Thursday, October 05, 2006

Getting Closer

Recently I was looking though a junk shop when I came across what looked to be a leather lens case. After opening and looking inside I found it to be a set of extension tubes and even better they were in my camera mount, the Nikon F mount.
Great! costing only one UK pound (just over a dollar) a bargain to boot!
Those of you who read this blog and know the equipment I use, will understand that there will be one problem; metering.
I meter externally, that is I don't use camera TTL but rather a Minolta Spotmeter F.

The problem is this: Putting in an extension will reduce the amount of light reaching the film plane and we will need to do some maths to give us the correct exposure.

The formula is here and isn't as tough as it seems at first.

So I set off to my favourite garden armed with my F2 and tripod loaded with Kodachrome to take some macro flower shots.
Once I'd taken a meter reading and worked out my exposure most of the rest was pretty easy, a slight wind being the only complication.
Extension tubes are a great way to do macro 'on the cheap' it would be possible to get both camera, lens and tubes for less than $100.

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