Thanks Shane for the great video. Interested in getting into macro photography. The Tamron 28-75mm commentary was spot on in terms of what I was hoping to find out.
Thanks for this video... I have ordered the Meike extension tubes for my Nikon D7200 today. I wanted some reassurance that I didn't make a mistake and you've provided that.
Hi Shane! Thank you for your helpful video. I am a hobby photographer and volunteer to take pictures of stillborn babies at the hospital. I am struggling with the decision to spend the $1000 on a macro lens. I will give the extension tubes a try and hope to capture some of the details better. I happen to have the Tameron 28-70mm lens and a 35mm, so I am hopeful that I have a decent solution now. Thank you so much.
Nice one Shane I'm thinking of upgrading to A6600 from A6300 and was going to include these tubes in the sale of the 6300, not now though. Cheers mate.
Hi Shane, that was really interesting! I definitely want to pick up a set of these now and play around with them. Wow, I would love to see what they would produce on my 90mm macro lens! Ha, I 'saw ' you over on the comments at Chris Turner's video on the 24gm vs the 35 f1.8. That was an awesome video, too! Thanks for doing all the testing on the different lenses; that really helped . The extension tubes are so compact they would be great to travel with, I think. I am assuming that they could work equally as well with APS-C lenses. Also, I guess they are mount specific so I would make sure I got the ones made for Sony..... Good job!
Thanks for watching the video! They're awesome on the 90 mn lens but you'll really need to have alot of light because you depth of field is so so small. And they work great on aps-c cameras, but you can get higher reproduction values on a full frame camera just because of the sensor size, but per dollar, aps-c can get it done for a way higher value.
Hi Shane - Nice video. I purchased the extension tubes from Amazon for my Sony a6000 and they arrived earlier today. I was anxious to take some test shots inside this evening and was having issues with autofocus which quickly frustrated me. My primary interest in macro photography is to capture outdoor shots in the garden so I'll give it a try tomorrow. However, I would like your recommendation on which lens(es) I should use. Here are the lenses I have in my collection: Sony 16-50mm kit lens, Sigma 16mm, Sony 35mm, and Sony 24-240mm lens. Also, which focus area setting do you recommend? Thanks!
I HAD the Sony FE Macro 90mm lens, and a friend of mine has the ProMaster Macro Extension Tube, after seeing his shots next to mine, I do not believe spending $1k on the lens was worth it at all. The Extensions tubes do well enough for the price.
Thank you for your Work !!🙏✨ I can’t find information anywhere. Could you please help me. Which distance from the Object in cm (or inches) with 26mm extension tubes on Sony fullframe a7iii with 35mm lens, 50 mm lens and 85 mm lens ? I would be very appreciated! Hello from Ukraine 🫶✨☺️
Excellent presentation Shane: I have Sony A6000 and the 10/16mm tubes. Which lenses are recommended for flowers closeups- 18-105mm, 50mm or 16mm? Thanks and a Happy new year.
That’s a very good question, but I don’t have an immediate answer to it that I know to be true. Technically you are moving the optical centre of the lens further forward so there should be a proportional change to the lens’ focal distance. However, that’s just my speculation and it’s a topic I’ll look into further.
unfortunately if you are using lenses where the aperture/focusing are handled electronically you will not be able to us a manual ring and will have to get an option similar to what I was using in this video.
Very informative and well-paced explanation. Would you recommend extension tubes for underwater photography? (I just got a Meikon housing with the dome port for the A7ii and got the extension tube as well, but haven't gotten to try it out with either the Sony Kit or my 35mm f2.8) The 90mm f2.8 sounds like a dream to me, but might get things tight and probably requires one of those insanely priced pro housings with manual focus ports...
Thank you, you know I don't quite know, I have no experience with underwater housings myself. I would say it wouldn't be ideal as the max focus distance is limited with the extension tubes so you lenses would be so limited to only macro which isn't ideal
Thank you so much for sharing these information. I’m using my Tamron 28-75 to scan my 35mm negative film. I’m wondering can I use this macro extension tube with the tamron lens to do that? Thank you!
I think that would work well with it, I've never used it for that application though before but on paper the Tamron has all the qualities that you need from a film scan lens and the extension tubes will be able to push the minimum focus distance pretty dang close without degrading the sharpness too much of the lens
I wonder how would a Tilt-Shift** lens with macro-extension tubes would work for macro shots? ** mostly the Tilt option in order to put the focus plane in the direction that you want (instead of closing the aperture too much and losing light)
Thats a good question, I don't know. Most likely though it is probs is impossible because tilting requires a wider focal length than would be conventionally possible for a macro level of focus, and I think the it would just either result in an optically terrible photo or just not focus at all well
How significant is the difference between the 90mm G vs 85mm with extension tubes? I currently have the Sony 85mm and 55mm for my A7II, and I mostly do plants/flowers/food and occasionally portrait.
For plants and flowers I have used the 55mm with these extension tubes and it worked quite well. With that said, the issue with both the Sony 85/55 is they strangely enough have relatively poor minimum focusing distances compared to other lenses in their class, so inconveniently the two lenses you have just are at a bit of a disadvantage (I have both of them as well). But they will be great for food/flowers and still life stuff, just nothing super small like bugs and stuff, both lenses are sharp enough though to have super high image quality still at least too.
I found myself using the 90 mm much more often than using these, just because the 90 mm is a whole lot more versatile because you can focus on a much larger area. With that said I did several weddings without bringing the 90 mm to cut down on weight and took extension tubes with and I got by alright. And I prefer the 85 always for my portraits, but when I'm in my studio I do use this 90 mm just because it's a bit sharper and the shallow depth of field doesn't matter when I'm using studio lighting as much
Great video! I wonder if you think it is good enough to pair with my 55 1.8 to act as a macro scanning camera for my medium format films? Trying to find a budget way out😂. Thank you!
I think It would work relatively well, the 55mm is surprisingly not the best lens I find at its minimum focus distance, but if you have the right lighting setup I think if would do well overall.
Hi i got a question. Could you use these extenders with conjunction with teleconverter? so...say if you have a Sony 135mm f1.8, stick on the extension tubes on the back, then stick on the teleconverter to the extension tubes. to give you extra reach...would that be possible? Thanks
I've never used that lens specifically before but it should give you a good effect, though I do suspect the minimum focusing distance will end up being inside the lens if you use both 😅
@@ShaneBethlehem yeah man, just need some simple macro shots for spec ads, thanks shane, also do you think the sigma 24-70 dg dn or sony 85mm would work better with these tubes? (sigma 24-70 has closer minimum focus distance than the 85mm)
I've used it with the 85 and found it to be a little bit difficult to manage cause the DoF gets VV small, so I think the 24-70 would be better and you'll get better returns because it performs better with the wider focal lengths anyways. I just don't know how the sigma performs at its minimum focusing distance because it is designed to be a kind of a portrait or general use lens so it might not be as sharp at the minimum focusing distance, I've never used it with them so I just can't say if it is or if it isn't unfortunately
Hi Shane - thank you for the video. Very clear, helpful and informative. I have a Nikon D750 and a Tamron 24-70 lens. I want to copy 35mm negatives using the extension tubes. Is it possible? If yes, what should be the length of the extn. tube? Thank you so much for your help.
i have a 135mm 1.8 g master, tamron 28-75 and zeiss 55 1.8, which of the following would probably yield the best results? I actually have already ordered one and am currently waiting for it. Good video btw bro!
The 28-75 I think, but I haven't tested it with the 135mm before, however the 28-75 has a simple close min focus distance even without them so its hard to beat
How does the digital zoom (via photoshop/premiere pro) compare to the zoom achieved by the extension tubes? Are they the same or do extension tubes provide higher picture quality at the same zoom level than what can be done in photoshop/premiere pro?
Though using neural networks/software to enhance photos has come a long way, for macro photography the tech doesn't apply nearly as good/at all because the biggest barrier is the physical proximity to your subject and having optics able to focus that close, so extension tubes would hard to compare because they straight up allow for photos you couldn't take otherwise
No problem 😊 OSS will still work however I'm unsure if it will operate with the same effectiveness especially when you also have sensor stabilization because I believe a lot of the functionality is related to the interaction between those two systems and the extension tubes will increase the distance between the operational components. I don't have any metrics to back this up though and in my experience my lenses with stabilization operated very well, so the answer is I think it would change things but I haven't noticed anything
Thank you, there will be some light loss, I dont know of an equation for calculating it, but you're increasing the focal length effectively so it will result in some wasted light
I have sony alpha a6300 and having 2 lens one is emount kit lense 16-50mm and another is emount telephoto 55mm-210mm lens what kind of macro extension should i go with and on which lense should i put that macro extension plz reply thank you
Unfortunately I am not familiar enough with either lens to give you a good recommendation, honestly it will probably come down to you trying it out for yourself and seeing which one works the best
Can you use this to connect two 2x converters on A Sony a7rII,,,I have a 2x teleconverter connected to a 200 600 already want to add another 2x teleconverter for 4 x
No I'm sorry that unfortunately wouldn't work. The teleconverters have glass elements in them in order to keep the same focussing distance whereas the extension tubes would reduce the focusing distance. The key issue though is that you really get diminishing returns when using longer focal lengths with extension tubes, so even if you use them on the 200-600 you wouldn't get a great magnification ratio.
If you mean in an underwater housing I think your have a really hard time getting close enough and unfortunately I don’t think your autofocus would be responsive enough if you hope to get things in focus
A note for buyers who are not aware: a close-up lens is any lens that states macro (especially the zooms and telephoto) 2:1, 3:1, etc (4:1 is standard, it seems). A true macro is a prime at a 1:1 ratio only while anything else is misleadingly not a "true macro".
How about Sony 90mm macro with these 10/16mm extension tubes, i have been searching for this combo everywhere with no luck. I have the sony 90mm but i wanna know how it works with these extentension tubes. Your channel is amazing, thank you for the 90mm videos!!
I talk about it in this video at the end and in my review of the 90mm briefly. It works well though, this guy on insta dose awesome stuff with the combo: instagram.com/reynantem?igshid=138g0tpqfrh9s
It would work but I haven't personally tested with it. The kit lens isn't necessarily terribly sharp and I'm unsure of how well the power zoom will function.
recently i have purchased sony 90mm 2 .8 oss lens. i am new to macro photography. while shooting macro shots i checked that i am not so closer to the subject also not getting sharper images. is 10 and 16mm extension tube will work for it. which brand is best for extension tube.i have sony A73 body
An extension tube will work fine with the 90mm however I don't recommend it if you are getting blurry photos because it will just get harder with the extension tubes. I recommend keeping on practicing with the 90mm and perhaps watching a few videos on how to get sharper macro images, you need a lot of light. I found this video helpful in explaining the basics: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-YJG62Zs9vGE.html
Sorry to say this is incorrect information. Using the center of the lens does NOT degrade sharpness and is NOT the same as cropping an image as stated starting at 5:30. To the contrary, the sharpest area of virtually every lens is the center.
Hi Shane, great review. Subscribed. I just purchased the Meike version of these. I'm trying to use them on my a6600 with Sigma 16 1.4 but I can't get it to focus at all. Totally blurry. I've tried AF and MF, same result. Any idea why? I've also tried it on my 18-55 kit lense from my a6000, same thing - totally blurred. Thank you!!
Hi Chris, Hmmmm that is not ideal at all, with the 16mm the minimum focusing distance is super super close, but it should still focus. if you are using both tubes maybe just try the one and try using them outside in a super bright environment at like f11, if that doesn't work I wouldn't really know without holding the camera
Hey Shane ! Thanks for the video. I was thinking if i can convert my sigma 16mm f1.4 to 30mm with these extensions and shoot video ! Will it work then ?
Oh it won't work for anything non macro really, the maximum focus distance is shortened as well as the minimum, if you're looking to get a tighter head shot maybe like look at the sigma 56mm, I've head great things
I haven't encountered any issues with mine, however I can definitely see the reason for concern. Conversely though my concern with the plastic version are that they can scratch on the metal and leave plastic on the sensor, or that with heavier lenses they have the potential to crack or warp and compromise your camera. I think the issue is both versions are just super cheap
I bought Meike 25mm & 35mm .. first I thought they sent me wrong mount but it says E mount. I have to twist really hard to mount. I love its look but I wish they make it more suitable to its mount...
@@ShaneBethlehem awesome. Thanks for this video. Very helpful. I'm interested in macro but not willing yet to take the plunge with the 90 2.8 so this will let me know if it's something I truly enjoy. Thanks again
@@ShaneBethlehem I have. It’s actually the lens. I guess it doesn’t like sigma e mount lenses. But it focuses perfectly fine with my Sony 85mm. It sucks though because the 85 just isn’t close enough
i like the idea of getting extension tube before jumping into the PRO Macro lens. Im into food photography, can you send me sample of food photo using 55mm zeiss 1.8(i have one) and 26mm tube. 2nd option: I want to sell my samyang 85mm 1.4 FE AF and get the sony 90mm 2.8 macro. since they have small difference when it come to portrait.
I did the same and used these tubes before getting the sony 90mm. Unfortunately I'm sorry I won't be able to get pics for you with the 55mm with the extension tube, I'm slammed with work right now and would need to go to the studio to get the 55mm. I think you would have more success with the 55mm with the extension tubes for food because I find the slightly wider focal length is more pleasing for plates, but that's my personal preference. I vastly prefer using a fast 85mm for my portraiture than the 90mm, not saying the 90mm isn't fantastic, but unless you're using lighting, the f2.8 vs f1.4 can be noticable for myself at least. I haven't use the samyang 85 though and I use the sony 85 f1.8 which I am biased towards.
