Help needed with Vivitar Auto Extension tubes

It's only one pin that needs contact. Strangely the tubes
work OK on a Super A camera without any sanding. It seems
that a pin is missing on the digital bodies.

You could try a piece of foil, but it is a tight fit.

This thread may help: link

Hi Paul,

I have only used the tubes with lenses with an aperture ring and set the required aperture on the lens and not the body because of the very problem you are having now.

From my experience if you set the lens to A the lens will always operate fully open as there is no aperture control from the body this is why you see "F--" as the aperture setting. If you are using a DA L lens it will only ever be fully open.

Regardless of the aperture setting on the lens the camera holds the aperture fully open until the shutter is fired. Using the green button when in M mode closes the aperture for metering ie "stop-down metering". You can hear and see the aperture closing down to whatever it is set to on the lens. The shutter speed will adjust apropriately depending on the aperture set on the lens. It's just like using AV mode except that you have to press the green button.

The pin you refer to does retract on my A 50mm but not my FA 50mm and they both behave in the same way when mounted on my K7 with the extension tubes.

I think that the removal of the paint does nothing other than fool the camera into thinking that a lens is attached.

Are you using M mode and stop-down metering?

Regards

Thanks for your excellent reply Mark, I now see that using a lens without an aperture ring is going to pose problems.

I'm going to have a play with the kit again this evening, and see if I can learn more, and then report back.

Took me a while...

Hi again, after playing for a while, I can confirm that stop down metering is working with my Tokina 28-105mm lens, which is fine, and I've managed to take a few interesting shots.

Shame I cant really use my DA L lenses with this, since they lack the aperture ring. The AT-23 version of these tubes would be great to play with, but I am satisfied to play with these AT-22 tubes for now.

Thanks for your help

Hi Paul,

You're most welcome - I'm glad you've managed to get them working (all be it with certain lens restrictions).

You may find that they could be just the excuse you need to buy an a nice A 50mm 1:1.7

You may be right! in fact I have been watching a few on eBay already! I presume the macro shots on your Flickr profile were taken using the aforementioned setup? They are impressive, and certainly inspire me to have a go too.

Happy Snapping

Paul

If you have K mount tubes without contacts then buying a considerably cheaper K mount lens would suffice, assuming it would be used primarily with the tubes of course, if you intend to also use it as a standard lens in its own right then by all means buy the KA mount.