Extension tubes

[siejones]

I want to have a crack at macro. I have gone as close as I can with the lenses I have and want more!

I have been looking at the Canon 100 macro and I know it's an excellent lens and I would be using as a standard 100mm prime as well as the macro ability but I have already dished out too much on lenses lately and don't see me being able to afford it till next year.

I already on the 50mm 1.8 and have looked into extension tubes. This little combination is no slouch for macro as I am lead to believe.

So my question is it worth getting the extension tubes with the nifty fifty to tide me by until the big boy next year? Do they work well?

Also how does this combination match up the 100mm?. I know the 100 is sharper than a sharp thing from Sharpsville but the 50 is a good contender in that arena as well. I have heard the 50mm is 1:1 with all the 64mm of ext tubes attached. This is the same as the 100mm. So what advantages doers the 100mm have over the little nifty fifty setup have?

 

[RobertP]

Search the forums for 'extension tubes' and you will find plenty of information.

As to what they will do - hold the lens away from the body by an inch or so and have a look through the eyepiece

 

[CT]

Extension tubes are excellent and will produce great results with the 50 especially if you get an adaptor to reverse the lens.

Comparisons between the 50 and a dedicated macro lens are pretty fruitless - they're completely different animals. Aside from the close up ability of the macro lenses, they're ground and polished to much more exacting tolerances to give better edge definition right out to the edge of the frame. It's this which is important if you were photographing things for scientific/medical purposes, which a lot of these lenses are used for, or photographing manuscripts, engravings etc.