Extension Rings
AF for macro work is of limited use anyway. I have a set of "Triplus" tubes that I got for a snip at Jessops that have the electronic contacts. They work a treat
None of the Pentax tubes have contacts (even the "A" ones).
Matt
Kenko make AF tubes with a Pentax fit, but to be honest, if you are going to be doing any serious macro work, then you will probably find that you'll get more accurate results manually focussing. I've taken shots where the depth of field is less than 1/10 mm, although that's at around 5x magnification.
Autofocus is pretty accurate with the pentax lenses that I've used in the big world, but I doubt you'll be that accurate at any sort of macro scale of magnification.. ie anything greater than 1:1.
You might also want to think about a true AF macro lens. I know there are folks here that swear by the PENTAX FA 100mm f3.5 macro lens, but as you can see here..
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/PENTAX-FA-100mm-f3-5-MACRO-SMC-LENS-PZ-MZ-ist-DL-USED_W0QQ...
you're looking at some serious money, even second hand. No doubt someone will give you more info on the above lens, but as I said, you will probably get more accurate results with manual focussing.
Hope that helps,
Cheers
Liam
"Make your hands respond to what your mind demands." Jesse James
Best wide-angle lens? Two steps backward. Look for the 'ah-ha'. Ernst Haas
There are better Pentax macro lenses. The SMC Pentax-M 100mm f4 is superb and quite often found on eBay. I have recently purchased a SMC Pentax-FA 100mm f2.8 which is a beast of a lens but looks very promising. One advantage will be its 1:1 magnification.
For serious macro photography, I would choose a proper macro lens every time, but don't forget that even close up lenses (filters) will produce very good results very cheaply.
http://www.ephotozine.com/gallery/showlargepic.cfm?photoid=667897
Even shooting bugs hand-held with pop-up flash you don't need AF:
http://www.ephotozine.com/gallery/showlargepic.cfm?photoid=469402
Enjoy
Matt
Hi,
Kenko make AF tubes with a Pentax fit, but to be honest, if you are going to be doing any serious macro work, then you will probably find that you'll get more accurate results manually focussing. I've taken shots where the depth of field is less than 1/10 mm, although that's at around 5x magnification.
I bought a set Kenko tubes from College Cameras (http://www.collegecameras.co.uk/), but they are not AF. They have all the connections for exposure etc but no drive connection for the focusing. Maybe I have a ‘non AF’ set, but I suspect it is a case of AF compatible being marketed as AF.
They are good tubes though and I doubt I would ever use auto focus for macro work anyway.
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Richard