Sinsear, you also need to understand that the hyperfocal calculations and what-not are for a particular circle of confusion, and that the circle of confusion depends a great deal on the print size. Chances are, you're using a formula for an 8" x 10" print from 135 film fiewed at arm's length, and your results look just about right for that. But, once you start pixel peeping, you're doing the equivalent of pressing your nose against a door-sized poster and the CoC calculations need to be adjusted for that size of an enlargement.
The tags say you shot that with a 5DIII. With that (or any other modern) camera, consulting DoF charts and calculators to determine your shooting settings is, quite literally, the worst possible technique to maximize sharpness. Instead, you want to be using live view with the DoF button engaged. Zoom in to increasingly higher magnification levels while scrolling all around the image and manually adjusting both aperture and focus. Your eyes will tell you when you've achieved the optimal settings for both for that particular scene. It might mean a bit smaller aperture and slight overall loss of sharpness due to diffraction but an increase in sharpness in the foreground, or you might be able to get away with a bigger aperture because you don't have as deep a field to focus on, after all. Regardless, you'll know before you trip the shutter just where you stand, what results you'll get, and that you've got the least-bad compromise to be had for that combination of camera, lens, and scene.
Cheers,
b&
