Extension tubes, where to buy

Flashharry

Flashharry

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Help required for a beginner....I am thinking of getting some extension tubes to fit my Nikon D60, does anybody know a reasonably priced source?
 
I have the Kenko set too. Mine came from Hong Kong ("urgalaxy" on ebay).
 
I bought my kenko set from onestop digital here. I think they came from HK, but the delivery was fast and service good. As there's no moving parts I was happy to buy from HK.
 
My set arrived yesterday not had much time to play with them yet but they seem fine to me.

Ebay link

Although they are not the Kenko ones at £8.50 and delivered within 24 hours I can't complain at that price(y)(y)
 
I ordered a set of Kenkos from WarehouseExpress, 5 weeks ago ... and still haven't received them :(. In fact, I cancelled the order 2 days ago.

So, be warned! Whatever their website may say, they're probably not in stock and you should probably look elsewhere.
 
Keenbfb said:
My set arrived yesterday not had much time to play with them yet but they seem fine to me.

Ebay link

Although they are not the Kenko ones at £8.50 and delivered within 24 hours I can't complain at that price(y)(y)
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That is cheap, pls let me know if they are any good :eek:

Thank you for the other replies the Kenkos seem to be the most popular
 
Flashharry said:
That is cheap, pls let me know if they are any good :eek:

Thank you for the other replies the Kenkos seem to be the most popular
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They are good for the price. I got a set from the same seller for Nikon (used in my conversion of Rodenstock TV_Heligon to Nikon mount) - they are the same but the mount ends differ. They build from aluminium alloy, quite strong and covered in black, non-reflective paint. The build quality is not bad and for the price I'd even say excellent.

Mind you, they are very simple extension tubes, without any AF or metering, but again for the price those would be hard to expect.
 
Just make sure you're comparing like-for-like when you're looking at extension tubes.

I've got a set of extension tubes that are Canon fittings at each side and contain all the electrical contacts needs to pass AF and metering information between the camera and lens.
A lot (all?) of the cheap ones are just hollow tubes with screw threads which you use with the supplied body and lens adapters so there's no info passed through and you'll find the aperture is fixed at wide open.

When you're focussing that close the slightest movement makes a bit difference and the AF has a hard time coping so the cheap ones can be fine but with the basic tubes you're stuck in wide aperture (unless your lens has manual aperture control on it like some old SLRs rather than on the camera body) so you're forced into a very narrow DoF - this is often the desired effect but it's not always and it's frustrating to be physically unable to get everything into focus.
 
incapete said:
...so the cheap ones can be fine but with the basic tubes you're stuck in wide aperture (unless your lens has manual aperture control on it like some old SLRs rather than on the camera body)
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Not necessarily. Whilst the expensive variants are better in most of the cases there is one where the cheap variant outshines them. It does not limit you to use the lens for your camera brand. And you don't even have to use adapters in some cases - just buy two sets of extension rings for different camera mounts from the same seller - the camera attachments are replaceable so you can have Nikon lens easily attached to Canon and vice versa. It limits the usage to full manual but then again there is plenty of cheap older manual lenses (for M42 mount for instance) around that have full aperture and focus controls. I agree this may not be ideal but it is dead cheap and you can for example get extension set, M42 convertor to you mount and a decent old M42 lens for less than you will pay for the automatic extension tube.
 
dalex_257 said:
Not necessarily. Whilst the expensive variants are better in most of the cases there is one where the cheap variant outshines them. It does not limit you to use the lens for your camera brand. And you don't even have to use adapters in some cases - just buy two sets of extension rings for different camera mounts from the same seller - the camera attachments are replaceable so you can have Nikon lens easily attached to Canon and vice versa. It limits the usage to full manual but then again there is plenty of cheap older manual lenses (for M42 mount for instance) around that have full aperture and focus controls. I agree this may not be ideal but it is dead cheap and you can for example get extension set, M42 convertor to you mount and a decent old M42 lens for less than you will pay for the automatic extension tube.
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That's a great idea actually - I like it a lot!
 
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