Focus stacking of a snowflake

James A Rinner wrote:

Now I have been focus stacking for a while using a pair of film lenses mounted face to face (which resulted in 3.6:1 macro so I understand it pretty well. I recently purchased a used E-M1 and 60mm macro lens to make my life easier when shooting extreme macro. The snowflake above is about the same macro magnification as my manual setup because I added two extension tubes (16mm and 21mm, Movo brand, with M4/3 electrical contacts) to the 60mm Olympus macro lens. Here is what I have found out so far:

1. It is not as easy as you think!
2. Because, at this high of a magnification, the area in focus is just a sliver and any movement can ruin the whole series of shots.
3. I delete way more than I keep.
4. A tripod is a waste of effort when doing snowflakes because by the time you finally get it set the snowflake either blows away or melts.

does this mean you took the focus bracket series handheld?

1. I have been getting the same amount of keepers whether I used the camera's autofocus or found the start point by manual focus with a dedicated FN button to switch to manual.
2. Using the camera's autofocus is a bit tricky because it could focus on the background, while the snowflake is a millimeter above it (held in position by the fibers of the background) and the whole series is out of focus.
3. The photo above is a series of 12 exposures but I started with 30. 18 were so far out of focus that I just deleted them. I try to start at a spot that is in front of the subject and hopefully by the end of the series I have traveled past the last bit of flake.
4. Still took over 6 hours of Photoshop for the final image.

I think I will be able to eventually get the hang of this. For my old manual film lens setup (see below) I machined a clear acrylic tube (lens shade?, not really!) to mount on the back of the Olympus 50mm 1.4. The other lens is a Minolta Md 85mm 1.9. The length of the tube set me at a sweet spot for focusing with the manual setup. I hope to do the same soon with the 60mm macro.

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Sincerely,
James A. Rinner

Seems to be a great effort but i love the result!