Close Focus Without a Macro Lens

In January I had a 'spring clean' and cleared out some of the photographic items I wasn't using. One of the lenses I sold was the 60mm macro, the reason for this was the fact I had the 56mm f1.2 and I was shooting macro images infrequently.

Today I was out shooting in the Lammermuir Hills in and around the village of Abbey St Bathans.  The first place I stopped was down by the Whiteadder Water, taking shots of the fast moving river.  Along the bank there were some wild flowers so I decided to use the 56mm f1.2 lens with the 16mm extension tube fitted to see how close I could focus with and with the extension tube.  The results were excellent.

Here is the shot of the Common Bugloss (Anchusa Officials) with out the extension tube fitted and the focus of the 56mm lens set to the closest point.

Here is the shot with the 16mm extension tube fitted between the body and the lens and the closest focus point is now a lot closer than without the extension tube fitted.  This shot is full frame and isn't cropped in anyway.

Because the FX lenses are 'fly by wire' the extension tubes need to have the electronic contacts to pass the signals from the body to the lens.  Without these contacts the lens wouldn't be able to focus manually.

Fujifilm do make extension tubes in 16mm and 11mm but there are some third party items available like the ones I am using from FOTGA.  The genuine Fujifilm items are £70 each while a set of 16mm + 10mm FOTGA extension tubes are a fraction of that price (CLICK HERE).  

Now like everything in life you get what you pay for and the Fujifilm items are better built but the FOTGA items do the job and I have not had any problems using them and at £29.99 for the pair compared to £140 for the two Fujifilm tubes the price is excellent.  If I did a lot of macro work I would buy the genuine items but for the amount of times I do close focus work the FOTGA items are perfect.

CONCLUSION
If you do a lot of macro photography then the 60mm f2.4 is the lens for you.  However if, like me, you just want to 'dabble' then the extension tubes solution is probably the most cost effective.  I have also tried the extension tubes on the 35mm f1.4 and it works well with this lens as well.  

Extension tubes are a compromise over the cost of a dedicated macro lens but  I have found the resulting images to be good enough for my needs. 

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