Macro photography extension tubes.

Yesterday, I tried something new, something I had never done in photography. True macro photography. And though my shoulder, back, neck, hand and right arm are complaining today I am thrilled with what I have learned and achieve.

So what have I learned? Well how about a short list of things you have to consider when making macro photographs:

1. The gear.
   • I do not have millions to spend on another lens, particularly when it would be a specialised one that would not be used often. So opted to go the extension tube route, a set of Kenko to be exact, why these? because they have the necessary connections to the lens, so you can still control your Depth of Field and, though completely futile, the auto-focus still works. But when you are 1 cm away from your subject auto-focus just hunts, even with a Canon EOS 7D.
   • Use a 70- 200mm with a f/2.8, it will make your life easier, I started with a 24-70 that I could only use between 50 and 70mm.
   • Use a tripod!
   • And have something (or someone) to give shade when required, which I found was most of the time.
2. The technique:
   • Pick one or more extension tube, I would recommend the shortest to start with, put your choice of lens on and find a really small flower or use a book and focus on the text, it makes for interesting photographs too.
   • Set the whole gear up on your tripod.
   • Set your focus ring to the closest possible point in manual, no kidding.
   • Use your zoom ring to focus, it took me a while to get that, forget about the focusing ring. If you cannot get focus you are either too close or to far, you will also find that you need to change distance if you add or remove tubes. As my instructor said a zoom between 80 and 130mm works best, find your lens sweet spot if you are not using a pro grade lens (I find Canon’s EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L lens perfectly suited).
3. The catches:
   • DOF, I tried to change it from f/2.8 right down to f/22 I could not see a difference.
   • Because of the above, if you are using all 3 extension tubes, I did not check with different combinations, you end up with a depth of field focus area of about 5mm, believe it or not a bee’s back side and it’s wings can be in perfect focus but not it’s head, so be careful with that.

And that is it, go and try, it’s loads of fun and your garden is the first please to visit, I know it’s a long trip. By the way, none of the photos below have been tempered with outside of being resized, what you see is exactly what the camera gave me, no colour calibration either than white balance set to day light, the camera used was a Canon EOS 7D.

Click on photos to enlarge

Click on photos to enlarge

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Tags: Macro, Reviews