Thanks ever so much for the feedback and the questions for I truly enjoy sharing what I do and how I do it.

Attached is a image of my most often used setup. The camera is a small mirrorless Fujifilm X-T20. The bellows is a vintage (nice name for old) Novoflex. I attach a variety of lenses to the bellows depending on the size of the subject and the amount of magnification that I am trying to achieve to fill the frame with the portion of the subject that I want to showcase.

All of that is attached to a motorized digitally controlled focus rail that I program to produce the length of distance for each shot taken in the stack of images based on magnification and the flat depth of field produced by the lens or microscope objective used. The entire setup is attached to a base that is firmly mounted to about 400-pounds of mass with high density vibration isolation pads between the granite stone and the granite table. It sits on the basement concrete floor which provides a near vibration-free mounting. When taking several hundred shots any vibration or movement can ruin the results of a session. The average distance that the camera advances for each shot is on average 20-micrometers per shot and when using microscope objectives it is 8 to 12-micrometers per shot. This is why it takes several hundred shots to travel a few millimeters of advancing focus.

The subject needs to move in position for the camera and then stay firmly in place. I use a sliding work table (the green thing) that is used for a drill press or milling machine. It moves left and right as well as forward and back. I use either a laboratory scissor jack or a manual focus rail to elevate the subject inline with the camera. A Magic Arm allows for final adjustments of the specimen in front of the camera. Specimens are mounted on a pin that is stuck into a dab of plasticine modeling clay which can be mushed around to turn the subject where I want it.

Cleaning the subjects (insects are true trash collectors) and getting them into position is the most time consuming, yet enjoyable, part of the process.

Illumination that I use is constant LED lighting as well as fiber optic lighting and I use common materials such as paper towels, packing foam, translucent plastic cups and containers, ping-pong balls and whatever to diffuse the light. Some insects are shiny while others are drab or fuzzy so the lighting has to match their characteristics. Many others prefer to use flashes however I do so much that I wear them out. I'm on my second camera for I racked up over 250,000 shots on my Nikon D810 so I now shot mirrorless with electronic shutter.

When the hundreds of images in the stack session have completed (about 15 to 20 minutes of automated shooting time) they are loaded into Zerene Stacker or Helicon Focus for processing into the final image. It typically takes 45-minutes to a hour of computer crunching to meld them into a final image. I use Photoshop to clone out the mounting pin and any other unwanted items that distracts the result.

Our home is located in the center of the Paper Wasp Universe. There is hardly a direction that I look that I don't see some nearby. I typically get tagged a time or two by them each year and it is never any fun.

This one got into the house which did not go well for it for I am a pro at dispatching them by patiently waiting for them to land and placing a bottle over them and then it's a short trip to the kill-jar and a staged focus stacking photo session from there.

Those that are less cooperative get the old "wack" with the fly swatter and the traditional trash can burial.

This locomotive was once one of those that pulled the "City of Chicago" from Los Angeles to Chicago and back.
After UP service it went through different owners serving on high speed commuter trains.
After being retired it came to the Orange Empire Railway Museum - now the Southern California Railway Museum and in 2012 it was restored to its UP colors of yellow with red accents. The museum also restored 4 different types of passenger cars to their colors of the era so it has a short consist of 4 cars to pull on the museum's tracks from time to time.
It also acts as power for Thomas the Tank Engine festivals in November, usually powering Thomas' buddy Percy and his train.
Around the museum we used to joke that it was our 100 mph locomotive on our 10 mph track. Our longest straight run is less than 2 miles, not enough to get it up to speed.
This shot is from 2015 on its first revenue run with its newly restored train. B&W and color version.

6D, 24-105L @ 55, 1/200 @ f/8.0, ISO-100 hand held

Dr J, another tidbit to preserving insects is that when you collect a soft bodies subject like a caterpillar or a gurb put a pot of water on the stove and bring it to a boil and then turn it off. Place the soft bodied specimen into the scalding hot water for a full minute. This will kill the bacteria that lives in its gut. If we don't kill the bacteria inside them they will turn dark or even black due to the bacteria digesting the inside of the specimen.

Then they can be placed in your alcohol container for long storage and many interesting photo sessions over the years to come.

Dr J, isopropyl works fine. My situation is that I use plastic pill bottles from our medications and they seal less than perfectly so the isopropyl tends to evaporate in my specimens as time goes by. With better containers 'm sure that it would not be a problem.

Denatured ethanol is less volatile so there it keeps longer for me. The downside is that the specimens stay wet longer when I bring them out and I use an air puffer that I use to blow dust off the camera to help dry them.

I've have specimens that have been stored for over two years now that are as good as when I first collected them. Of course these are beetle and non-fuzzy specimens.

I keep my fuzzy ones like bees in the freezer. I've tried storing them dry in containers that can breathe and I put mothballs in with them to kill little scavenger insects which works okay except that the eyes dry up and they look quite dead and over time they tend to fall apart.

My ultimate goal is to relax them and stage them in a more natural setting and photograph them at much less magnification however I have not had success doing that so far. The Game is Afoot..!