beach snail macro

went to the beach today, was beautiful weather down here, best day of the year so far...
these were the most surprising shots, the snail was taken on the beach balanced on a pebble
I don't have a macro yet!!! but used the 50mm 1.4 and a close up filter

comments welcome please...
Lilly







Oh and this one !!

Lilly;

Not enough depth of field on the snail IMHO of course
But "loved" the heart shot (pun intended) I hope your going to make this into a valentine card for your other half

Macro (with any lens) is a pain in the proverbial, you have to bear in mind that at such close quarters the depth of field is going to be almost zilch, you need to stop down as far as you possibly can, looking at your snail pics you really needed to be shooting at anything between f22 and smaller, unless of course you were trying to be creative and I have missed the entire point of you pics (in which case I'm sorry)

PS Did you "draw" the heart youself or was it there?

Thanks for your comments.
Yes, actually I was 'trying' to be creative LOL and deliberately kept DOF short, I wanted a dreamy, soft, painterly effect.
I did stop down on some of them but they looked too clinical for what I was after.

I did the heart myself, I actually did about 10 in all trying to get them to look right , I was surprised how difficult it was to to set up a such a simple shot.

cheers Lilly

I rather like the heart one - how did you manage to draw in the sand like that without leaving footprints? :

I think the snails could do with just a touch more DOF for my own tastes but I like the general exposure/ambience.

I didn't!
A spot of PP here and there!
here it is in the raw!

Ah, now it makes sense!

In which case I commend your Photoshop skills 'cos I didn't notice any trace of PP in the first example - good work.

Small heart, enormous feet