Tim, extension tubes are a decent, inexpensive way to extent your photography towards close-up and macro. No additional glass, and automatic aperture and auto-focus are retained. Extention tubes are a bit slower to use because of the additional mounting and unmounting required.
Regular (i.e. non-macro) lenses are not designed for 1:1 magnification, and you'll loose a little bit of contrast and sharpness of the original lens with the extension tubes. If you start with an "L" lens, you should be satisfied with the quality when used with an extension. A way to avoid using lenses "out of spec" would be to use a closeup attachment lens, preferably a 2-element lens like the 500D. This type of lens looks like a screw-on filter in front of the lens. But this has the disadvantage of additing lens surfaces (potential for increased flare, reduced contrast.) Neither solution is perfect - but there is no such thing as a perfect lens in real life anyways. I went for the extention tubes, because I needed the 12mm extention tube for stacking the 2x and 1.4x (mk I) TC. http://www.larsmichael.com/cgi-bin/gallery?series=garden_flowers&page=3&image=2001082801002s http://www.larsmichael.com/cgi-bin/gallery?series=garden_flowers&page=2&image=2001070201013s One was taken with the new 100/2.8 macro, the other one with the 70-200/2.8 plus extention tubes. The following photograph was done with the 50/1.4 plus extention tubes: http://www.larsmichael.com/cgi-bin/gallery?series=garden_flowers&page=3&image=2001082801016s I only tried this combination because I didn't have the macro lens with me, and it was getting dark, making focussing on a slow lens difficult. I'm very satisfied with the performance of the 50/1.4 with extension. Macro work can be a lot of fun! Lars -- Lars Michael [EMAIL PROTECTED] 87GT http://www.larsmichael.com/ * **** ******* *********************************************************** * For list instructions, including unsubscribe, see: * http://www.a1.nl/phomepag/markerink/eos_list.htm ***********************************************************
