A day with Keio Mogusaen plum blossoms! I was excited. Finally, I would use the Fujifilm MCEX-16 macro extension tube I recently purchased. While I got a lot of good photos, the day didn’t work out as I had planned. Still, I had a great time and learned something too.

While on the train to the park, I saw the weather looked pretty good. But, it did look a little hazy, which worried me. And that worry was well-founded as upon arrival. I proceeded straight to the top of the hill. Mount Fuji wasn’t there. Clouds covered it. That was disappointing, but there was nothing I could do about it.

There were few people at the park, and the flowers looked incredible. Mount Fuji could wait until another day. I was happy with the Keio Mogusaen plum blossoms. It had been a few years since I had seen them look so good.
After getting most of the pictures I wanted, I used the extension tubes. I was a little nervous about using them because I only had limited time to practice with them.

The MCEX-16 macro extension tube was easy to use. It simply went between the camera and the lens. The build quality was excellent, and it fits very snugly with everything.

By the way, do you know what an extension tube is? Well, you know how I often talk about buying a macro lens for photographing flowers? My budget wouldn’t stretch for one of those, but I got the tube was the next best thing.

An extension tube is a poor man’s macro. They are cheap and allow you to get much closer to your subject. Actually, you can only focus on things very near with them attached to your camera. That is a real downside, but they are better than nothing.

I couldn’t believe how close the camera needed to focus on the flowers. The Fujifilm 16-55 mm f/2.8 has a minimum focus distance of 30cm. With the tube and the lens extended to 55 mm, that distance became approximately 5 cm.

Well, I learned one thing about this tube. I need a lot more practice. With it on my camera, the depth of field becomes so narrow. I had one part of the flower in focus in many photos, but the rest were too blurry.

That’s not a problem. It became a learning experience. I’ll practice with them again when I have time. Eventually, I’ll work out how to get the best out of them. Hopefully, that will be before the cherry blossom season.

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Please check out the main article about Keio Mogusaen. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below. I will do my best to answer everyone.
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