Interesting Growth

This is a very dramatic image, Wick. I don't yet know anything about blending, but your work looks really good to me.

Hi Wick, it's a coral fungus as far as I can see, indeed very beautiful, looks nice in B&W though they sometimes have such lovely colors that I'd maybe prefer them in color. Good blending.

Thanks for the identification - this one was very monotone, thus the B&W.
Wick

This works well as a B&W. Nice shot.

Wick:
The B&W works well with good tonal range. I note you used a TS lens which should give you good sharpeness and DOF; so what is the rationale of the stack?

Gary,
The 24mm TS/E is extremely sharp, but with the lens only a couple of inches away from the subject, the tilt aspect is of no use in this case. Tilting would do more harm than good with DOF. That feature is best used with a subject whose foreground is mostly in the same plane, such as a beach or field of flowers. To insure focus throughout, I shot it at F8 with the intention of stacking. It may be overkill, but my initial test shots at f22 still didn't get all of the fungus in focus from front to back, thus the stack. This also gave me more control over the background bokeh.
Wick

What an interesting looking growth. I really like all the detail you have achieved in this. It looks good in black and white but I am somewhat biased towards color images of nature; thus I see great color potential in this, with editing.
Great find, Wick.

technique beautifully implemented.... I like your choice of 'F8, stacking and bokeh control' over 'F22 with less of Bokeh'. Also b&w works good here.Am inspired to try out something like this

This coral mushroom is a beauty. I'll have my own version (quite different) to post when I get home from the Adirondacks, where we had a profusiton of corals after hurricane/tropical storm Irene.

Dave Thomas, Leesburg, Virginia