The Photo Below Me

Since I'm pretty poor these days, do you think it would be worthwhile to pick up a cheap "w/macro" type lens and slap some tubes on it? I would imagine the IQ would be pretty crappy compared to what I'm getting used to...

So how do you know which tubes to get for your lens? Do they attach between teh lens and the canera? So just "canaon" tubes for a canon camera?

Do they come in different lengths and different IQ results?

yeah thats all the tubes do.......... allow any lens you put on them to focus closer... the more you put on the closer you can get

Do you loose IQ as you add on more tubes?

You can use Kenko, or Jessops, or even Promaster tubes. They go between the lens and the camera. All of those come in sets of 3 tubes, around 12mm, 20mm, and 36mm (varies by brand). The most important thing to look for, is that you get ones that communicate between the lens and the camera, so that you can adjust your aperture and so your AF will still work. As long as you get those two features, it doesn't really matter what brand you get. I would recommend looking for ones that have metal mounting surfaces, but that's about it.

The IQ is affected by the lens more than anything else I believe. Looking at your list, you have a pretty good selection of lenses for the task. The only one that might not work with tubes is the kit lens due to it's EF-S mount. That's no great loss though. You probably won't use your tubes below 50mm anyways.

the canon ones are WAY too expensive...

most people use either kenko or jessops

they come in a set of 3
kenko ones are about $120

mine are jessops and are 31mm 21mm and 13mm..
it is basically just a hollow barrel with an ef mount on each end.....one that connects to the camera.....the other you put the lens on...it has metal pins so that the lens and body still have contact electronically (so you can change aperture)....
you're just exending the distance of the back of the lens from the sensor... which means you have to move closer to let the light rays converge at the sensor plane and get focus....

EDIT: lol must have been typing that at the same time as you Brad
just to add
the tubes have no effect on the image quality of the lens.... they do however lose light (can't remember off the top of my head how much )so you have to compensate for that.... and at the apertures you're using in macro ..........around f/8- f/10 its gonna be dark anyway.....with bugs you need a quick shutter speed.... so you end up having to use flash.

Waves:
TPBM is striped.

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Ya know what's funny tho? Although the "keeper ratio" goes up, so do your standards, so you still end up trashing a lot.

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All this tube talk... I'm getting antsy. Must order mine....must order mine today.

anyways i've got images to process.... BBL

Athena wrote:
Ya know what's funny tho? Although the "keeper ratio" goes up, so do your standards, so you still end up trashing a lot.

thats true
but i still keep more than i bin

Kristina: Nice stripes

Nice bike Kristina, LOL.
Interesting name for the building in the background... doesnt that mean 'ours' ? Proud owners.

Athena wrote:
Ya know what's funny tho? Although the "keeper ratio" goes up, so do your standards, so you still end up trashing a lot.

Oh, that is so true! Lately, I've been becoming downright brutal when it comes to weeding out the non-keepers after a shoot. Sometimes I even have to go back, because none of the 15 shots I took of that came out quite right...