Anyone ever used these macro tubes?

[Chris Johnston]

bhphotovideo

Never having done the macro type stuff, I was curious if anyone has ever used these before. If so, and I wanted to shoot something the size of a grasshopper, how far any should the cam be to get a full screen shot of the grasshopper? with say a 50mm or 85mm? some of the reviews say as close as 1 inch???? is that right or am I confused? (more than normal)

 

[Gene Sung]

Macro tubes SUCK and I would just get a real 1:1 macro lens. The big problem with macro tubes, especially with video is that your camera has to be at a FIXED distance in order for the object to be in focus. With normal lenses, you set your camera at say.... 10 inches back, you adjust the focus ring and the subject comes into focus.

With Macro tubes, depending on which one you use, your camera has to be at a FIXED distance, let say..... 8 inches from the subject for it to be in focus at all. There is a really narrow range of maybe 1 inch max where you can physically move the camera back in forth in order to get focus. The traditional way of using the focus ring to focus is almost not functional with tubes.

Sorry if the wording is confusing, but it's hard to describe until you actually do it, then you just want to pull your hair out.

I can see if you are doing stills, macro tubes would be a bit better since you need just 1 frame. But for video where the subject is constantly moving, it's very hard to get focus with macro tubes. I would avoid them. I personally have the Canon 100mm L IS Macro, and that is a great, great macro lens and is much more flexible to work with than tubes.