I'm going to be buying a 50mm lens to try to get some close ups, with my research I've found that it works better with either an extension tube or reverse adapter. I'm just wondering, which of those two works better? The adapter is a bit cheaper, but could run the risk of getting dust or, god forbid, the bug I'm photographing in my lens. The tube looks like it gets some decent pictures from the sample photos I've seen, I was just hoping for some advice from someone with personal experience before I commit.
Buy some close up filters, I use a plus 10 on my 50mm all the time, great little thing, in-fact yesterdays close up was plus 10 on my kit lens but majority of the close ups in my project are done with a £2 filter on my 50mm. @paign This one was done using the 50mm plus 10 combo, if you buy the whole set for around £7 then you can stack them up in different combinations.
@simon0128 Brilliant Macro shots, I may have to look into some tubes myself, Mine is the cheap alternative and I think it produces the results for the price.
@ayearinthelifeof Nice shot Eddie, you cant moan about the price of close up filters just like you said you can get some great results from them. I think i paid about £86.00 for my kenko tubes. But the reviews are fantastic for the kenko tubes at the time.
I didn't get much joy with the reversing ring on it's own, but today I added it to some tubes and... well... This is the sternum of a standard garden spider - maybe 3mm across (the sternum, not the spider) with almost no crop.
I've used the extension tubes with great success. Given the choice, that's the route I would take since the tubes are versatile - can be used with a wide variety of lenses - and they maintain the tight seal between your camera and the inner lens.
While I do have an excellent macro lens, I absolutely love magnification filters on my 50 prime. Given the choice between tubes and reverser though, I would go with tubes for the 50. This was taken with my 50 and a No. 4 magnification filter just the other day:
I would say extension tubes first. Then eventually get the reverse ring if you find you really like the macro world. A combination of extension tubes, a reverse ring, and a ring flash (or a regular flash with a diffuser) can get you extremely close beautiful pictures. Especially if the subject/models (aka...bugs :) ) hold still! Take a look at Thomas Shahan's flickr stream. He uses a combo of tubes/reverse ring. His Anthropod pictures are amazing. I wish I could post you a link, but I get a "invalid data" error when I add links to these replies.
Be careful in buying tubes. I once bought the cheapest I could find from the net. After putting them on my (Nikon) body I had a very hard and long time getting them detached without damaging the body. Apart from that, I like tubes but I'm seriously thinking now about purchasing a macro lens. I really hate the amout of light you loose with tubes.
I just started playing with reverse macro this weekend, and my ring should get here tonight. This one I did handheld...
These two I did with macro filters. The one caution that I would offer about the filters is that I find that some of the images have halo effects around the images. I don't always find them to be very sharp.Could be just the set that I bought.
Back in the 35mm days I used extension tubes, and I loved them... with one caveat: you lose a lot of light with them. If you're using them with a 1.4 or 1.8 50mm lens, though, you can compensate, but you will make some sacrifices shooting wide open as well. If you want really tack sharp photos with extension tubes, you need to use a tripod and manually focus, which is fine when shooting inanimate objects....
@Hjv : I'm buying some 22 buck ones off of BnH, I almost looked at some fotodiox ones, but was appalled by the reviews. I'm hoping the BnH ones will suit my purpose. But, yeah, skimping is not really something you should do when it could interfere with a half a grand or more piece of Technology.
@egad: You're making me exciting withe macro filters, I'm thinking I can work with a halo. Looks like they're pretty effective. :D
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I didn't get much joy with the reversing ring on it's own, but today I added it to some tubes and... well... This is the sternum of a standard garden spider - maybe 3mm across (the sternum, not the spider) with almost no crop.
Only thing is, now I'm excited. :'D
These two I did with macro filters. The one caution that I would offer about the filters is that I find that some of the images have halo effects around the images. I don't always find them to be very sharp.Could be just the set that I bought.
@egad: You're making me exciting withe macro filters, I'm thinking I can work with a halo. Looks like they're pretty effective. :D