Kenko DG Auto Extension Tube Set for the Nikon AF Mount

Due to the larger format; if you want to shoot macro with a dSLR then you have two workable choices: buy macro lenses, or use macro extension tubes.

Many people will tell you that extension tubes are a cheap alternative to a good macro lens but it's simply not true. The truth is that all a macro lens is; is a normal lens with an extension tube built in.

The only advantage to using a true macro lens over tubes is that macro lenses can also focus to infinity, whereas you can't do this without taking macro tubes off. But who shoots macro at 50yards anyway? Not to mention that many macro lenses are slow and inaccurate when focusing at distance.

Macro lenses are fine, but they're expensive and one might not be enough for you. For example: a 60mm macro lens will be great for stamps, coins and REALLY close up arty shots of textures you can barely see, but you'll need something around the 90mm+ range to keep out of your own light when not using flash. Then if you want to photograph skittish insects, you'll need something in the 150mm+ range in order to be sure you don't scare them off. Put all of that together and you're well in to four figures of hard cash.

With extension tubes you can add varying degrees of extension which in turn reduces the minimum focus distance of whatever lens you put on them. And that's the important thing: you can turn any lens you own into a very flexible macro lens.

So if you already own a 50mm, 85mm and 150mm, or zooms that cover those focal lengths then you can pretty much have a macro lens for every occasion for less than the price of one such macro lens.

Plus, you'd need a whole new camera bag to carry that many macro lenses. These extension tubes are about the size of a small lens and much much lighter!

How is the image quality? As good as any macro lens I've seen! Because the extension tubes have no glass elements, the image quality is equal to that of the lens you're using. Personally I use fast primes which although old designs, are some of the sharpest lenses ever produced.

Yes, you lose some light gathering ability when using the extension tubes, but most macro lenses are only F2.8 anyway. An f1.8 or f1.4 primes will still gather at least as much light when used with these tubes and with the TTL metering of an SLR you don't need to worry about your metering because the camera compensates for you.

Besides, you'd never shoot a macro lens wide open anyway because you need to stop down to increase the shallow depth of field you get from photographing something so close. This is also true for real macro lenses.

Autofocus also becomes unreliable when using all three tubes stacked together (which gives you an enormous 68mm of extension taking a 50mm lens way beyond the 1 : 1 of many macro lenses by the way) but at those sort of magnifications, any macro lens becomes difficult to autofocus.

Professionals almost always do macro in Manual Focus for this reason as focus with such shallow depth of field is amazingly critical.

The build quality is the one area that I feel could be improved for these extension tubes. They're solid enough, but only plastic. Although the mounts are solid metal which has resisted corrosion completely on my sample.

If you don't knock them around then I have no doubt that they'll last a lifetime. Although when I've used them on longer lenses and left the weight of the camera to hang on the lens, I've found that the weight of my D300 is enough to stretch the play in the connectors to the point that I sometimes lose aperture control. They're not going to come apart without depressing the lock buttons though and I've been unable to replicate this problem in normal use.

To summarise: I wholy recommend these extension tubes to anyone looking for a compact, cost effective, one stop macro solution.

Very happy with this purchase, I can now focus much closer without having a dedicated macro lens.

You do need to keep in mind that changing the focal length will cause it to go out of focus and that the depth of field is reduced although that is probably what you are looking for if using these anyway and that would apply equally to all makes of extension tubes.

On my Nikon D5000 using this tubes I also get full AF-S auto focus on every one of my lenses.

The extension tubes are easy to use and very effective. I use the tubes with my sigma 180 mm 1:1 macro and get very good results. The quality of image doesn't suffer at all.