What’s an extension tube? Wikipedia says: An extension tube is an accessory for cameras with interchangeable lenses, used primarily for macro photography. The tube contains no optical elements; its sole purpose is to move the lens farther from the film or digital sensor. The farther away the lens is, the closer the focus, the greater the magnification, and also the greater the loss of light (requiring a longer exposure time). Lenses classically focus closer than infinity by moving all optical elements farther from the film or sensor; an extension tube simply extends this movement. When a lens is focused at infinity, its maximum magnification is the length of the extension divided by the focal length of the lens.
I hope that you are a professional photographer as you would be wasting your talents if you are not! You take some of the most beautiful photographs that I have seen.
I must be thick.....or too many Becks. Other than the colour, the pictures look the same. What am I missing? I ask sincerely, I can't tell the difference.
Bill: Thank you very much. I’m not a professional but I like to share my experimentations and progress.
Clive: There’s no difference between the two pictures. They are themselves the point of my post. The jewel in the watch measures only 1 mm. Without the extension tubes, I could not have had such a magnification ratio.
I think you've found what I've been looking for...something to get me back into photography. I've been in a huge creative slump for some time now. Thanks!
At any rate...I presume I could use the extension tubes with the macro lens I already have, to increase the magnification even more?
The whole set in combination can provide such a range it is dizzying getting your head around them at first. We have a Hasselblad at work and have hired the tubes in the past. I've done some really interesting stuff with them and some not so interesting (to others) stuff!
That's a nice shot of the watch - i love the way things look when you zoom right up into them like that.
Extension tube enhanced macro photography opens up an entirely new world to anyone who has never used them before. I recall my days in the high school photo club when we would experiment with anything we could get our hands on just to see what results we could get. Ah -- those were the days, when you didn't have to buy anything yourself, but borrowed from the school kit any day you wanted, 'cos most kids thought the photo club was more geeky than the Chess and Debating teams.
Absolutely wonderful! These features at unfamiliar scale totally de-contextualizes them... they look architectural; they remind me of those photos of integrated circuits that looked like city grids shot from above.....
Get these on flickr or your method of choice for mass distribution, because photos like these really deserve to be seen!
