My first Photo stack

Hello "Woz":
You have "set" the subject on a nice little in-focus island. And effectively.

On the subject of macro lenses, I heartily recommend the Tamron-Di SP A/M 1:1 MACRO 90mm f2.8, which gives you excellent sharpness in center and very good sharpness in corners at almost all apertures; also very good bokeh. I find it a great lens for non-macro shots as well. Moderate cost. Closely following the Tamron is my ancient SMC Pentax-M MACRO 50mm f4, which is just superlative at very close ranges. Probably you can pick one up somewhere online at a really decent price. As for stacking, I'm new to it as well, and drove myself crazy stacking in Photoshop Elements. I bought Helicon Focus and discovered that if you can stand upright and breathe, you can stack in Helicon Focus.

I used a tripod for this shot. Got the center in focus at infinity then just turned the focus ring a little took a shot and continued until I got a full sweep of the the lens.

I also used the Pentax WiFi app to fire the lens. Cluncky but it works.

You could try a set of Russian bellows off Ebay. They are cheap, robust and do their job well. You will need a K to M42 adapter to attach it to the camera and a NON AUTO M42 lens to put on the front (otherwise you can't control the iris!). A 135mm Takumar is just the job. You now have control of both magnification and focus for about £25. While looking through the viewfinder or watching live view, drag the tripod back and forward to get a basic idea of where focus actually is. Now you simply use the focus screw on the bellows to take a series of images from front to back of the subject. CombineZP is a good free stacking program too.

Try this site too link It explains almost everything about Macro from top to bottom and I believe the author was a member here at one time.