Aperture in Macro Photography

Another example of looking for the precise aperture for a macro shot. For me, the best aperture is about f8, where the bud is pretty much in focus and the background is fairly soft.

Left

Right

f2.8 gives you the softest background, but the leaf bud is really not very well focused.

f4 better than 2.8, but still not sharp all through the foreground.

f5.6 This might work, or perhaps f 8

f8 is possible the best choice in this case.

f11 is getting too crunchy in the background.

f 16 is the one I would use if I were to cut the foreground out, as it quite sharp, but the background is not soft enough.

f22 is certainly too crunchy in the background.

f 32 Is not only too crunchy in the background, but at large size, the loss of detail due to diffraction at f32 might be too severe.