Image courtesy: Photoscala.de
Kenko announced two new 10mm and 16mm extension tube that fit in between the lens and the camera mount. It will transform any E-Mount lens in a macro lens! You can also use both extensions at the same time. The probably bigger news here is that it has electronic contacts to allow autofocusing and aperture control. The tubes will be available some time within April and cost around 216 Euro each.
I don’t know where you can buy Kenko stuff in local stores. I found some of their lenses and adapters on [shoplink 12067 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].
24 Responses
Now, that’s great news! I have a fair amount of macro gear for serious shooting, but those two extension tubes take up a lot less space and will come in handy in situations when I didn’t want to bring the heavy stuff. Lovely!
What happens if you put the 30mm macro on these things? A close focus distance of… negative 2 inches? Just what I always wanted, to photograph the INSIDE of my lens! 🙂
What happens if I put a 50 mm (non-macro) on these things? Or even a 50 mm macro via an adapter? In the latter case I could just use an A-mount extension tube and place it in front of the adapter rather than behind and tell you exactly what happens, but if I want to use E-mount lenses, that’s not an option.
The 50 mm macro with 12, 20 and 36 mm extension tubes will not let you photograph the inside of your lens, so a 10 mm tube won’t do it for a 30 mm, either.
http://i1.treklens.com/photos/2696/mellemringe2.jpg
Great. Now we just need lenses that work with these. 24 and 50mm are way too short with extension tubes. I have been using my zeiss 135mm f1.8 with Kenko extension tubes for a while, and that combination is actually really good with small macro-work.
50mm is pretty perfect to work with extension tubes. any longer and this tubes won’t do you much good.
A general rule is “Magnification gained = length of tubes / focal length”. So the shorter the focal length is – the bigger the magnification.
Have you actually use extension tubes? Sounds like you haven’t. If you use extension tubes with short focal lengths, your working distance get extremely small. This is example: With canon 50mm f.8 + 12mm extension tube, your working distance is 15.5-24cm. This means you can’t take pictures of object that’s further than 24cm. With 20mm extension tube your working distance is 12-15.5cm.
With Canon 100mm lens + extension tube your working distance is now much larger: 51-92cm.
Ok, this might not be problem, if you are only taking pictures of non-motile objects. But with moving objects, short focal lengths are useless with extension tubes at least for me.
He’s right, though. A given extension tube will be more efficient the shorter the focal length.
http://i1.treklens.com/photos/2696/mellemringe2.jpg
(Note: “mellemringe” means “extension tubes”).
any rumors of the impending announcements?
Good luck to Kenko! They must be filling it with special grade air to price it at 216 Euros/each!
I am looking for the 50 Euro Chinese knockoffs.
Rather than gold plating, the contacts are solid gold. That’s the secret.
Solid gold is soft and would just rub off. So, you are saying that these are utterly useless as well? 😉
Good god, 21.6 euros would be more like it.
Ones more DG and not DGX and for shuch a price? 🙁
I thought: great news! Until I read how much they would cost. Could almost buy a real macro lens for that kind of money. Not that there is much choice in native E-mount macro lenses.
The Raynox close-up lenses are much cheaper and I think would give better results in practice.
woww, it’s a really good news 😀
Soviet Gelios-44 and M42 extantion tubes will cost almost nothing. 🙂
Correction: 216 EUR for the set, not for each ring.
The Kenko rings for DSLRs- 3 ring set- sells for ~US $150. The cheaper Meiko ones (again 3 ring set) for ~US $65 (shipped).
Why would anyone buy these even if they sell for 100 Euros a piece???????
I think it’s too cheap. I want to pay 500 euro’s for half a tube .. 😛
A smart monkey might mod one of these as starting point for fully compatible Vectis lens adapter.
Now that I’d happily pay 216 euros for. The V lenses are surprisingly good.
Good news and thanks for passing it on. I use a Zeiss 100mm f2.0 Makro lens with a Leitax bayonet on my A900. Very nice lens but a bit restricted as it only goes to 1:2. I have been wondering whether to get a NEX-7 for easier focussing and extra magnification. I’ve been hoping some good quality extension tubes for the E mount will be coming out to add a bit more magnification.
The Zeiss is a long, heavy lens and I would much prefer to effectively hang the NEX-7 body on a shortish tube with the tripod attached to the E to A mount adaptor.
Cheaper to buy, attach and use the A mount extension rings!