Any thoughts on these my friends?

Saw him on walkabouts yesterday

Dave

The second one, or the crop, is my favorite because in the first, i didn't notice the bee, in the second it puts the bee more in detail with no distraction around it.

Second one, I agree with Matt, the bee/fly gets lost in the first.

What kind of flower is that?? It's gorgeous!

They're both good.`The second one is excellent, very well done. I might selectively sharpen the parts which are already the focal points, bring up the blacks the tiniest little bit via levels, and maybe punch up the color a tiny bit as well.

Nice job; I like them both. The crop works really well on the second one. The OOF blue, white, and purple petals(?) lead the viewer straight to the fly.

I also wouldn't mind a crop that included the entire flower. The flower itself is a great subject, and the fly adds to it. I would recommend cropping most of the space on the right side of the original image. The focus is no longer solely on the fly, though, so if you were going for a shot of the bee, stick with the crop you have here.

That's a beautiful flower. What is it?
My only problem with both is that your focal point seems to be the stamens and everything, including the bee, goes soft after that. I think you need more dof or a different focal point.

I prefer the second photo, draws more attention to the fly and the flower while the first am drawn away by the leaf in the upper right corner. I do agree with Frog that a little more DOF would be nice since the fly appears a bit soft to me. I really like the colors of the flower.

the first shoot has too much greengage for me,
the second one looks good, but as others stated should be sharper.

I like the second one for the reasons already mentioned. It could use some higher level of saturation in the colors. DOF could also be higher. Good capture.

I also think the second image is best. The tight crop offers less ditractions and gets to the meat of the scene. I agree with Drays suggestions on sharpening and boosting blacks/contrasts a bit more to get additional pop.
Very nicely framed.

I know nothing about the technical stuff...but its a Passion Flower. Comes in many different varities
http://images.google.com/images?sour...N&hl=en&tab=wi