Budget Macro

Ostrom

Once again, your advice is needed

Had some time last week to finally use my finest dealextreme budget macro extension tubes with my 50.

I got everthing in place, used downstairs large window for soft lighting, had some different coloured background cards, set up the tripod, remote triggered every shot, and am less than impressed with the DOF.

No matter what I set the aperture to, I get the same very shallow depth of field, probably equivalent to 1.8 (or less) on the 50 as normal. Is DOF constant with macro tubes?

Also, the focus was a complete nightmare. Lighting was good, but the margin of error was in the order of millimeters. Felt like I needed a grainscope.....


Anyway, any comments appreciated - is this standard with tubes or am i missing something?

DaireQuinlan

Some more details of what you're shooting with might help, at least the make of the camera :rolleyes:

If you're talking Canon, don't recent canon lenses need electrical connectivity to stop down ? Are there electrical contacts on the tubes ?

The reason I ask is that I can't imagine a situation where this would happen on a Nikon setup, either the macro tubes wouldn't have any aperture linkage which means the lens would actually stop down as you turned the aperture ring, or it would have the linkage and would work correctly, its all done mechanically on the F mount.

Ostrom

Hi Daire,

I was using the Nikkor 50mm 1.8 which allows manual aperture control. The tubes themselves dont have contacts, so there is no connection. I spot metered before mounting the tubes then shot the rest in manual. Using a D80 body.

It was a flower against black card. The tubes allowed minimum focus distance of about 6 centimeters.

DaireQuinlan

efla wrote: »

Hi Daire,

I was using the Nikkor 50mm 1.8 which allows manual aperture control. The tubes themselves dont have contacts, so there is no connection. I spot metered before mounting the tubes then shot the rest in manual. Using a D80 body.

It was a flower against black card. The tubes allowed minimum focus distance of about 6 centimeters.

oh right. So when adjusting the aperture on the lens, did the image through the viewscreen get noticeably darker ? It should have, as the lens stopped down. Otherwise I wonder if the tubes are holding the aperture open, and if there's some mechanism to release it. Are there any mechanical doo-dads on the tubes that hook into anything on the back of the lens ?

OTOH you might just not realise just how narrow the depth of field is at macro ranges. Typically you'll need f/16 or so to get any sort of decent DOF. I've shot with similar setups and I've always relied on a strobe to get good macros. If you shoot wide open your DOF is razor thin. Focusing is also pointless, the best way to focus is to move the camera back and forth. If you've ever seen someone in the botanics pressed up against a flower with a camera stuck to their face and rocking gently back and forth this is probably what they were doing :-)

TJM

DoF does end up being tiny with a full set of extension tubes. Either stick on a strobe and stop right down or else take a few exposures and do some focus stacking. A focusing rail helps for the latter but isn't essential.

Ostrom

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

oh right. So when adjusting the aperture on the lens, did the image through the viewscreen get noticeably darker ? It should have, as the lens stopped down. Otherwise I wonder if the tubes are holding the aperture open, and if there's some mechanism to release it. Are there any mechanical doo-dads on the tubes that hook into anything on the back of the lens ?

OTOH you might just not realise just how narrow the depth of field is at macro ranges. Typically you'll need f/16 or so to get any sort of decent DOF. I've shot with similar setups and I've always relied on a strobe to get good macros. If you shoot wide open your DOF is razor thin. Focusing is also pointless, the best way to focus is to move the camera back and forth. If you've ever seen someone in the botanics pressed up against a flower with a camera stuck to their face and rocking gently back and forth this is probably what they were doing :-)

Thanks for that, there is a strange looking tiny screw on the top head, ill mess about with it later. The Viewer darkened with the aperture alright, and I left it focused at infinity doing the focus as you suggested.

That may have been me in the botanic gardens last week I got the same effect with the macro filters which answers my other question.

By strobe do you mean wiring the flash unit and holding? I will have a play with the tubes and maybe try for a longer exposure. Many thanks!

Ostrom

This is what I ended up with anyway

Thirdfox

A cheap alternative (if you already have other lenses with a 52mm thread) could be to get a reversing ring - mounting one lens on the other (in my case 50mm f2 on a 55-200mm) gives me iTTL metering and a variable zoom from 1x magnification to 4x magnification.

If you're really serious about macro then you may want a macro rail too to aid focusing (it allows discrete adjustment to focus on the different axis).
see here for a "cheap" one:
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.9430 (60 dollars - may seem expensive but adorama/b&h have ones that cost 170-270 dollars).

Not buying the rail means that you really need patience and take lots of shots - not getting the exact focus can be really annoying. The shot above looks pretty good (and DOF is still comparatively large).

Here's an example of a 50 mounted on a 55-200:
at 55mm (1x approx)


at 150mm (if I recall properly) 3x:


If you click on the flower pic and enlarge the photo you'll see exactly how narrow the DOF is (and this is a small flower already). I'd imagine DOF was around 1-2mm (you can see the individual grains of pollen). This was after I set the aperture of both lenses to f/16 and used my flash at full power. Narrow DOF is just part and parcel of macro unfortunately. Hence a macro rail is probably advisable if you want to take lots of accurate shots and not just messing around as I was (a reversing ring costs around 3 dollars).

Ostrom

Thanks for that, really impressive shots!

I was thinking whilst doing the focusing how annoying it was and if only I had a multi-axis adjustment device

Will definately give it a shot with the VR and ring

Thirdfox

The VR won't be any help - at such small distances the mechanism can't compensate. At least that's what I found with the 55-200vr...it's all down to the flash illumination to freeze everything in place. You really learn to time your breathing too - think of yourself as a sniper

I tried a few macro shots - but didn't want to splash out on a rail so haven't really pursued macro (or should we say micro since we're Nikon folk )

Tactical

I made up my own three axis unit for macro shots. Well actually I adapted a three axis positioner unit from something else. It has graduated micrometers for adjustment and is very stable in all regards.

Not particularly relevant to the OP question I know but some of you might like to see it anyways. I decided to adapt it when I got a fright pricing some professional units.