DOF...hmmmm. I'll try to explain my many comments of things being out of focus. I don't mind background stuff being out of focus. Whether it be macro photography or just regular portrait photography. Where I start getting "itchy" is when, IMO, too much of the foreground is out of focus. In macro photography, this is hard to control. So, that brings me to picture number one again. Where the shrooms on the right are close enough on the "subject" plane to not really be classified as being in the background. Or perhaps BECAUSE they are mushrooms, the vieweer subconsciously "includes" them in the subject plane. Nor are they in the foreground. Obviously, they are in the background because they are out of focus. So, my remark was based on this: Since the mushrooms were the main subject and the focal point, it bothered me that some of the nearby mushrooms were not in focus. That's why I said I wondered how a crop would look with just the 2 mushrooms in focus. IMO, Picture 2 is just about perfect, focus-wise. The foreground is a tiny bit out of focus but not enough to bother the photo. Or bother me....hehe. Photo 3 has a really blurred foreground. Due to the composition, there seemed to be no way to avoid it. You didn't have enough light to increase the DOF and cropping right below the twin mushrooms was not an option at all. Hope I've shed some light (pun intended) on my remarks above.