How well do the 12 and 25 Canon Extension Tubes work with "non-macro" lenses? I am considering going this route and using with either the Canon 17-85mm lens or even the 100-400mm lens. Am I wasting my time and money and should invest in a dedicated macro lens? I am pairing with the 7D MkII body
Zooms rarely work really well with macro tubes unless they're designed for it. You might get lucky, but distortion and aberration are fairly likely.
I have the canon 25mm tube and it works reasonably well with a 50mm lens, poorly with anything over 50mm and usually not sucessful with anything less than a 35mm lens. I wouldn't think the 12mm tube is worth having. The best way to try is to pick up a set of cheap non branded extension tubes before you spend out on the more expensive Canon ones. If you want decent results then it is much better to get a dedicated macro lens.
In my opinion, the 12mm is worth having if you want to get only a nice close-up with blurred background, on lenses without a macro. Then you can enter in macro zone with 25mm and 36mm extension tubes. Watch this:
They will do just fine! I often use a 28mm+12mm as a very close up/macro IS lens! I'd suggest you stick to max f4 lens as f5.6+25mm extension can cause AF problems. (I often use a 300mm/4 with a 25mm tube but AF works sluggishly. But with the 12mm tube its just fine, although not close enough!) So, depending what kind of close up or macro work you do, I can suggest you try a 200mm f2.8 and use it with a 25mm tube.
Personally I'd save your money and time and get a dedicated macro lens, if you like shooting macro you'll probably want to upgrade to one anyway. It was one of my earlier purchases when i started going digital. They did have some nice budget options like the 50mm sigma back then too, maybe you can pick up a second hand one for cheap? Kinda wish they had the 100mm L back when i got my 100mm USM.
A macro lens is high quality optics but the question asked here is - it worth the price? I own close up optics (Nikon 4T), extension tubes, macro lenses upto 150mm. I could post images here from all and most people will have a hard time figuring out which optics was used. A Canon 25mm tube can be had for say $50 and a Canon 180mm maybe for $1000+. Will I get 20x the image quality or convenience? No. A macro lens is essential if you really do shoot 'macro' (magnification of 0.5x and higher). For 'close up' shots often loosely labeled as macro, an extension tube is just fine.
Howard, there are a lot of things to consider that would help drive a better response to your query. Are you planning to get a manual tube or one with contacts? Are you planing on other specific lens purchases in the future, and what type? I noticed you have two modest priced APC zooms, are you thinking of only owning crop sensors or possibly getting a full frame some day? The S lenses will not work on full frame. Based on future purchasing plans, how much you want to budget , what your shooting preferences are there are a wide variety of options. The question he asked was if he would be better off investing in a dedicated macro. Not can you get good results from a cheap extension tube. His gear is one pro telephoto zoom, and two shorter EF-S zooms. Others already pointed out less than stellar performance from tubes with the zooms. Yes you can get extension tubes cheap, they would make his lens completely manual, so that's something he can consider; and would be worth a try for the money. The 12 and 25mm canon mk II tubes run 80 and 145 respectively if he wants electrical contacts. He also doesn't have the 200mm 2,8 which a $750 investment. Like I mentioned he can get a decent used sigma 50mm macro for probably 200 or less which would work better than adding an extension tube to the zooms he has. There are plenty of diffident options for a macro lenses which are shorter, faster, and cheaper than the 180mm for over a grand. There are also lenses like my 17-40L which focus very close for a non macro.
This is probably not a good idea but I have ordered a M42 to EOS adapter, thought I might use some of my M42 lenses. Hopefully, M42 55mm and longer prime lenses with preset or Auto/Manual switches can be picked up quite cheaply and used with M42 tubes in AV mode to provide possibly better "macro" images than cheap zoom lenses. Just a thought.
The question he asked was if he would be better off investing in a dedicated macro. Not can you get good results from a cheap extension tube. Why play with words and confuse the issue? Essentially it is the same question. Cost vs. quality is being discussed here. If one can get whatever results one looks or at lower cost from from an extension tube, why go the more expensive macro way? His gear is one pro telephoto zoom, and two shorter EF-S zooms. Others already pointed out less than stellar performance from tubes with the zooms. Any lens that's f5.6 and not L and not a super tele is not really a 'pro' lens. Yes you can get extension tubes cheap, they would make his lens completely manual, so that's something he can consider; and would be worth a try for the money. I did not mention any such rubbish manual only tube. I specifically mention 12/25mm Canons in my earlier posts that retain all automation. The 12 and 25mm canon mk II tubes run 80 and 145 respectively if he wants electrical contacts. The 25mm Canon tube can often be had for $50 on ebay, used. Many are as good as new and being 100% metal, perfectly OK. See: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Canon-Exten...057389?hash=item1a3322a1ed:g:eEMAAOSwaNBUjPae Mint condition, $65 incl shipping. Not $145. He also doesn't have the 200mm 2,8 which a $750 investment. True. Like I mentioned he can get a decent used sigma 50mm macro for probably 200 or less which would work better than adding an extension tube to the zooms he has. There are plenty of diffident options for a macro lenses which are shorter, faster, and cheaper than the 180mm for over a grand. There are also lenses like my 17-40L which focus very close for a non macro.[/QUOTE] A 50mil is not at all versatile, OK for stills and flowers. A 100-400 with a 25mm extension tube will prove more usesful for various subjects. Fitted to a 10-18 lens a 12mm ext tube can also offer interesting close ups upto 0.5x, maybe a bit more. The best!
This forum post has received a lot of advice, some of it in depth and technical and has been going on for some time. My advise is take your camera and lens to a camera store and ask to try them with the extension tubes that you are interested in using or try one of the store's macro lenses. the camera store will usually allow this if they think they will get a purchase from you, then or possibly in the future. The next thing I suggest is rent a macro lens for a day and see if it really meets your needs and expectations.
A word of warning on the cheaper full-auto extension tubes - I recently picked up a set that worked OK but had some weird problems, here's the review I wrote for eBay: Cheap tubes - but you get what you pay for These tubes work and are cheap but the quality is not good. First, the alignment marks on the set I received were about 5mm out of position - it may sound trivial, but it's confusing if you're in a hurry and a nuisance when everything else I own has it right. Second, the fit is tight - it felt like the metal was scraping the plastic of the camera's lens mount as I put it onto the camera. And third, the pins at the back of the tube stick out and jam against the contacts in the camera if you aren't careful. The way I eventually got it to work was to hold the tube pointing down, so that the pins slid forward, then put the tube or tubes onto the camera body, then put the lens on last. I've used other Canon-compatible tubes in the past and none of these problems occurred, so I can only assume that they aren't a particularly good design. Nevertheless I'm cautiously recommending them, because it doesn't look like any of the other tubes in this price range are any better, with a warning to be VERY careful when using them. I should make it VERY clear that I was only recommending them as being usable, not good. There are much better tubes out there; the Kood tubes I tried a few weeks ago were very nice, for example, but weren't compatible with EFs lenses due to the protruding rear part of the lens getting in the way, which is why I ended up buying the cruddy ones. They'll just about do for now, pending something better coming my way at a price I can afford. I have good tubes for my Nikon, so it isn't an urgent problem, I can still do macro work, it would just be handy to have them for Canon sometimes.
