Manual Extension Tube Question

akazoly · Jan 30, 2011

Hi,
I ordered a manual extension tube from ebay.
I have an aperture ring on the lens, but I don't know how can I estimate the shutter speed (I don't have metering).

Is there any formula on the web? At least, something which helps me a bit. I shoot RAW.

Thank you!

tirediron · Jan 31, 2011

Not really. The Sunny 16 rule doesn't apply in macro work. You have two options: (1) Buy a hand-held light meter (lots of them available cheaply on eBay/Craig's List) or (2) Guesstimate. The beauty of shooting digital is that you can review your shots. It won't take very long before you will be able to reasonably accurately, estimate the exposure for a given situation.

davebmck · Jan 31, 2011

Just use your histogram. After a couple of test shots, you should be able to get the exposure nailed. I do this when shooting moon shots. The camera meter never seems to get this right.

akazoly · Feb 1, 2011

Thank you!
I shoot RAW. I heard that I can recover 1-2 stops in Camera RAW. Is it true?
tirediron, can you recommend me an inexpensive light meter model?
Thank you!

Drake · Feb 1, 2011

akazoly said:
I heard that I can recover 1-2 stops in Camera RAW. Is it true?

It is true, but I wouldn't rely on it that much. The recovered highlights may have bad colors, and you will get noise in recovered shadows. It can save a photo, but don't take photos keeping in mind you can do that later.

Read your histogram on site and get your exposure right. It's really not that simple and effective to do in post.

akazoly · Mar 2, 2011

Thank you!
I attached the first and the second tubes to the Nikkor 50mm f/1.8.
I'm using this one:
3 Ring Macro Extension Tube For NIKON

I have a question. How can I focus? Is it possible to use the focus ring on the lens? The green dot ialways flicker.
Is it enough to move closer to the subject and take the photo? Without paying attention to the focus indicator?

I heard I can't rely on the focus ring with the extension tubes.

RacePhoto · Mar 4, 2011

Sorry to be missing something, but what Nikon camera do you have that has no manual focusing and no meter?

If it's a DSLR you can see what you have. So are you using a rangefinder or something?

akazoly said:
Thank you!
I attached the first and the second tubes to the Nikkor 50mm f/1.8.
I'm using this one:
3 Ring Macro Extension Tube For NIKON

I have a question. How can I focus? Is it possible to use the focus ring on the lens? The green dot ialways flicker.
Is it enough to move closer to the subject and take the photo? Without paying attention to the focus indicator?

I heard I can't rely on the focus ring with the extension tubes.

KmH · Mar 4, 2011

akazoly said:
Thank you!
I shoot RAW. I heard that I can recover 1-2 stops in Camera RAW. Is it true?

No. It is not true, or at least, it depends.

If a pixel was completely blown at capture (clipped to 255 in all 3 color channels) there is no image data that can be recovered.

If one or more color channels have some detail left the transition from totally blown highlights to recovered highlight looks unnatural.

I recommend you get the inexpensive book: Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS5.

KmH · Mar 4, 2011

RacePhoto said:
Sorry to be missing something, but what Nikon camera do you have that has no manual focusing and no meter?

If it's a DSLR you can see what you have. So are you using a rangefinder or something?

Cheap eBay extension tubes do not have the electronic contacts needed to transmit metering and focus information to/from the lens.