Bellows and sand macrophotography planing.

 Trying to wrap my head around sand macrophotography.

One issue is that the sands can be thick enough that they can't be completely in focus when magnified, so will definitely need to do focus bracketing/stacking. 

Olympus camera with in-camera focus stacking is pretty attractive since a person can take a photo and get a photo, instead of transferring files and doing the stacking on a computer with an adobe license.

For in camera focus stacking, on micro-4/3rd cameras, Panasonic does in camera stacking by taking a video and blending the frames, Olympus does normal focus bracketing and the blends them together. There's an issue where the individual frames in the Panasonic are smaller, around 8 megapixel, if I understand correctly. The Panasonic cameras that can do this seem to be expensive too. A used Olympus omd m-5 mark ii, alternatively, can be had for under $300.

With a bellows you can control magnification. Combining this with a macro lens should produce good results. Olympus focus stacking only works with a few cameras and a few lenses. The camera controls it's own lens, changes focus, then combines the photo. If the camera and lens are separated by a bellows, then there needs to be an electronic connection between them in order to do this.

Alternatively the whole thing can be put on top of a motorized rail made for focus bracketing, which will move the whole camera in steps to get the frames to build the stacked image out of. But of course doing this means you can't do the stacking in the camera.

Moving the camera for each frame can produce distortions, since each frame is now looking at the object from a different position. There is also a similar issue when the lens if being moved in order to get the frames for the stack, but apparently if only the camera, and not the lense, are being moved, there is no or much less distortion (again as far as I understand it at the moment).

This makes me think the best route is to use Olympus in camera focus stacking with a macro lens on a bellows.

So the equipment is

Olympus OMD e m-5 mark ii (I think an Olympus OM-D E-M1 can do it too i bet the bigger grip will get in the way, otherwise they're mostly the same camera inside)

$300

Bellows

$1000

Cross-bellows connection

(part of novoflex bellows)

Macro lens

$499

Teleconverter

$429

Reproduction stand 

$250

Total

Bellows

The bellows allows for magnification, probably for most bellows up to / no more than 7X beyond whatever the lens is putting out. Further magnification would be done electronically (and getting good results there would depend on the image quality and resolution of the original photo, so the lens but also the camera position during stacking issue now comes back up).

This bellows set includes the connection between the camera and lens:

https://www.adorama.com/nvbalmft.html 

The 'automatic' here refers to the ability to use the normal camera focusing feature, not the expansion/contraction of the bellows. This one is nice because it's available in an M43 connection size. Doesn't really seem like many other places make a bellows with the electronic connection, which is probably why Novoflex is able to force people to buy at such a high price. Other good basic bellows are $50. This is a thousand.

Reproduction stand

The camera needs to be mounted and held steady but also be able to be moved closed to the sand, which is going to be laying flat. Some people use a separate focusing rail that holds the camera and bellows system and allows that system to be racked back and forth along the rail, in order to set initial focus of the subject. You obviously can also use that to do the 'steps' in manual focus bracketing. There are also control systems that have motorized focus rails, an controller, and a camera connection, that will perform all the steps needed for focus bracketing.  Anyway the focusing rail then needs to be tripod mounted or something like that to hold everything in place and pointed at the subject.

A "reproduction stand" is a different way to do this. Repro stands basically end up looking like a microscope, with a vertical post that the camera+bellows can rack/slide up and down. This keeps the camera pointed straight down and orthogonal with the subject. Usually it's used to photograph slides in order to reproduce them. The subject has to sit flat like it's sitting on a table. This is perfect for sands and powders. Even for rocks it would be fine, though a rock broken at an angle might work better with a movable tripod (of course you can simply move the rock). Could even use a tilt-shift bellows to line up everything with the tilted face of a rock, but again cheaper to move the rock (it's another thousand dollars for a Novoflex tilt shift automatic bellows). Macrophotography of rocks in teh field might benefit from tilt-shift rails (apparently the technique is primarily used in landscape and architectural photography, so this seems to fit).

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1336075-REG/smith_victor_402180_36_pro_duty_copy_stand.html

Macro lens

Now the lens.

Lenses that work with Olympus in camera focus stacking

https://learnandsupport.getolympus.com/support/e-m5-mark-iii/which-lenses-are-compatible-with-the-focus-stacking-mode

This includes a 1.4 and 2X teleconverter.

M.Zuiko ED 60mm f2.8 Macro

Includes a claim about not changing the lens length while focusing to avoid the distortion problem.

Teleconverter?

A teleconverter would allow even more magnifcation, as much as 2X, which could make a big difference here. Teleconverters make for dimmer and softer images but they don't affect the Depth of Field of the original lens.
https://www.getolympus.com/us/en/m-zuiko-digital-2x-teleconverter-mc-20.html

$429

Can skip the teleconverter and use a tripod I already have and save $750.

Alternatives

What if I skip the bellows too?

Can use cheap extension tubes with electrical contacts, plus macro lens and maybe plus the teleconverter and can then get a little more than 2X magnification.

What about alternative bellows? Novoflex sells a m43 'reverse adapter' that can be used without reversing the lens and that provides for electrical contacts. It's pretty clearly the ends and wiring that are part of the fully automatic bellows, but $500 less. Can buy a fotodiox m43 bellows for $30 and use that novoflex adaptor to keep contact.  Could also skip the teleconverter and stand to save another $750.

 Oly M2, reverse adaptor, macro lens, fotodiox bellows = around $1200.

Add 

So long as there are the electrical contacts, can use the in camera focus stacking. This allows for quick setup, one click for the shutter, and get a jpeg that is the photo stack.

Can also throw the whole thing out and start with a probe lens (which gets to maybe 2X). This can not do in camera stacking or bracketing since the lens is totally manual. People seem to be using these lens to shift focus manually for focus stacking, and they're expensive lenses (Venus Laowa costs $1700, Compacto series is 2K and more), so can't buy much else. Don't really need the thin probing feature for sand on a table I think.