maximise image quality and eliminate camera shake. Don’t be afraid to raise your ISO in order to get a small enough aperture to give you adequate depth-of-field. You can use the manual focusing ring on your lens to focus on the subject.ĭepth-of-field is very narrow this close up. The best way to use extension tubes is to set the lens to manual focus. Your camera, if it’s set to an automatic exposure mode, will take care of this automatically for you. Adding an extension tube increases the effective aperture of the camera lens, which means you need to use either a longer shutter speed or higher ISO to compensate for the loss of light. The only disadvantage of extension tubes is that there is some light loss. If you buy a set, you can join two extension tubes together to give you even more magnification. The focal length of the lens you intend to use for your close-up work may determine which is the best accessory to buy.Īn advantage of extension tubes is that you can use them with any of your lenses. ![]() This is the opposite way around to close-up lenses (see my first article here), which work better with telephoto lenses. They are less effective with telephoto lenses. But if you’re a Pentax user, you can buy the first type of extension tube I mentioned easily enough, as long as you’re willing to work within the limitation of losing the lens to camera electrical connection.Įxtension tubes work best with lenses of short to medium focal lengths. ![]() Pentax is the odd man out here – the only extension tubes I could find for sale online were more expensive than a Pentax macro lens (I don’t know why). These tubes are all of the second variety. Sony doesn’t, but you can buy them from third party manufacturers like Kenko and Vivitar, who also make extension tubes for Canon and Nikon. Nikon, Canon and Olympus make extension tubes for their cameras. But if you can, you should buy the second type of extension tube, which is one that maintains the electrical connection between the lens and the camera body. You will find plenty of inexpensive extension tubes if you search on Amazon or eBay, and they are fine if you are on a tight budget or just want to play. You can see the electrical contacts in the extension tubes. These are the Canon EF25 and EF12 extension tubes (now discontinued and replaced with the EF25 II and EF12 II tubes). The camera controls the aperture settings, and you can use any automatic exposure mode and also autofocus (although it is often easier to focus manually when you’re working close-up). The second type of extension tube is one with electrical contacts that maintains communication between the lens and camera body. However, if you have a lens with a manual aperture ring, this may not matter too much, as you can stop down manually (although the viewfinder will get darker as you do so, making it hard to see at small apertures). While wide apertures can be used creatively, the narrow depth-of-field you get with close-up photography means that you usually need to stop down to get a large enough zone of sharpness to suit the image. If your lenses don’t have manual aperture rings (ie the aperture setting is controlled by the camera) then the lens aperture will remain locked open at the widest aperture. The biggest drawback of these extension tubes is aperture control. The camera can still handle exposure – just set it to aperture priority or program mode. The first, and the least expensive, don’t maintain the electrical connection between your lens and camera body. There are two types of extension tube that you can buy: The above photo shows a 50mm lens fitted with a 25mm extension tube.Įxtension tubes, generally speaking (it depends on the lens) get you closer to your subject than close-up lenses, in some closes nearly as close as you would be able to get with a macro lens. The closer you can focus, the more magnification you get. It moves your lens further from the camera, and the front element closer to the subject. An extension tube is a hollow, light-tight tube that fits between your lens and your camera mount. ![]() The further forward the element, the closer your lens can focus to your subject.Įxtension tubes work by increasing the extension of your lenses. This time, I’m going to write about another accessory you can buy, extension tubes.Įxtension is the term used to describe the distance that the front element of your lens can be moved forwards. In the last lesson, I wrote about close-up lenses and how they can help you get closer to the subject for close-up photography. This is the second in a series of four lessons on close-up and macro photography by Andrew S Gibson, author of Up Close: A Guide to Macro & Close Up Photography. ![]()
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