For this I use my trusty 50 mm 1.8 D Nikkor lens and a couple of extension tubes. The extension tubes are just hollow tubes with an approximate diameter of your everyday standard lens. There is a special front and back connector that lets you connect the tube to your camera and your lens to the tube. Just like a normal lens. The idea behind this is that if your lens element is further away from the sensor you get a different (bigger) magnification. There are three units that can be screwed in-between the front and back elements and they vary in length so you get different magnification with each different element. And you can stack them as well! Best part is; there are no glass elements involved other than your own lens so no loss in quality! Another good point is that they are a relatively cheap option for the beginning macro-enthousiast. Top brands make them, third party brands make em, but I got mine for €10,- from a budget website. I mean it’s just a hollow tube with screw-thread!

Here’s a small video on extension tubes by Matt Granger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbcrrd9eLgY

A little downside of this all is that you lose autofocus and aperture control via the camera. That is one of the reasons why I use my ‘old’ 50 mm, it lets me set the aperture manually… The more modern lenses don’s let you do these kind of things. The other reason is that it’s 1.8 😉 and I love bokeh!

Now I must say that none of these images are shot at f 1.8 that is because at its widest aperture most lenses just aren’t the sharpest so I usually stop down to f 2.8 or f 4 if the light will let me.

So lets’ cut to the chase. what are the results? Focus manually, expose manually Shoot handheld, focussed with live view, getting dirty hands and knees…

Here are the results, click on them for a bigger view and please let me know what you think in the comments!