Extension tubes?

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meehaja

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James
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I quite fancy giving some macro photography a go, and this seems to be the cheapest way to give this a go. From doing a little research, prices seem to range from about £5 to £50+. Am I right in thinking that these are simply metal/plastic tubes and have no mechanical functions? With this in mind, am i best getting the cheap ones and accepting poor material quality, or is there much benefit to spending more?

I'm using a D90, and would probably use a 50mm f1.8 lens

thanks
 
Will work but you'll be very very close.

Better to buy a macro dedicated lens around the 90-100 mm mark. Then use the 10ukp extensions to get even closer. Make sure its a 1:1 ratio on the lens too :)

I can recommend the 105mm micro nikon (around 300ukp used) as a crisp lens. Plus the three extension tubs gets you really really close. Working distance was around 5 cm...

With the 50mm f1.4d and all extensions, working distance was around 1cm

These are with the 105 and extension tubes. MnM are usually around the size of your finger nail...
 
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The cheap manual ebay versions are a pain to use :thumbsdown: , you will lose aperture control from the body so end up shooting wide open - no DOF or stepped down - image to dark to focus on - a completely frustrating exercise (mine lasted a couple of days). Try and get some used auto tubes from here, if you don't like them you can sell them on for similar to what you paid.

Auto tubes have electrical and mechanical conections maintained between the Body & Lens.

Used with your 50mm you will get better than 1:1
 
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I used cheap ebay ones with old manua lenses no problem,was great with old cheap telezooms which are useless for just about everything else.
 
I have a jessops own ones that work well let me retain full functions, used with my 50mm lens not tried with other lenes including my macro but should be fine, and where resonable price did a quick look on their site and could not find them but might still do or look on ebay as in another post if you are just looking for something reasonable priced to give it ago.
 
As above get the AF ones or you will be stuck with the lens wide open (unless you have a lens with manual aperture). Good way to get into macro IMO.

I got cheap ones off eBay and they are fine.
 
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I bought some cheap ebay ones and they looked so poorly machined I never risked my lens or camera by using them.

There are some about that have AF function on ebay for around the £40 mark. They look like they maybe plastic mounts rather than metal but for more than half the price of Kenko but still being able to meter I think they are worth a punt.
 
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