There is a lot of discussion on-line about whether extension tubes or close-up lenses work better. My argument FOR the extension tubes is that the image quality from a cheap extension tube, by design, will be better than the image quality from a cheap close-up lens. Since the extension tubes do not contain any optics, they should be the wayto go. Not that there are no good close-up lenses, it’s just that they are not cheap. The drawbacks of extension tubes, is the close focus distance and loss of light. In my case, I am using an f/2.8 lens and a 1D series camera to compensate for the light loss, and with a 70 mm f/2.8, the distance from the lens to the subject is about an inch. It just works great.