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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.
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.
"The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera." - Dorothea Lang
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.
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.
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stuart
"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes."
- Marcel Proust
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.