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Hi!
My uncle is currently at our place visiting from Germany. He has some camera gear that he doesn’t want any more, which he’s happy for me to buy from him for a discounted price. Most of it I’m not really interested in, as I have better gear already, but he does have some extension tubes (I think that’s what they’re called 🙂 ) and a flash ring. Has anyone had any experience with either of those? I know that there would be a heap of different types, but do you think it’s worth buying them? Are flash rings something that a professional would use or are they similar in quality to built in flashes? It’s the first time that I’ve ever heard of them! He’s leaving Thursday your time, so I don’t have long to decide! 😀
It sounds like he has some macro photography tools! A flash ring is normally a low-power flash that sits all the way around the lens and gives a fairly uniform lighting to an object that is close to the lens. That is great for taking pictures of small objects up-close. They go for anywhere from 30$ for an inexpensive off-brand to 550$ for the Canon brand (of course there are even more expensive ones…)
The extension ring does two or three things:
1) It allows you to focus closer. On the flip side, the lens can’t focus at infinity with an extension tube on it.
2) It increases the effective f-stop of the lens, thereby requiring a longer shutter speed or higher ISO to compensate.
3) The less expensive extension tubes cause you to loose aperture control and auto-focus.Here are a couple of examples: a set of 3 manual extension rings, 20USD at B&H and a set of 3 auto extension rings, 124USD at B&H, so quite a price difference!
I have heard that extension tubes can also cause vignetting at wide apertures and stack heights.
@buddingphotographer has a lot of experience with extension tubes and lens modifiers in general, so it would be neat to hear his say on them!- This reply was modified 55 years, 5 months ago by .
Here is a shot I took yesterday with an extension tube. Used with Canon 7D and Canon 55-250mm STM. It will allow down to nearly the end of the lens (55mm) and within several inches (250mm)
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I don’t have any of the things you mentioned, and thus have no experience with them, but I would have them if my Uncle was offering them to me at a discounted price! 🙂
@dfrazer pretty much said everything that needs to be said about extension tubes. 🙂
I used to use them for my snowflake pictures. (I haven’t gotten a chance to take snowflake pictures the last 2 winters… 🙁 )https://www.lenspiration.com/forums/topic/snowflake-photography/
https://www.lenspiration.com/forums/topic/snowflakes-2/Also see https://plus.google.com/+DonKomarechka for some inspiration about what a ring flash and extension tubes can do. A lot of my own snowflake photos can be found on Google+ as well, try something like this to find them: https://plus.google.com/s/%23snowflake%20Ezra%20Morley/top
Thank @dfrazer, @jamesstaddon. @austinvinar and @buddingphotographer for your quick responses. I’m definitely going to purchase them! If anyone has any tips on how to use the flash ring or extension tubes, that would be great! 🙂 Ha! I’m thinking that macro photography takes a lot of patience after chasing some ants around outside for awhile! 😉
Wow! Those snowflake pictures are amazing @buddingphotographer. Though, since snow isn’t a really common occurrence here, I don’t think I’ll be able to try that. I’ll have to be content with just looking at other peoples photos! 🙂
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