Making an Extension Tube

Hello everyone out there in the photo world! I hope that you are all getting these DIYs going at home and photographing as much as possible. If I haven’t sparked an interest so far, I have a feeling that this one will. For all of you Macro shooters out there and those that wish to be one, I have a project here that can bring that magnification to an even greater reach. Today we will be making a homemade extension tube for just $4.00 believe it or not. An extension tube is a device that increases the space between our camera and our lens. We take the minimum focus distance on the lens and get even closer to our subject which in turn gives us even more magnification….and let’s be honest, who wouldn’t want that?!

Now for our materials…some of this can most likely be found at home already.

• PVC pipe about 3-4” in length

• Rear cap of a lens

• Body cap

• Electrical tape

• Super Glue

• Dremel

The steps in this DIY are so simple. First we take the electrical tape and cover the entire PVC pipe. This will make sure that the inside is completely black and no light is reflected or leaked out. Next part is probably the most difficult. One reason being that we will use the dremel, but also because we need to sacrifice some gear. We will need to cut holes out of our rear lens cap and body cap. I know this may be hard for some of you because of how much we love our equipment. But this is a necessary step so luckily we can go out and buy some new caps to use or replace. So with the dremel, cut out a hole as big as possible. I found that the diameter of the PVC pipe fit perfectly with my caps on. Now we just take the caps and super glue them to the PVC pipe. One end will attach to the lens and the other to our camera body.

Now the fun part…go and see what kind of results we get! I was shooting with my Tamron 16-300mm f/3.5-6.3…it already has an impressive magnification. When I’m zoomed out to 300mm, I can get a 1:2.9 magnification and 15.3”. But of course us photographers want faster, bigger, and closer. So I mount my extension tube and get another 4” closer. I’m still able to fine focus and retain even more detail than before. Now one thing to consider is that we need to work in full manual mode and manual focus. Because the camera and lens are not attached, there is no communication. There is no control on F stops so we need to do a trial and error on our exposure with shutter speeds and ISO. A tripod is absolutely a necessity as it always should be when we’re shooting macro. After some test shots, I was able to get some results and had a ton of fun with it.

So there you have it…another DIY in the books. I hope this comes to you easily and are able to get some cool shots. Have fun everyone and happy shooting!