Make a DIY Extension Tube to Turn Your Regular Lens Into a Macro Lens

Looking for a simple weekend project that lets you experiment with photography? Makify created this 4-minute step-by-step tutorial on how you can create a DIY extension tube using some plastic piping to capture macro photos using your regular lens.

Extension tubes don’t contain any optical elements and are simply designed to move your lens farther from your camera’s image plane. Unless you get one with electrical contacts for allowing your camera to communicate with the attached lens, it’s essentially a simple tube with mounts on the ends.

Thus, all you need to create a rudimentary extension tube is a plastic pipe (of the correct diameter) and lens/body caps to allow the pipe to attach to lenses and cameras.

You can refer to this online Macro Extension Tube Calculator to figure out how long to cut your tube to fit your needs.

Here are some sample photos captured by Makify using its DIY extension tube:

DIY Extension Tube [YouTube]

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Image credits: Video and still frames by Makify