My Head Hurts - Tubes or Teleconverter

Can somebody break this down to what a newbie can understand? What's the difference between Kenko "tubes" and "Teleconverters" with glass in them? When should each be used and when shouldn't they? Which lenses benfit and which don't?

Maybe I just need an Aspirin?

Tubes are just that, extension tubes. No glass. Makes your minimum focus distance [a lot] shorter, so allows you to focus much closer. You lose infinity focus, but it's mainly for macro or fun stuff like portraits with ridiculously long glass.

Teleconverters are exactly that, they magnify the image produced by the lens. It allows you to shoot longer.

OK....the short course....tubes have no glass in them...they simply are placed between the body of the camera and the lens. This reduces the focus distance, allowing you to focus on a subject that is much closer than normal. This gives you a form of magnification...aka Macro photography. Since there are no optics involved, the extension tube causes no appreciable light loss.

A teleconverter has optical glass as part of its construction. The additional lens elements also perform a bit of magnification....most commonly being 1.4 and 2x...A teleconverter is generally used with a telephoto lens to increase the focal length of the lens. (ie...a 300mm lens with a 1.4x TC becomes an effective 420mm lens, 600mm with a 2x TC) The other difference is teleconverters have optics that cause light loss. A 1.4x converter causes 1 full stop of loss and a 2x converter causes 2 full stops of light loss.

Bottom line...tubes are for short range magnification....TC's for long range magnification.

So you wouldn't use tubes on a 100-400, and you wouldn't use glass on a Sigma 105 Macro?

You could use tubes on the 100-400, and you could use glass on a Sigma 105. It depends what you want to do.

Tubes on a 100-400 would give you closer focussing, you can play with macro giving you a crazy long working distance. You could also get some nice narrow DOF at 400mm with tubes if you're interested in doing dramatic headshots or something.

Teleconverters on a SIgma doesn't make too much sense since it's already quite slow. if you put a 1.4x you'll be at 140mm and f/4. With 2x you'll be at 210 and f/5.6. You slap telecoverters on your long/fast lenses to get more reach.

Thanks everybody. I just love this place. Ask for help understanding a detail, and there's someone here who can answer it right away.

The little light turned on, I got it...

can you combine tubes and teleconverter? it will magnify coz of the teleconverter, but will it magnify more coz of the tubes? is there a particular order of the combination or can it be either way?

the.good.life wrote in post #2046902
can you combine tubes and teleconverter? it will magnify coz of the teleconverter, but will it magnify more coz of the tubes? is there a particular order of the combination or can it be either way?

Yes you can
Pretty certain in this situation you put the TC on the camera first and then the ext tubes. That gives the highest magnification.
Using either ext tubes or a converter will result in light loss but you also lose IQ with the converter.
Brian V.

canonloader,
You can use either tubes or TC's, better results from tubes vs TC's, but both give higher magnifications.

the.good.life,
Yes you can combine tubes and TC's and it will magnify because of both. Infact to use a Canon TC with a Canon 100mm f/2.8 macro lens (and many other lenses) you need a 12mm extension tube or it wont fit.

Here is a page I made to show the mag levels gotten with a 100mm with tubes, a 2xTC and both.

If I could only have one (I need both for TC) I would take the tubes first