Whether in an aviary or the backyard, shooting butterflies can be just as rewarding as any other kind of wildlife photography, and it will not break your budget. With good technique and patience professional quality results may be obtained by adding little if anything to your camera bag. Images that reveal details of butterfly anatomy and behavior have great impact and attract much attention. Below are some numbers which should help you choose the right accessory for the job. Adding extension tubes causes significant loss of light of up to two stops but your TTL metering system will compensate for this.
Auto focus is lost with the use of most extension tubes.
You do not loose any light with close-up lenses . The 1.4x and 2x teleconverters multiply the focal length and the magnification by 1.4 and 2 respectively. The 1.4x takes away one and the 2x takes two stops of light. Nearly all teleconverters are not recommended for zoom lenses. The nice thing about photo.net used to be that there were pictures everywhere.