Camera upgrade for Supermacro

Hi, since around 5 years I'm using Olympus omd 1 mii with the 60 mm macro in an Isotta housing, with several diopters, flash trigger (I have about 500 dives with this camera) .... Now I'm ready for the next step.

My focus is almost exclusively macro, really small stuff. I am undecided about the system. Which sensor and with which lens, which diopter ...? The budget for the camera I would limit to about 3000 Euros. 

What do you think? 

(please excuse my English, I'm no native speaker)

What are you hoping to improve with your upgrade?  I use the EM-1 MkII as well and 60mm macro but don't use diopters.  It does pretty well though the AF is sometimes slow.   Is 3000 Euro the camera only or camera plus housing? 

5 minutes ago, ChrisRoss said:

What are you hoping to improve with your upgrade?  I use the EM-1 MkII as well and 60mm macro but don't use diopters.  It does pretty well though the AF is sometimes slow.   Is 3000 Euro the camera only or camera plus housing? 

it would be only the camera. I would like to get smaller things with better details in mm size, most of the (super)macro pictures I see on FB which are in this region are taken with a Nikon D500 or another DSLR system. 

What size subjects are you looking to shoot, and where is the EM-1 II limiting you? Autofocus? Magnification? Resolution?

1 minute ago, Barmaglot said:

What size subjects are you looking to shoot, and where is the EM-1 II limiting you? Autofocus? Magnification? Resolution?

All three I would say. I would like to get subjects also under 1 cm. Like small Isopods for example, I can get them with my Olympus too, but not the details. 

A Nikon D500 has pretty much best-in-class AF and with a 105mm lens + Nauticam SMC-1 will give you 2.5x magnification (9.6mm frame width) at 53mm working distance. The same lens with SMC-2 will give you 4.2x magnification (5.7mm frame width) at 24mm working distance. Lighting things this close will be challenging though; something like a Saga fiber optic ring flash may make your life easier. Sony A1 has more resolution and, reportedly, better tracking AF when shooting supermacro, but at $6500 for body alone it's outside your budget. It also won't give you as much magnification, only having a 90mm lens on full-frame rather than 105mm on APS-C crop.

3 minutes ago, Barmaglot said:

A Nikon D500 has pretty much best-in-class AF and with a 105mm lens + Nauticam SMC-1 will give you 2.5x magnification (9.6mm frame width) at 53mm working distance. The same lens with SMC-2 will give you 4.2x magnification (5.7mm frame width) at 24mm working distance. Lighting things this close will be challenging though; something like a Saga fiber optic ring flash may make your life easier. Sony A1 has more resolution and, reportedly, better tracking AF when shooting supermacro, but at $6500 for body alone it's outside your budget. It also won't give you as much magnification, only having a 90mm lens on full-frame rather than 105mm on APS-C crop.

thanks! That advice is exactly what I'm looking for. I was also thinking in direction of D500, but what do you think about the age of the D500 and it is also running out from Nikon? 

Hi!

I've been using a a D500 since 2017 and do a great deal of macro photography with either the Nikkor 60mm AF-S or the 105mm.

Aside of the lens/diopter issues, it's definitely worth thinking about lighting which won't be easy at such close distances. I can highly recommend using a snoot. This increases significantly the ability to aim, control and chose the lighting effect for macro. I've been using a Retra Prime or Pro plus Retra's LSD for the last 18 months several times a week and it's a terrific combination for macro photography.

Maybe worth a thought?

38 minutes ago, Susa said:

All three I would say. I would like to get subjects also under 1 cm. Like small Isopods for example, I can get them with my Olympus too, but not the details. 

You should be able to achieve 2.0x with your 60mm - the CMC-1 gives you 2.0x, though the working distance is a very close 22mm which would be making life difficult for you   This is a frame 8.6mm across which is fairly small. you can get a small boost in magnification and working distance with an APS-C and SMC-1 As noted it gives you 2.5x -

But that is a frame 9.4mm across, you'll have a few more pixels in there but not many it's 21MP vs 20 MP on the olympus.  If you do the calculations both have the same image scale of 0.0017mm/pixel with the CMC-1/60mm and SMC-1/105mm  but because the D500 sensor is bigger the field is slightly wider and working distance is slightly longer with the 105mm lens.

To get more subject magnification you would be looking at the SMC-2 which is really quite difficult to work with even though the 4.2x magnification sounds so good. 

Depth of field will be greater on the EM-1 Mkii at the same subject framing.

So I guess a question is are you able to achieve the full 2.0x magnification on the 60mm macro in practice?

11 minutes ago, Susa said:

thanks! That advice is exactly what I'm looking for. I was also thinking in direction of D500, but what do you think about the age of the D500 and it is also running out from Nikon? 

It doesn't have much of a future as a system, but with people moving to mirrorless, you should be able to get a used body and possibly a housing for a good discount.

Note, however, that if you're shooting your E-M1 via the screen, transitioning to a DSLR will involve moving to the optical viewfinder. Since you're primarily shooting macro, a 45-degree magnifying viewfinder is pretty much a necessity.

33 minutes ago, Barmaglot said:

It doesn't have much of a future as a system, but with people moving to mirrorless, you should be able to get a used body and possibly a housing for a good discount.

Note, however, that if you're shooting your E-M1 via the screen, transitioning to a DSLR will involve moving to the optical viewfinder. Since you're primarily shooting macro, a 45-degree magnifying viewfinder is pretty much a necessity.

I already use the 45 Inon viewfinder with my Isotta housing, thank you for your thoughts!

35 minutes ago, ChrisRoss said:

You should be able to achieve 2.0x with your 60mm - the CMC-1 gives you 2.0x, though the working distance is a very close 22mm which would be making life difficult for you   This is a frame 8.6mm across which is fairly small. you can get a small boost in magnification and working distance with an APS-C and SMC-1 As noted it gives you 2.5x -

But that is a frame 9.4mm across, you'll have a few more pixels in there but not many it's 21MP vs 20 MP on the olympus.  If you do the calculations both have the same image scale of 0.0017mm/pixel with the CMC-1/60mm and SMC-1/105mm  but because the D500 sensor is bigger the field is slightly wider and working distance is slightly longer with the 105mm lens.

To get more subject magnification you would be looking at the SMC-2 which is really quite difficult to work with even though the 4.2x magnification sounds so good. 

Depth of field will be greater on the EM-1 Mkii at the same subject framing.

So I guess a question is are you able to achieve the full 2.0x magnification on the 60mm macro in practice?

right now I'm using up to Saga +15 achromatic lense, but there is no really chance with it, when the object is moving. what do you think about the quality difference to CMC-1?

45 minutes ago, TimG said:

Hi!

I've been using a a D500 since 2017 and do a great deal of macro photography with either the Nikkor 60mm AF-S or the 105mm.

Aside of the lens/diopter issues, it's definitely worth thinking about lighting which won't be easy at such close distances. I can highly recommend using a snoot. This increases significantly the ability to aim, control and chose the lighting effect for macro. I've been using a Retra Prime or Pro plus Retra's LSD for the last 18 months several times a week and it's a terrific combination for macro photography.

Maybe worth a thought?

Thanks for your thoughts, I have started to work with a Weefine snoot :-). And yes, I'm also thinking about the light, right now two Inon z330, focus light and experimenting with the Weefine snoot. I will be in Anilao begin of April with this equipment. But after this, I would like to get something new with faster autofocus and hopefully more pixel. Hmmm....

9 minutes ago, Susa said:

I already use the 45 Inon viewfinder with my Isotta housing, thank you for your thoughts!

 

right now I'm using up to Saga +15 achromatic lense, but there is no really chance with it, when the object is moving. what do you think about the quality difference to CMC-1?

I don't have experience between the two lenses, I do know the CMC does have a very good reputation.  I think it's about equal in power to a +15. 

I think the real question is can you achieve the theoretical magnification in practice in the field with the short working distance?  The other thing to note is that different lenses have different working distances at the same magnification.  The INON UCL-67 is said to have more working distance than the CMC_1 for example. 

If the working distance makes it difficult to achieve 2.0x then a longer macro lens with it's greater working distance is probably going to offer significant benefit.

What do you  all think about the Canon R5 with the Canon 100 mm RF Macro? Its something over my budget, but sooner or later it will be also used on the market...

Bigger sensors will require more magnification to achieve the same framing, producing shallower depth of field, but resolving more detail. The RF 100mm is notable for achieving 1.4x magnification on its own, without add-on diopters, but on a full-frame sensor this gives you a 25mm frame width - more than you currently get on M43 without diopters. Once you start adding diopters for the RF 100mm to go past 1.4x, this lens doesn't really have any advantages over the older EF 100mm.

Probably a nice setup, depth of field is only half of what you get with m43 currently at the same framing.  Also note that it doesn't achieve as great a magnification as you might think given the 1.4x native magnification .  The SMC-1 gets 2.3x but that's at 29mm working distance where the EF gets 2.2x at 45mm distance.  This is due to focus breathing, the focal length gets shorter as the magnification goes up so diopters  don't have as much effect on magnification mainly because the working distance drops so much.  For full frame it's even more of an issue though as a 2.0x frame is now 18mm across and the subject takes up much less of the frame and you end up needing to crop and then because the pixels in full frame are bigger than pixels in m43 , the m43 image puts more pixels on the subject.

Resolution wise I don't think the D500 is much of an upgrade over the EM-1 MkII, the sensor performance is very close and with the SMC-1 it effectively matches the EM-1 MkII for image scale.  What it will give you is AF performance and working distance.   2.0x on 20MP m43 gives you same image scale which is effectively resolution  as 2.3x on 21 MP APS-C. 

That is why I've been asking you about whether you can actually get 2x in the field with that short working distance.  If you can't the D500 would likely allow you achieve more magnification in practice.  If you can already achieve 2x then the benefit mainly comes down to AF with some working distance benefit for small subjects that may swim off if approached too close.

10 minutes ago, ChrisRoss said:

Probably a nice setup, depth of field is only half of what you get with m43 currently at the same framing.  Also note that it doesn't achieve as great a magnification as you might think given the 1.4x native magnification .  The SMC-1 gets 2.3x but that's at 29mm working distance where the EF gets 2.2x at 45mm distance.  This is due to focus breathing, the focal length gets shorter as the magnification goes up so diopters  don't have as much effect on magnification mainly because the working distance drops so much.  For full frame it's even more of an issue though as a 2.0x frame is now 18mm across and the subject takes up much less of the frame and you end up needing to crop and then because the pixels in full frame are bigger than pixels in m43 , the m43 image puts more pixels on the subject.

Resolution wise I don't think the D500 is much of an upgrade over the EM-1 MkII, the sensor performance is very close and with the SMC-1 it effectively matches the EM-1 MkII for image scale.  What it will give you is AF performance and working distance.   2.0x on 20MP m43 gives you same image scale which is effectively resolution  as 2.3x on 21 MP APS-C. 

That is why I've been asking you about whether you can actually get 2x in the field with that short working distance.  If you can't the D500 would likely allow you achieve more magnification in practice.  If you can already achieve 2x then the benefit mainly comes down to AF with some working distance benefit for small subjects that may swim off if approached too close.

ok, thanks, I think now I have it. Yes I achieve this 2.0, but only when the object is completely not moving and I 'm not moving with the camera and have enough space to make me stable without touching the nature. So D500 would give a little benefit, but otherwise its much bigger and more difficult to handle. Another idea will be the new OMD 1. But here I will wait for the results of tests. But it will sure have better autofocus ...

If Sony ever bothers to release a flagship APS-C camera incorporating A1 autofocus tech, that might warrant a look as well.

19 hours ago, Susa said:

What do you  all think about the Canon R5 with the Canon 100 mm RF Macro? Its something over my budget, but sooner or later it will be also used on the market...

I also have EM1II with Zuiko 60mm and CMC-1. It is working pretty good. If I would switch to another camera with focus on macro, it would be certainly Canon, just because of this lens with 1.4x magnification, already without diopters, and the ring for adjustable buquet...

I do not think that the Nikon D500 offers a big advantage, the new OM and Panasonic models may outperform in IQ and the difference in AF performance is certainly smaller, maybe even non existing any more. To my opinion certainly not worth to change to a sytem that has already reached its end...

I already had a look at the Nauticam housing for the R5, but it is very big (mostly the depth of the housing is big) compared to e.g. the housing for Sony A7RIV. This is certainly a point on the negative side...

Wolfgang

1 hour ago, Architeuthis said:

I also have EM1II with Zuiko 60mm and CMC-1. It is working pretty good. If I would switch to another camera with focus on macro, it would be certainly Canon, just because of this lens with 1.4x magnification, already without diopters, and the ring for adjustable buquet...

Wolfgang

it certainly is attractive if used alone, but it has focus breathing which means diopters are less effective, it does get 2.3x (vs 2.2x for the 100mm EF lens) at the cost of lost working distance.  it has 29mm working distance at 2.3x.  The EF lens has 45mm working distance  at 2.2x.    You can use the SMC-2 but it gets less magnification and working distance with the RF lens compared to the EF lens.