As some regular readers know I’ve been experiencing some quality and durability issues with my Vello Extension Tubes for Nikon 1. These tubes are in the process of being redesigned with metal mounts which should be a significant improvement over the plastic mount version currently available. Since I do a fair amount of work with my Nikon 1 gear with extension tubes I didn’t have the luxury of time to wait for the redesigned tubes. I decided to investigate some other options and recently I purchased a set of Movo Extension Tubes for Nikon 1. Their main selling feature are the metal mounts. What follows is a brief Movo Extension Tube hands-on review.

NOTE: Click on images to enlarge.

The Movo Extension Tubes for Nikon 1 come in a three focal length set: 10 mm, 16 mm, and 21 mm. Each extension tube can be used independently or combined into various configurations. I did some testing with these tubes using the Nikon 1 30-110 mm f/3.8-5.6 and the Nikon 1 CX 70-300 mm f/4.5-5.6 and in a recent article detailed some of my testing results.

As you can see in the image above, even when all three Movo Extension Tubes are joined together and mounted with the Nikon 1 30-110 mm f/3.8-5.6 and V2 body, the result is a small, lightweight rig.

These Movo tubes appear to be more solidly built than the Vello tubes I’ve used in the past. The metal mounts really help create a solid coupling between the camera body and lens. They fit nice and snug and there is very little play once the tubes are mounted.

When using extension tubes changing the focal length of your zoom lens often acts like a primary focusing mechanism and having solid metal mounts creates a feeling of security when putting any kind of torque on the tubes.

I didn’t notice any kind of negative effect on auto-focus performance while using these tubes. This allowed me to focus quite precisely while shooting held-hand even in somewhat breezy, outdoor conditions, grabbing focus on the stamen in the flower image above for example.

I spent some time at the Butterfly Conservatory in Niagara Falls, Canada and captured a number of close up images. In an earlier article I featured a number of images of butterflies feeding.

Here are a few additional butterfly images captured with the help of the Movo Extension Tubes for Nikon 1.

Shooting outdoors this time of year in Southern Ontario is a bit of a challenge as many of the flowers are well past their prime and the majority of insects have disappeared. I was able to capture some images of flies buzzing in and around some of the last flowers in our yard. This really tested the auto-focusing speed of my Nikon 1 V2 as the flies were extremely active.

No extension tube review would be complete without a few close up images of flowers and I did manage to capture a few usable images.

To provide a sense of scale I shot one-handed in order to capture the thumb of my left hand in the image above.

A lone beetle dropped in by chance which gave me an image opportunity.

Whenever extension tubes are used there is a loss of light and you’ll notice that many of these images were shot at very high ISO’s since I was primarily shooting with all three tubes mounted at the same time.

I haven’t had these Movo Extension Tubes for Nikon 1 very long, but so far I am quite satisfied with their construction and performance. At $50 US on Amazon.com I think they are good value.

If you enjoyed this article and would like to learn more about the Nikon 1 system, you may want to have a look at our eBook, The Little Camera That Could. It illustrates the capability of the Nikon 1 system through hundreds of original photographs. There is also commentary and tips about the Nikon 1 system. The cost is $9.99 Canadian.

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