We were able to escape Florida's spike in the pandemic by driving up to Maryland for the summer. Since they are more "locked-down" here (a good thing), a lot of the photography I want to do will have to wait a bit longer. But our nearby Nature Conservancy is open and has lots of native flowers in bloom. Fujifilm is not known for their macro lenses and their regular lenses don't have close focusing distances, so I decided to try some inexpensive Meike auto-focus extension tubes (10 & 16mm, ~US$28.00 on Amazon).

So, out to the conservancy I went, with my X-T3, 16-80 and a 16mm extension tube. While I could have used the 10 & 16mm tubes together, they only work well when the focal length of the lens is equal to, or greater than, the extension tube(s). I didn't take my tripod along, as there was a modest breeze blowing. So, all the shots here are hand-held.

Echinacea purpurea	Echinacea purpurea
	Echinacea purpurea

I was very pleasantly surprised at the clarity of the shots.  I found that you have to experiment to find the relatively narrow focus range in which the auto-focus will work. Once you get in that ballpark, the autofocus seems to work well. These close-up images allow us to see nature from yet another perspective. And for me, that is the "raison d'etre" for photography. Seeing the results of this brief experiment, investing such a small sum to add yet another dimension to our photography seems like a no-brainer.