If you don't want to spend $$$$ on a macro lens, I'd head out and buy a set of extension tubes. About $50-$100 and worth every penny if you're still just experimenting.

Now here's a tree fungus I shot handheld with the same camera and lens at f5.6 ISO500 and 60mm. It's not as sharp as LunaZ's sunflower but still it's pretty sharp. Lots of detail. My sunflowers were shot handheld while sitting in the car looking out the window, I think. I had the tripod out that day but I don't think I used it on the sunflowers now that I think about it.

I think maybe the high f-stop on the sunflowers and the fact that they're backlighted took away some detail. Anybody else have an idea what's going on?

http://i1313.photobucket.com/albums/...psaf2d9504.jpg

I'm kinda new to photography, going beyond snapshots, if you know what I mean. I know an extension tube will give me a closer image but will it affect the sharpness? I'm seeing fuzziness in my closeups.

What shutter speed is the sunflower shot? Either a too long shutter speed or shooting out glass can cause sharpness issues..

Behind the scenes, goofing on Terry Richardson: Censored image, but might still be NSFW

Thanks! It looks pretty good at that size and resolution, but at full size you can see some focus and sharpness issues. I do not have a macro lens. I really need to add one to my kit for these kind of shots.

I'm using a Canon 5D MkII. This shot was with a 70-200 f/4L at 200mm, 1/800s, ISO 100, f/8.
I used Lightroom to make a few tweaks to the sharpness of the bee and tweaked the colour a little bit with a VSCO filter that mimics Fujifilm.

One of the problems with this shot is where your light is. Looking at the shadows, the sun is behind the sunflowers which is making it hard to expose the dark centers.
You could change your metering to spot and expose for the dark centers of the sunflowers, but that might blow everything else out.
You could add flash or use a reflector to add fill light the shadowed centers of the flowers.
It would probably be easiest to move and find a different sunflower that's facing the right way. ;)

well that's more than I can say for myself, since I have no idea what I'm trying to do lol. I just play with the settings until something I like comes out. I'm always down for constructive criticism though, that's the only way I'll ever learn anything, so keep it coming :tup:

Your paint looks like space! How fitting. ;)

Ha!!!

It's the Enterprise!!!

Huck, you and I are alike. When I take night shots, I just sit there and change ISO settings, etc til i find the right shot that I like thru the on camera screen.

It's such a newb move, but I have to learn somehow!

I usually stay in manual mode on 100ISO, and play with the exposure times, usually 20-25 seconds. I was actually referring to the settings in lightroom hahaha, but I do that with the camera too sometimes. I need to learn more about metering and stuff like that now.

A few shots from the Battle Lake, MN Airshow:

http://sphotos-a-iad.xx.fbcdn.net/hp...11027329_n.jpg