Hungry Caterpillar

Hungry Caterpillar, a photo by simon.anderson on Flickr.

Found this little fella in the garden today sitting very still for me to give focus stacking a try, and wow focus stacking has bought out amazing detail that I couldn't get with a straight macro shot.
I set up my camera on my tripod with cable release and sigma 105mm macro lens attached.
I focused manually on the closest point of the caterpillar then took a shot then refocused further in slightly and took another picture then kept repeating this process untill I reached the furthest focus point on the caterpillar.
This was about 7 shots in total.
I uploaded the pictures then quickly googled focus stacking and the first item was a youtube video of around 4 mins explaining the process.
After watching the video the stacking process took me a round 2 mins as it is really easy to do, especially with my new upgraded computer.
I then done my usual 's' curve and unsharp mask and added a little saturation which really made the caterpillar pop especially with the sharpness.
I was trying single shots going up to f/29 which where still not very good or sharp but with the focus stacking I dropped the aperture down to f/13 which gave a nice fast shutter speed to eliminate any vibrations or movement.
I highly recommend trying this technique as the results are superb, just make sure its a static object.