Nikon 105mm Macro VR with Raynox DCR-250

[Bruce Williams]

Update: After giving a lot of thought to all the various and helpful comments I have decided to go for a second set of Kenko extension tubes (£125 incl. postage). My decision was made mainly on the flexibility (I hope) they will give me and the fact that I have been very pleased with the results obtained from the first set.

It took me a while to become confident hand-holding 68mm of extension (giving approx. 2X mag.) and the extra set will allow me to perm any set-up from the six tubes up to 136mm. Initially I'll try with 92mm (2 x 36mm + 20mm) and then add the second 20mm once I get a feel for dof, working distance and spotting critical focus.

I already stack a lot of my hand held shots (typically 3 frames) and I guess that now I'll be doing a lot more as I'll be opening up the aperture to avoid excessive loss of IQ due to diffraction limitation - and of course dof will anyway reduce as I up the magnification - so a double hit really.

Thanks for all your help everyone.

Bruce