Photo Tip Friday: Extension tubes they’re not just for macro photography
This portrait of a wild bald eagle was made on the Homer Spit in Alaska. While he was wild he was an eagle that had spent a lot of time in this tourist town and was therefore habituated to the presence of people. A situation I am always on the lookout for. But even with that in my favor I still spent a couple of hours slowly working my way in close enough to make this image.
I used my 600mm lens with a 1.7 converter and about 100mm of extension. That’s right extension tubes. Many people only think to use extension tubes on a macro lens to make it focus closer. But the fact is they can be used on any lens to make it focus closer. I will often use extension tubes on my longer lenses to allow them to focus in tighter than their minimum focus distance. Enabling me to make close-up shots like this eagle or create frame-filling images of smaller subjects like warblers.
