Lens comparison for macro work

John K wrote:

RazorSharpWO wrote:

I also agree with John's assessment that light is more important than gear.

This is especially true when you're shooting "a single image" @ f/8-f/16 ... or beyond.

Agreed, but do not discount light quality with respect to stacking. Very easy to lose a lot of detail if the light is not diffused properly, and it will impact a stacked image as much as a single frame.

This is so true, and took me a while to learn by trial and error.

Yesterday, I was looking at some of my earliest close up and macro shots, from 12 or more years ago.  Some were with enlarger lenses on all sorts of extension, and some were my first attempts at stacking.  My how things have changed.  But the changes were a result of practice, learning, better gear, better software and such.  I suspect everyone commenting here has had similar experiences.

Another thought:  Comments here are to some degree influenced by equipment and certainly by subject.  Gardener's assistant does a lot of stacking, for example, but he has gear that makes it almost trivially easy, and mostly does it only for static subjects.  John K's favorite equipment makes stacking very difficult AND he shoots quickly moving subjects, so he needs high F stops for good DOF, and handholds, so he uses flash to avoid having to use excessively long shutter speeds or high ISO and avoid camera shake (sorry about the over-simplification, John).  And that led to his interest in light quality, with lessons for even us non-flash users.

The OP seems to want a dual use lens.  (s)he might consider, as others have suggested, just starting with a regular lens and compound close up lenses like the Raynoxes.  I started playing with them last year and was surprised at the quality and ease of use.