First macro from new camera...

[payn817]

even more flowers...blah! Does this appear soft? it kinda does to me, but not sure, been awake too long!

[jar_e]

It does appear too soft. The colors are nice, yet the car in the background is a tad distracting. A nice shot, just some focusing issues and other than that it's a great shot!

Jared

[payn817]

yeah, didn't set my aperture/speed right, thought so. Thanks.

[GB1]

Soft? Yes, and little, and this isn't a surprise. I have a Tamron 90mm Macro, and most of the time the shots come out soft.

It isn't because the lens is inferior or because of the aperature is too wide, by the way - it's usually because when you focus in this close the image is extremely susceptible to motion. Hence, a very slight wind can spoil the shots. This is compounded by the fact that your DOF is much reduced with macro lenses and you therefore need to use a pretty smaller aperature, further decreasing the light and shutter speed. So pretty much everything is working against you, and it's a little harder to get a sharp photo than normal shots.

So, scope out a location where the wind isn't too bad, or somehow try to block it (with what? no idea) and you might see the sharpness increase dramatically...

GB

[payn817]

thanks for the info. The aperture and speed would have helped in reducing the background, therefore blurring the car though right?

[GB1]

Yeah, making the aperature wider (decreasing the f-stop number) would have blurred the background even more, esp if you're close to the subject. However, this might have made it so not all of the subjects you wanted to be in focus would be.... Depends on focal distance, focal length of the lens, and aperature. Note that longer lenses (ie 210mm, 500mm, etc) have very thin DOF compared to wide angle focal length lenses.

Regarding the car, next time try to crop it out or move it. Blurring the bckgd might work too but if someone looks real hard they'd still be able to tell something doesn't belong there.