Macro lens or Extension Tube

[limvo05]

Hi All,

With the lockdown, I am thinking of playing around with macro photography. I was thinking of getting a dedicated macro lens like the 100mm f/2.8, but then I saw some youtube videos of people playing with extension tubes.

I have a 24-70mm f/2.8 ii and a 70-200mm f/2.8 ii. Both of these lenses are fantastic especially when paired with my Canon 5Ds.

In that sense, is the macro lens any sharper than my two lenses paired with the extension tube? And if you recommend an extension tube, which brand would you recommend?

Thanks.

[Waddizzle]

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@limvo05 wrote:

I thought with the extension tube, I am able to focus at much shorter distance than without? This is the extension tube I bought and returned [ LINK DELETED ]

Thanks.

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Yes, that is true.  But, you have yet to tell us exactly what you tried to do.  For example, how far away was the subject, how much extension did you add to which lens dialed in to what focal length?  

One of the "pros" for extension tubes is that they contain no optics.  Not being able to achieve focus manually would strongly suggest that you did not use them properly.  There are no electronics to impair focusing.  It is all a matter of finding a good working distance to use.

As I have noted, the most common error is using too much extension, which can cause the maximum focusing distance to fall within the lens barrel, which would mean the minimum focusing distance is even closer to the image sensor.

If you sent those back, then it makes no difference now.  I had bought the Kenko tubes so I could dip my toes into the water.  I had first tested them with the least expensive lens in my bag.  They did not get stuck, and they seemed to work as advertised.

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I use the EF 100mm f/2.8L IS USM Macro Lens now.  It is extremely sharp, perhaps too sharp for some subjects; i.e. head shots.

There are two significant differences between a macro lens and a more conventional lens.  The first is the reduced MFD and the higher magnification at that close distance.  The other significant difference is the shape of the plane of focus.

Conventional have a focus plane that is actually more spherical than flat.  For example, if I were to take a photo of a wide wall mural with a conventional lens, the center of the image may be in perfect focus.  As you move away from the center of the mural, the distance to the camera increases, and eventually you reach a point where the wall is outside of the Depth Of Field.

On the other hand, a macro lens has a much flatter focus plane.  If used a macro lens to photograph that same wall mural, it would be sharp in the center of the photo.  As you moved away from the center, the mural will stay in focus, within the DoF, over a noticeably wider range compared to the conventional lens.

[RobertTheFat]

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@limvo05 wrote:

I tested with both the 24-70 2.8 ii and 70-200 2.8 ii. Both lenses failed to focus even in manual mode. Not sure what happened? I checked the comment for the unit I bought and it appears to be a common theme, thus I've returned it.

Canon does sell extension tube, but the price is 3 times as much as other brands.

Which macro lens would you recommend to go with the 5Ds? I am looking at the 100mm f/2.8 IS. If I am not mistaken, this lens was released at least 11 years ago.

Thanks.

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Macro lenses don't seem to change much over time. For example, the EF-S 60mm f/2.8 is still the "go to" macro lens for an APS-C camera. I bought one for my wife when we got our first DSLRs, back in 2006 or 2007. It's still one of her favorite lenses.

[limvo05]

Here is my photo stacking effort. Cross-section of the flower only. 19 photos in total.

[jrhoffman75]

Nice work.

[limvo05]

Thank you! Technically speaking, I think focus stacking would work, but it required a lot more time and effort. Not sure mention you'll need a pretty decent computer to compute. I tested the same sequence using my 10+ years old iMac and it's still going hard at it. On my new computer, it took a good 5 minutes to go through these photos.

Thank you all!

[kvbarkley]

The newer 100 mm macro has the fancy new IS that has 3 planes of correction for handheld macro shots.

[limvo05]

Bought Kenko extension tubes. Here is the same photo. Pretty happy with the result thus far.

[Waddizzle]

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@limvo05 wrote:

Here is a sample I took with a few minutes ago @200mm f/2.8 1/640 ISO100. Almost raw without editing. All I did here was to crop it to a 1x1 factor. 

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The "1:1 crop factor" describes how the image is displayed on your monitor, not how the image might be cropped.  Your "1:1 crop factor" is actually a ratio, better known as a zoom ratio of 100%.  

The 1:1 ratio is describing that for each pixel in the image, one pixel will be used to display it on your monitor.  A 100% zoom ratio will look very different when viewed on monitors set to different display resolutions.

[ebiggs1]

"Pretty happy with the result thus far."

That is all that is important.

[RobertTheFat]

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@Waddizzle wrote:

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@limvo05 wrote:

Here is a sample I took with a few minutes ago @200mm f/2.8 1/640 ISO100. Almost raw without editing. All I did here was to crop it to a 1x1 factor. 

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The "1:1 crop factor" describes how the image is displayed on your monitor, not how the image might be cropped.  Your "1:1 crop factor" is actually a ratio, better known as a zoom ratio of 100%.  

The 1:1 ratio is describing that for each pixel in the image, one pixel will be used to display it on your monitor.  A 100% zoom ratio will look very different when viewed on monitors set to different display resolutions.

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Yeah, he should have said "aspect ratio" instead of "crop factor", but I think we all understood what he meant. The stuff about pixels and monitors is irrelevant to his point.