Hah, yes--tripods make a world of difference! but, not all that convenient for me to use when I'm running around trying to get 'everything' before the cloud goes away...or Asa catching bees...so, not mandatory.
So Ann, do come to accept that the closer you get to something the smaller your depth of field is--
from that article linked: "At 1:1 magnification, your depth of field may be so thin that you can't get a fly's head and feet both to appear sharp at the same time, even though they are just millimeters apart!"
And here is Asa's bee at an approximately 2000x2000 pixel crop
glory bee--who knew they had such hairy eyeballs???--anyway, you can see how thin that little slice of focus is, literally just 1-2mm, and just a few parts that fell in that plane.
