Best system for outdoor macro including focus bracketing/stacking

Some of the newer apsc cameras have stacking, fuji and canon

it would be good to have a list of which models

Pd printer wrote:

I did a lot of macro photography for decades during the time one used film from 35mm to medium format to 5x7 large format (more close up than real macro with large format). Some years ago I thought I should get back to macro photography. I started with using a Leica M9 with an antique Visoflex which worked but was really painful. Then I decided to get an Olympus OM5MkII to do automatic focus bracketing. I had the 60mm Macro but I was quite underwhelmed by the optical quality of this lens. I also had the 300mm/4.0 lens which had excellent image quality, did focus stacking to a good closeup range but it was too heavy and large to just carry around. I was busy with other things so I got rid of these cameras and lenses.

Presently my most used camera is a Hasselblad 907X with an 45mm/4.0 lens which is a very compact system (not really light but not bad at all, I took it for week long backpacking trips0. I got a Raynox DCR150 and it allows closeup to not quite 1:2 with good optical quality except field curvature. Focus stacking works except it slows down a lot after a dozen of exposures. I like the color quality and dynamic range of this camera a lot and in studio settings I could see perfect when one has time and patience. I was thinking of a bellow system with allows focusing with a back standard (to keep distance of lens to subject constant) but that would be far to heavy and slow for outdoors.

Instead of investing in the XCD120macro which is slow in focus and heavy for my camera I thought what other alternative cameras with a good macro lens is available for outdoor macro photography (1x) both handheld and when it is possible with a tripod and allowing fast focus bracketing/stacking.

The 60 macro and EM-1X shoot 15 shot In Camera Focus Stacks in as long as it takes to shoot 15 images plus an initial time delay. The 60 macro has very good IQ perhaps 15% or so less sharp than the 300 F4, which is about as sharp as lenses get. One for one's snowflake images demonstrate the 60 macro with snowflake images that I have seen seldom matched. But handholding with longer SS's is pretty difficult; the 90 macro with dual IS will likely change that.

I was reading about the new 90mmf3.5 macro from OM systems together with an OM-5 or OM-1. That system apparently was designed for not only macro but also for focus stacking. the main drawback as I can see is dynamic range is limited to around 9EV (according to https://www.photonstophotos.net/Charts/PDR.htm) which has not changed much for a decade.

DR even for the EM-1X is 11 stops, The OM-1 is 1 stop better. But to be honest, in as much as I shoot a ton of macro, I rarely run into DR limitations in landscape and certainly not in macro. You do have to know what you are doing in exposing properly. That just takes practice.

The advantage of the new 90 mm macro will be in handholding Focus Stacks because of camera controls and best IBIS.

My previous experience with Olympus was that DR matters with especially red or yellow flowers where especially the red color channel blows out but underexposing causes problems with shaded image areas (especially in bright sunlight). If I would have a third hand a diffuser would be often ameliorating that problem.

You are thinking of the 2012 EM-1 I.

Obviously the newer FF mirrorless cameras have at least 3EV more DR, close what I can achieve with my 907X but are much faster cameras. 2 camera systems I found would be:

Nikon Z (maybe 7II) and Nikon Z Mc105/2.8

Sony A7RV and Sigma 105/2.8 DG/DN Art

I would appreciate any input about which system to choose solely for macro also with consideration of bracketing speed to have a lower failure rate handheld.

Though, like you, I played with macro with film cameras 30 years ago; I have been very active taking macro images of mosses since 2016, and shoot numerous bees and butterflies with the 60 macro, Panasonic 50-200 and 300 F4. In flower images I have over 1500 such images at the Burke Herbarium WTU image collection, but these are rarely macro.