Muddyvalley Loc: McMinnville, Oregon

Nikon D750 at ISO 100, Nikkor 105 macro lens, 1/200-sec at f/6.3, Nikon SB-800 speedlight at 1/16 power with 5x8-inch soft box, Starting point about 1:1. ControlMyNikon-5 controlled 29 frames, step size 53, then Zerene compilation.

I tried to get the stamens "snail eyes" in focus. :-) I see some of them blurred out. Not sure what I'm doing to cause that.
The second shot was the first attempt without the flash. Didn't work out so well.

2nd try with speedlight

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1st try LED bulb overhead fixture

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Nikonian72 Loc: Chico CA

Might be slight movement of stamens, just from people movement in the room. I also think that white subjects are more difficult to properly expose.

Muddyvalley Loc: McMinnville, Oregon

If you enlarge the first photo, you'll see one that isn't really blurry, it's sort of transparent/translucent.
(flower is about 2cm left to right..

naturepics43 Loc: Hocking Co. Ohio - USA

Not bad for just starting out with a new process. I don't think 29 frames @ f5.6 is near enough. Try a run with about 60 frames. I think the transparent stamen is at the very edge of one of the frames. I'm still in the early stages of stacking so I could be wrong. Keep shooting, you'll make it.

Muddyvalley Loc: McMinnville, Oregon

Thanks for the advise! I'll try twice as many. Should I try a smaller aperture too? F-8 maybe?

Qbert Loc: Virginia

I think this is a worthy first attempt.
I do agree that more frames may be necessary, 40-60 @ f/5.6
f/4 or f/5.6 seems to produces the best sharpness with this lens, especially at 1:1

Make sure that when you are defining your near/far focus limits that you go several steps beyond what appears to be everything in focus, just to be certain nothing else suddenly pops into focus a few clicks beyond where you thought you had everything. For me this is always on the near side.

I have seen movements appear like this also, but zerene usually handles this pretty good.

Anytime Im shooting inside I turn off or close the heat/AC vents and the ceiling fans to prevent these movements. But like Douglass said, even people moving around can create enough air movement.

Muddyvalley Loc: McMinnville, Oregon

The stamens that are strange are more transparent than blurred. The flash was on this side. I had it on the camera shoe with the camera on it's side& rotated the final photo 90* Maybe something to do with the light? One appears to be in focus, however a couple look like they were partially missing.

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Qbert Loc: Virginia

That transparent stamen appears to be a zerene issue. You can go back and find the slice(s) that have that area in focus and use the retouch feature in zerene to correct this.

Muddyvalley Loc: McMinnville, Oregon

If I can figure out how to do that. :-) I'll give it a shot. I think I saw a tutorial on that. Thanks!
Edit: It was in the first few frames. It took 8 frames from tip of the stamen to the base.