When I bought my Sony camera I immediately decided to not be tempted to get a macro lens for it. I used to love macro photography but since I moved to Ireland I’ve almost quit doing it. This is mostly because of the windy weather and that I love shooting insects, spiders and plants outdoors. Shooting macro is hard enough as it is, and almost impossible most of the year where I live because of the wind. Shooting only fungi and lichen gets old quite soon. I felt that buying a second macro lens would feel like throwing money into the Atlantic, and my Olympus with the 60 mm macro lens is perfectly enough for my macro needs.

But… then came the ifs and buts. The higher image quality from the Sony full-frame camera with the possibility to crop tighter when needed because of higher resolution and better clarity. And when I go to Italy I’ll want to have the option to shoot macro but also wanted my Sony for everything else, would I have to bring two cameras?

So I started looking at extension tubes. These are small rings that you put between the camera and the lens, they extend the focal length and adds the possibility to focus at a shorter distance with any lens, and are a cheap alternative to a macro lens. I started reading about them, looked at example images and searched in the Sony Alpha forums for more information. Then I looked up where to buy extension tubes for Sony E-mount cameras. I found a set on Amazon (I hang my head in shame, but I couldn’t find them anywhere else to send within the EU) and they cost only €30. What was there to lose? Almost nothing!

When they arrived, a few days earlier than expected, it was a lovely day and of course I immediately put both onto my camera and went outside. Why try one at a time? The more, the merrier, right?

With extension tubes, it’s a little bit different than with a macro lens. One is very much enough. Putting both together certainly increases the effect of being able to set the focus at a close distance, but… that was WAY too close. And the greater the magnification, the more every single movement is magnified too. I tried a few shots and then took one of the tubes off, to only use the 16 mm one.

I’m not sure if there’s something special about extension tubes, that I’m out of practice with macro or if I’m just not used to shooting macro with a full-frame camera (the Olympus has a 2.0 crop factor) because I was surprised by how extremely close I had to get to the subject and wondered how will I ever be able to do any insect shots with this thing? Insects will shy away and disappear immediately if you get too close and I’m not one of those who shoot dead insects.

Then I spent a week practising with mostly the 16 mm tube. I have a garden full of oregano plants which attracts crowds of bumblebees so I have lots of “practice subjects”. The problem is, bumblebees are very hard to photograph with any equipment and even with my ultralight Olympus. In addition to that, people say it’s “almost impossible” to use extension tubes with any success without a tripod. I’m not a fan of tripods for this kind of photography and how would you chase bees while stuck on a tripod? I was determined to learn how to do it handheld. Impossible is just an opinion!

I started with non-moving subjects on a rainy day.

Then I went back outdoors.

At this point I had saved maybe 3 out of 100 photos from each shoot. I started thinking that maybe my eyesight has become too bad to be able to fine-tune focusing, and worried it was time to give up on closeup photography altogether.

But I kept working on it, and slowly and steadily with many frustrated moments I began to make progress. The breakthrough came after I watched a YouTube video and was encouraged to ramp up the ISO to use much faster shutter speeds. I’ve always used very low ISO numbers especially for macro, but my Sony can handle a lot of ISO!

After yet another day of practice…

Now the fun (and less frustrating) part of the journey begins, and I can see that these tubes are viable options for shooting macro without spending a lot of money on a lens that I would only use a month or two each year.

What I learned from this was:

Don’t be afraid to use higher ISO
My own camera is really good at producing clear images with higher ISO. It’s generally not a problem as long as the photo is correctly exposed. If there’s annoying noise, there’s the denoise feature in Lightroom and a similar option in Photomator.

Impossible is still just an opinion. Keep practising and try different techniques.
And I’m not a tripod hater, I’ll explore that option with other types of subjects and might have a fun indoor project for the upcoming autumn and winter.

Even the pros get a lot of sh*** photos
The YouTuber I watched leads workshops in macro photography and he said he succeeds with maybe 10% of what he shoots with extension tubes. I’m in good company!

Another time I’ll use the burst mode for a possible higher success rate, and I’ll keep shooting, keep exploring new subjects, and keep having fun with it.