A first go at 'focus shift shooting'

[Bernard Delley]

stacking was done by layers and masks in CS6.

[Jack Dahlgren]

Looks great!

It does point out an issue that Michael seems to avoid in his images, how to deal with a table top or floor. In your image a small bubble of it is in focus, and the rest is blurry, unlike the flower and vase which are in focus all over.

If you can keep the table out of the image altogether, you don’t.need to make choices about where to end the focus.

[Bernard Delley]

thanks !
I did learn a number of things in working through this exercise.
And thanks for your remark about the table. I had not thought about this sharpness bubble yet.
The table is indeed a large distracting image element here, which Michael Erlewine cleverly avoids.
I certainly got a bit carried away by the sharpness of the glass that appeared in stacking ...

[MFloyd]

Just to mention that NikonGear allows you to post up to 3'000 x 4'000 pixels (recommended 1200 x 800) with a maximum size of 2'560k.