AF Extension Tubes

[Panda_]

Hey folks.
Finally had enough of my cheap extension tubes I bought for £8, being hollow tubes there's no AF on them, and I can't control the aperture.

Where can I get a cheap set of AF tubes for my Canon 40D? I don't mind second hand equipment.
Currently watching these on fleabay at the mo, but no idea how much they will go for.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?V...s%3DI%26otn%3D2

Hoping to get one real soon as there are plenty of little creatures worth photographing in the next few months ; ))

[Yecora99]

Hi Panda,

I have just seen your message re-Canon fit auto extension tubes and thought I would respond. Those Extension rings cost between £125 to £150 in the shops. So if you bid on them and win for less than £100.00 including postage you will have saved at least £25.00!

Currently I am still using an old set of Vivitar Extension Tubes (without any electronic contacts). I was thinking of buying a set of these Kenko Extension tubes for my Pentax, but thought I would be better off buying a secondhand Macro lens.

Over the last few weeks I have been bidding on but just loosing out on both 50mm and 90mm Macro lenses. That is until I saw a 90mm Tamron SP adaptall Macro lens, which I managed to obtain for less than £100.00, now all I have to do is buy an adapter so I can mount it on my Pentax.

Best Regards,

Yecora99

[Dorset_Mike]

Not sure what he adaptall to Pentax adapters are like for availability and price, but I do know the Minolta/Sony fit are way too expensive (around £50+) while being rare as hens' teeth.

I've used AD2 > M42 coupled to an M42 > MAF which works quite well, the other advantage of going this route is you should be able to get "chipped" M42 adapters allowing operation of the focus confirm indication.

[jchrisc]

I use a relatively inexpensive set of Jessops branded tubes. They are marked "for Canon AF" and work fine with my EOS cameras. There are three separate rings (13mm, 21mm and 31mm) and I paid about £70 for them some five years ago.

I don't have any EF-S lenses, so cannot comment on whether the these tubes would work with them.

[Rhys]

I have an old set of Triplus extension tubes for N/AF and they work perfectly well with my DSLR. can't see how they would cost a lot (mine were peanuts) as they don't have any lenses in.

[daft_biker]

I use Kenko tubes that have a full set of contacts for my Canon lenses. I have the old ones that EF-S lenses don't fit on but have seen new ones that claim EF-S compatibility on ebay too....about £100 for a set of 3 tubes IIRC.

[SqueamishOssifrage]

Not sure what he adaptall to Pentax adapters are like for availability and price, but I do know the Minolta/Sony fit are way too expensive (around £50+) while being rare as hens' teeth.

FWIW, I bought a brand new focus-confirm Adaptall II adapter from eBay for £30 + £5 postage because the cheapest original AD 2/Minolta AF mount I could find started bidding at £85. It only took 4 days to get to Cyprus from HK, and works as it should, albeit reporting f1.7 to the camera.

[MickLL]

Does anyone really use AF with extension tubes? Does it work? Is there enough light?

I have to say that I have enough trouble with manual focus on the close up/macro work that I do. I have never found AF to be of any use at all in those situations.

What am I missing - or is it 'gear envy'?

MickLL

[Benchista]

With a short tube, yes. I've got a set of the old Jessops tubes, cost me £25 s/h, and they not only allow AF, but they also allow control of the aperture. I don't use them much for true macro, but I do use the shorter ones for close focus.

[daft_biker]

I usually don't use AF or focus confirm but yes, AF can work with extension tubes. With my 50mm f/1.4 AF works pretty well even with all 3 of the tubes I have...68mm of extension giving up to about 1.5:1. Up to about 2:1 with my 100mm macro f/2.8. It does depend a lot on the body though...the AF on my 300D was pretty useless even without the tubes!

The main use for the electrical contacts is to control the aperture on modern Canon lenses...there's no lever or aperture ring so the lens can only be used wide open without them. (unless you fit the lens directly to the body, select the aperture you want and then remove the lens while pressing the DoF preview button...the lens stays stopped down but it means trying to focus with the lens at the taking aperture.)

[Panda_]

http://tinyurl.com/nrwqbr

Would this be fine to order? They seem OK, and allow EF-S lens on there too!

[daft_biker]

Aye, they look like just the ticket

Although when it says you retain the lens' optical quality...you do but you magnify any abberrations the lens has because you're capturing the image from a smaller part of the image circle. Extension tubes also reduce the effective aperture so diffraction causes softening at smaller apertures...the closer you go the larger the pysical aperture you need for optimum sharpness.