liatris punctata

These strange stems with purple tops started coming up in the flower

bed. I'm trying to learn to isolate a flower and get the background

very dark straight from the camera. How did I do? Would it be

significantly better with perfect sharp focus from front to back?

Thanks

I was using Nikon's R1C1 with the 2 Sb-R200 flash units mounted to the

ring, and diffused with the kit diffusers.