Olympus 40-150mm with Kenko extension tubes

I got this lens yesterday for a measly $99 and went through the neighborhood with it without any special attachments. Today I put 26mm worth of Kenko extension tubes on it to capture some close-ups at distance. The following is a link to the entire collection of a mere 13 images. At the end of this post, I've included a selection of 7 at full resolution.

The Album using 40-150mm with Kenko Extension Tubes

At 40mm, images are in focus about 2 inches from the front of the lens and appeared at least 1:1. Not too useful, and I'm much better off with my Olympus 60mm macro lens. At 150mm, focus is about four feet, and a subject up to 4 inches high could fit into the landscape frame. In practice, I was unable to get the entire diameter of a yellow 4 inch flower, as you'll see.

I wanted to take pictures of early spring flowers but the neighborhood I went through had hardly any flowers! The neighborhood was full of large, upscale houses, some of them mansions, but for the most part all they had were perfectly manicured green lawns. I guess if I want to find flowers around here I have to go through the more middle class neighborhoods. But I did find some small trees with interesting lichen and moss.

All images taken on a tripod. I started out at f/8 but the depth of field was too narrow, and soon went to f/11. I tried these extension tubes with the Lumix 45-200mm and at 200mm got a wider field of view, so except for the lens creep, that lens is going to be better than the 40-150 for taking pictures of roses and other flowers that size when they eventually come out. This month I'll be getting the Panasonic 75-300mm, and the 300mm should give me more distance and wider field of view.

With the 150, I'll probably be better off using a single Kenko extension tube, either the 10mm alone or the 16mm alone.



Couldn't quite capture this 4" diameter flower

Took off the extension tubes and trained 150mm across the valley at the houses on the other side. Since everything is at infinity, landscape curvature does not interfere with edge sharpness.