This is good stuff. I like dark chocolate, but I’m not an enthusiast who tries 47 varieties every quarter, keeps notes, and announces favorites. The Trader Joe’s house brands are just fine for daily use, and Scharffen Berger is my choice when I want a special treat. Every now and then my wife buys something unusual for me, and this bar of Icelandic chocolate, Nói Síríus, was part of my Father’s Day gift package. It’s a little unusual, and so I’m not sure I would want it to be my everyday chocolate, but I think it will make a wonderful change of pace every now and then. Apparently it isn’t easy to find. I did a little research and apparently some Whole Foods stores carry it sometimes. That’s where my wife got this bar. Whole Foods is not a regular part of our grocery shopping, but I could see a special trip say once a month to get some Nói Síríus.

The image involved a bit of experimentation on my part. As I’ve previously discussed, it is very hard to get a wide depth of field when shooting macro photography. One of the ways to overcome this is to shoot multiple copies of the same image, with the only variance being the focus. Then there is software that can merge the separate images to create a single blended image in focus, much like an HDR program blends separate exposures to create one image with the correct exposure throughout. I used Helicon Focus, which I am currently trying in the 30 day trial period. By most accounts and reviews, it seems to be the popular choice for such work. It did have one hiccup here.

This image was created from seven originals I took, each with a different zone of focus. I did not measure or use any guidelines. I just moved the focus bit by bit, making sure to have overlapping areas, just as you would when creating a panorama. For some reason the software did not properly handle the area of text above the image, so I had to bring the image that had that area in focus into Photoshop together with the otherwise blended image. Then I had Photoshop align them, and I manually blended those two sections together to create the result above.