| Joined: | Sun Apr 1st, 2012 |
| Location: | South Lakeland, UK |
| Posts: | 4066 |
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The *quality* of the tubes isn't particularly important in this case because beyond the obvious, like not falling apart too soon, there are no optical components, just empty spacer tubes, so the quality won't generally affect the image.
You can get the same effect by using close up lenses, which are sometimes called filters because they screw onto the front of the lens, instead of spacing the lens off of the camera. I would prefer the close up lens in most cases because it doesn't affect the light, when you use extension tubes the light is reduced because the lens is further away from the sensor therefore the finite amount of light available has been reduced per pixel. With the optical close up lens that does not happen. If extention tubes are used with a zoom it may be detrimental to the image quality because zoom lenses can be affected by being spaced away from the sensor. It can get complicated.
I have an old but wonderful 55mm f/2.8 MF Nikkor Micro lens which I use for flowers mostly, I had a Nikon 60mm AF lens which was pretty much rubbish in my opinion, partly due to the CRC (close range correction) which effectively turns the lens into a zoom to shorten the focal length, which is NOT what I wanted. I also have the 105mm f/4.0 MF Nikkor Micro which is an outstanding lens with beautiful bokeh. These can both be found for quite reasonable prices on eBay, I got the 55 from Eric a long while ago during one of his clear-outs and is one of my favourite lenses, the 105 came off eBay for a song, it seems nobody wants MF these days.
Perhaps for a brief foray into close up photography they might provide a cheap way of dabbling your toe in the water but there are much better approaches.
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Robert.