So my WeMacro motorized focus rail came in today - and I already love it. This was just taken at my office under the office lights, so nothing special, but SO much easier for high magnification focus stacks. Just load the app, connect to the controller, set the first point of focus, the last point of focus, the settle and shot to shot delays and the focus step size (they even have a calculator which will help you set the proper step size), and let it run. This was a 38 micron step size.
A quarter that had strange radial abrasions all around the edges. 285 image focus stack, Z8 and Laowa 25 @ 3x:
And this is a very small precision screwdriver, at 4x magnification - didn't stack quite as well due to the large depth differences in the tip with regards to background. 236 image stack
So with the motorized focus rail taking care of the tedium of giant focus stacks, I could finally start doing some slightly creative shots with my little chips - light angle and angle to surface makes a big difference.
Z8 with Nikkor Z MC 105mm f/2.8 VR S @ 1:1, 69 shot focus stack (SuperSPARC CPU):
Had such a good time with the color squares (see earlier post), I went back the next and shot more in BW. IMHO the Z5 does a damn fine job with monotone.
