Ebay's Af extension tubes any good?

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naveen.nag

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Naveen
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Anybody here has any experience or owned the externsion tubes sold on ebay? I am talking about the ones which can auto focus. If so, pls let me know your opinion on that. Are they any good? Is it worth buying them. Mind you, i am not tryinng to compare with macro lens option but with the other unorthodox altrrnatives. Recently i had used the cheap tubes with no electrical contacts, but not really impressed with it. Did try the reverse macro as well. Cant really afford a macro lens at this point, so trying out all the cheap options :).
 
I use cheap unbranded af tubes from e-bay combined with a Tamron 90mm macro and 1.4x teleconverter and get excellent results with them. As there is no glass involved I figured that as long as the af works there is no need to spend a fortune.
 
i've a set and have had no issues with my auto focusing set of extension tubes, although i cant say i've used them much since i've had them... as sue says theres no glass inside so no real reason as to why they wouldnt work....
 
I read a really amusing point on this as the comment was "the air in a Nikon/Canon extender is the same air in a non major branded version".

If you are happy with the Af and the fitting then why not IMO :)
 
Oscellaris said:
I read a really amusing point on this as the comment was "the air in a Nikon/Canon extender is the same air in a non major branded version".

If you are happy with the Af and the fitting then why not IMO :)
Click to expand...

Hehe... Good one.

I guess
More than af i am looking to get control on aperture which is absent in the non electrical ones.
 
It's not necessarily the autofocus you need, it's the ability to control the aperture. For modern lenses with no mechanical aperture ring, you're stuck with it wide open if the tubes can't close it down.
 
I bought a set of polaroid extension tubes from ebay, £60 inc p/p and they work fine.
 
I should have said that my cheapo unbranded e-bay ones control aperture perfectly as well.
 
Oscellaris said:
I read a really amusing point on this as the comment was "the air in a Nikon/Canon extender is the same air in a non major branded version".

If you are happy with the Af and the fitting then why not IMO :)
Click to expand...

How dare you suggest that the major brands are overcharging for thin air?! :lol::lol::lol:
 
MadWoman said:
I should have said that my cheapo unbranded e-bay ones control aperture perfectly as well.
Click to expand...

So the cheap AF ext tubes control aperture too? I always thought it was only the AF info that they transmitted.
 
I had a set of Meike AF tubes. They were fine, I could adjust aperture on cam. The AF can be very sluggish at times though, depending on what lens you use them on. I just manual focused with them. You still need to master focusing with your body - as in, set focus distance, move your body in and out to find the sweet spot, macro shooters do this even with dedicated macro lenses.

They were about £60, 1/3rd the price of Kenkos, and did the exacts same job.
 
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I've got a Kenko set of extension tubes that I got at a very good price (£85 new on offer from OneStop Digital, but only £89.99 now) but I'd be quite happy using an unbranded set if they did the same job. It's not affecting any optics so you might as well use the cheapest ones available that do the job.
 
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Yes, my cheap unbranded ones definitely control aperture as well as autofocus - to be honest I must have been lucky as it never occurred to me that 'auto' tubes might do one but not the other.
 
It was a couple years ago now, so no longer in my e-bay history, but I have a feeling they were about £40. Absolute bargain - I use them a LOT and have never had a problem with them.
 
I assume they just have wires running through them in the same layout so that the body connects with the lens, that shouldnt cost triple figures to make, only problem would be tolerances in the mounts as differences of afew hundreds of a mil either side of the mount would skew the plane of focus
 
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