Amazon Lightning deal macro extension tubes

https://www.amazon.com …cm_sw_r_awd_dAE​Svb4SGH7RH

A person may want to read some of the reviews with these tubes.

Reviews? come on it's $12 with free shipping, if you get a few hours entertainment out of them it's worth it.

travisvwright wrote in post #17642674
Reviews? come on it's $12 with free shipping, if you get a few hours entertainment out of them it's worth it.

You obviously didn't read the reviews....go for it. Like you say its only $12.

travisvwright wrote in post #17642674
Reviews? come on it's $12 with free shipping, if you get a few hours entertainment out of them it's worth it.

It may be YOUR $12. Feel free to spend YOUR money as you choose.

Lots of reviews state that this item does not hold the attached lens securely. Yep! Paying $12 to drop and break one my multi-hundred dollar lenses seems like a bargain.

This item also has no aperture control. That leaves you setting aperture manually, or shooting wide open. Macro with an f/1.4 aperture, anyone? Can you say, "Waste of money?"

Heh...I've apparently got a set of these collecting dust in my closet from a few years ago, if that tells you anything about their usefulness...lol.

Seriously though, the lack of aperture control relegated these to use with my manual focus, manual aperture Nikkor primes.

FWIW, according to Amazon this is the same price I paid in 2012 for these.

lol I didn't realize i was being so controversial. I have already bought it. I've had some fun with it.

Setting aperture on a lens before attaching the tubes takes about 5 seconds.

travisvwright wrote in post #17642805
lol I didn't realize i was being so controversial. I have already bought it. I've had some fun with it.

Setting aperture on a lens before attaching the tubes takes about 5 seconds.

Well, that just proves the old adage - Different strokes..., right? I don't do much macro. In switching from apsc to FF, I sold my 60mm macro, and bought a 25mm extension tube. It works OK with my 50 1.4 - about 0.7x. I just find working with the hugely restricted focus range of ETs a complete turn-off. And mine has aperture control pass-throughs. I am considering a full-frame macro lens for close-up work. The alternatives are inexpensive (like this item) but very restrictive. As usual, you get what you pay for.

I'm sure the quality control is all over the place with something at this price point, but mine are fine and hold my lenses securely. I think the only Canon lenses I've put on these were the 60/2.8 macro and the 85/1.8. The 60mm was a little more interesting, but the MFD on that lens is pretty short to begin with, so there's only so much extension tubes can do. And setting the aperture before attaching the tubes does only take a few seconds, but it's more trouble than it's worth to me personally. Obviously a lot of people agree with you though (myself included) as this is a best seller on Amazon.

For the money (imo), a reversing ring is far more interesting. Reverse mounting my Nikkor 24mm f/2 on the end of the 85/1.8 let me capture individual LEDs on high pixel density screens (Chromebook Pixel and a Galaxy S4 in this case) with reasonably good quality. Doing the same with a 50/1.8 and an 18-55 kit lens would probably yield similar results.

I have a set of Polaroid branded macro tubes, that gave electrical contacts so I can change apertures, that I paid about $50 for, probably the best $50 I ever spent on photography.

travisvwright wrote in post #17642805
...

Setting aperture on a lens before attaching the tubes takes about 5 seconds.

I'm not 100% sure you understand how this works? Are these EF lenses?

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #17645571
I'm not 100% sure you understand how this works? Are these EF lenses?

There's a hacky way to "lock" the aperture on EF lenses where you hold the DoF Preview button while you disengage the lens. I'm not sure if it's bad for the lens or not, but it isn't very convenient regardless. It might only take 5 seconds to do, but you're stuck with the selected aperture unless you do the Mount/DoF Preview/Dismount/Attac​h extension tubes dance.

btweller wrote in post #17645599
There's a hacky way to "lock" the aperture on EF lenses where you hold the DoF Preview button while you disengage the lens. I'm not sure if it's bad for the lens or not, but it isn't very convenient regardless. It might only take 5 seconds to do, but you're stuck with the selected aperture unless you do the Mount/DoF Preview/Dismount/Attac​h extension tubes dance.

Yes this is the method I was referring to. I normally pick aperture based solely on DOF as I'm using a tripod and can use shutter speed exclusively to control exposure. So once I set it I very rarely change it for that picture. I agree if you were wanting to try a few apertures it would be a pain. I'm normally looking at my subject setting f5.6-f16 based on a double-O-A calculation and then just leaving at that unless I can see the image would be dramatically better if I did the aperture change dance.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #17645571
I'm not 100% sure you understand how this works? Are these EF lenses?

Don't, anyone, let my previous post imply, in any way, that I understand how things work BTW. (Also perhaps this is really bad for your lens, no one blame me if you end up with stuck aperture blades or something.)

the deal must be over, the price has skyrocketed back up to $14.95