Moonrise & Aurora

Moonrise & Aurora

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I am trying to to get a Christmas gift for my wife. She has a Cannon Rebel T1i and two lenses that came with it (nothing else).

She has shown some interest in Macro photography with the lenses she has, but she can only focus so close.

I was looking around on Amazon to see what was available and I found these two products:

Macro Ring Flash

Macro Ring Flash Image

Macro Extension Tube Set

Macro Extension Tube Set Image

I have very little experience with cameras, so I don't know if these will actually work. Do these products work? Will they work together?

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2 Answers

up vote 2 down vote

The ring flash comes with six different adapters 49mm/52mm/55mm/58mm/62mm/67mm... as long as your wife is using a lens having one of those filter size, it'll fit. Make sure to order the Canon version of the flash in order to ensure hot-shoe compatibility.

The extension tube you have chosen doesn't have any wiring or electronic component inside, so there shouldn't be any compatibility issues other than EF/EF-S mount. One review states that "It has both red dots, not white to align with EF-S lenses" which refers to its compatibility on both mount types.

And yes they'll work together as you'll be mounting the flash on the front side of your lens and the tube on the back side.

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Don't forget that without any electrical connections on the tube, any lens controls, other than manual, will not work. In a setting like this is very desirable to have a very low aperture due to the DOF being very very narrow in macro (that's why a macro ring is a cool gadget here, to bring up the light in your target), so if you can control the aperture manually it's ok, if not, you might want to look for a tube that allows the electronic connection between the lenses and the machine. – nuno_cruz Dec 14 '11 at 12:45
up vote 2 down vote

Regarding the extension tubes -- these do produce wonderful images. I have a friend who uses them with a standard nifty-fifty 50mm f/1.8 lens to produce fantastic macro shots.

HOWEVER, the set you have shown above does not maintain electrical connections between the lens and the camera body. This means no AF, no aperture control (on lenses that don't already have a manual aperture ring, so you'll be 'stuck' using the lens's widest aperture), and importantly for compatibility with your first item the lens-mounted flash, no TTL flash metering.

I would recommend something like these. These are the type my friend has, and he loves them to bits. They are obviously much more expensive, but maintain all the connections. Check this set on Flickr to see shots of them and that he has taken with them. Incredible...

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Thank you for your answer! Can you tell me what TTL flash metering is? (I am in unfamiliar territory when talking about much more than point and shoot cameras.) – Vaccano Dec 14 '11 at 15:57
1  
Basically it's a way to meter a scene with flash, and stands for "through the lens". Go here moosepeterson.com/techtips/flash.html and scroll down to "Here comes TTL" and it will explain all... – Mike Dec 14 '11 at 23:52

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