I have been working on the following concept all day: to combine two techiques to extend the digital image range.  One is call High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging and the other is Focus Stacking (FS).   

HDR imaging provides for greater dynamic light range than a typical digital sensor by recombining multiple images shot with everything constant except the shutter speed.  The base image is taken at the ideal exposure and then and equal number of exposures are taken below and above the base image shutter speed.  There is much written on this technique and I use Photomatix Pro software to recombine the images.

FS imaging allows one to obtain a greater depth of field by combining multiple images focused at different depths of an image (from front to back).  Even when one uses a small aperture, it is not always possible to have a large enough depth of field.

I will show four images.  All of the pictures were taken with the D800 and the 24-70mm f2.8 lens.  A tripod and release cord were used for all pictures.  Focusing was done manually using liveview.

First a single image as one might typically take and was taken at ISO 100, f9, 1.6 sec, 38mm.  If you click on the image, you can pull up a somewhat larger version.

The second image is an HDR image with the focus point about 1/2 the distance from front to the back of the flowers.  As one can see the light range is better, but the front flowers are out of focus.

The third image is a stack focused image using 5 different moving front to back focal points in the image.  In this image you can clearly see the both the front flowers and the back flowers are in focus, but the dynamic range of the light is not ideal with the back window a bit blown out.

And the fourth image is constructed from 5 HDR images with bracketing from -1.4 to +1.4 ev and each HDR image was focused in 5 increments from front to back of the flowers.  So the final image is a combination of 25 separate pictures.

It was fun to do this, but also lots of work.  But my Valentine is worth it!!