DAY 191

PHOTOGRAPHY 101

Lens Add-Ons

MAKE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHS GROOVIER THAN USUAL

Lens ad-ons are nifty little products that attach directly to your lens or in between the camera body and your lens. Some of the add-ons enable you to add special effects to your images, while others allow your lens to function in an extended capacity.

Extension tubes are placed on the camera body, and then the lens is attached to it. They are used to create more distance between the lens and the film plane or sensor, and allow you to photograph an object from a much closer distance.

Extenders are telephoto accessories and are also placed between the camera body and the lens, to increase the focal length of a lens. They are classified as 2x, 3x, 4x, etc., which means that the focal length of the lens is multiplied by that factor. This is an affordable way to increase the focal length of your lens without spending a lot of money on a new lens. The downside is that the optics are somewhat affected by using these and less-than-optimum photographs sometimes result.

There are several products available that attach to the end of a lens and allow you to change the perspective of the lens or add out-of-focus areas to the edges of the photo, in addition to other special effects. These are not standard accessory types and are made by a variety of manufacturers. —CWN

An example of three different extension tubes.