THE THINGS I DO…

Before I started my career as a photojournalist, I loved macro photography. To tell the truth, I’m still shoot a lot of close-up photos for my own pleasure and, having grown up in the hills of West Virginia, I’m not afraid to go out and tromp around in the woods to find subjects tailor-made for macro photography.

Shooting close-ups is easier today with the advent of close-focusing point-and-shoot cameras and a bevy of lenses with close focusing ability available for DSLR shooters.

Many people hesitate to spend a lot of money on “macro” lenses as they’re afraid of investing $300+ on a lens that is specially designed for shooting at 1:1 or even 2:1 magnifications.
I have a cheap solution for those of you who are on limited budgets or don’t know whether or not macro shooting is something they want to pursue. That cheap solution is an extension tube.

I purchased an under-$100 extension tube online and use it on my normal-to-telephoto lenses to allow me to make macro shots with a variety of lenses. I use the Kenko 25mm extension tube shown here:

As a comparison, I submit these two images of some wildflowers on the side of Mt. Mitchell near Asheville, NC. The first photo was shot with a Canon 24-70mm zoom with this extension tube. The second one was made with a Canon 50mm f/2.8 macro lens with no tube, of course:

Both photos were shot at f/6.3 at the same ISO. Since using a tube cuts down the amount of light striking the sensor by about 1 f/stop, I chose to keep the same f/stop for this comparison and varied the shutter speed to compensate for the extension tube. As you can see the two photos are very similar. The top photo shows slightly less depth of field and a slightly different “bokeh” highlights in the background. Is it worth an extra $200  to gain the extra millimeters of depth the true macro lens provides? That’s a judgement I leave to you.