Project 365 - Day 176 - Focus Stacking

This is my first attempt at focus stacking.  This is a flower that grows in my garden out back.  I took 14 exposures of this flower at various focal planes and then imported them into Photoshop and arranged them, then stacked them.  When that was done, I cropped out the misshapen edges (the subject is never 100% in the same spot) and boosted the contrast a bit.  This is the result.

Not too bad, but it will get better. 

Shot with Nikon 60mm lens with 1 extension tube (16mm).  ISO400, 1/100 s shutter at f/14.  External flash as well fired with my camera. 

I used focus stacking as a way to maintain the sharpness in the picture.  If you have too long of an exposure at too small of an aperture you get soft edges that are more pronounced at closer distances.  Focus stacking allows you to pick only the in-focus parts of each image and stitch them together.  In all, this image was about an hour of working time.  So it's labour intensive.  Usually I pull the image out of camera, adjust a few things and post.  It takes me longer to write the post than it does to work on the image.  Not in this case.  But sometimes, you have to put in the extra effort to get the results.