Macro extension tubes?

[GraemeReen]

I'm new to macro photography, and I have recently bought a Nikon 40mm DX Macro lens. Would an extension tube benefit this lens? What do the extension tubes do exactly? Advice needed please.

 

[wyx087]

extension tubes sit between the lens and camera. it is useful for normal lenses to get larger magnification by allowing it to focus closer.

with your macro lens, you don't need it. it is already able to focus really close.

 

[Phil Young]

Adding to that, seen as a 40mm sits you around 2 inches from your subject at full magnification, I'm not sure they would even work with it??

Better to have a longer lens like a 105/150 then you will be 2 inches at full magnification but full magnification will be more like 3:1

 

[Tonto]

Would an extension tube benefit this lens? What do the extension tubes do exactly? Advice needed please.

They don't have glass inside ( which is good ) so they dont degrade IQ like a teleconverter or screw on macro lens adapter, but they do cut down light. You will effectively be stopping down, so your shutter speeds will decrease, and you have to move closer to the subject.

Its possible, as posted earlier, that you may not be able to get close enough with tubes added to an already proper macro lens. You may find the objective element in your 40mm touching the subject when tubes are added.

Tubes are really not for macro lenses as such , ( no law against it though ) generally speaking. They really benefit longer focal length non macro, or even longer focal length macro. When i say ' macro ' im talking about proper macro, not close up macro that every manufacturer now designates their plastic consumer zooms with.

 

[stu.artd]

I've played around with extension tubes on my canon 7d and 60mm macro. They do let me get in closer than with just the bare macro lens, with the 31mm on the lens can be no more than a couple of cm away from the subject.

Here's a pic of what the extension tubes (I have polaroid ones, from a seller on amazon for £60) look like fitted on my old 30d. You can have one, two or all of them connected, the pic shows all 3, for effect more than anything else. They have the electrical contacts to allow autofocus to function. Most of the pictures in this gallery were taken with the 31mm extension tube and 60mm macro.