Well Chris, I like the bold crop, the angle of the front flower, the way the flower in the background gives you more info about the structure (as you're seeing a side view), the contrast between the black background and the white flower, the way that detail has been kept in the petals, the seperation of the little wiggly bits from the petal on the background flower, and the fact that it just looks nice to me.

Regarding the sharpness, I did wonder whether it was a little too far forward, but at this resolution it's so hard to tell which bits are critically/acceptably sharp that I didn't comment. The shadow was the main concern for me.

And you don't need a when you say it doesn't do much for you, and no need to apologise either - each to their own.

Dan

Excellent, reshooting is the best way!

Dan

Excellent exposure, superb composition, very nice.

But , the backlight cast a shadow of the stem of the flower behind on the petal of the front flower, and now I've noticed it, my eye keeps getting drawn to it. Bit of dodging should sort it, I reckon. Or if you could set it up again, moving the backlight to the left should avoid the shadow.

Dan

I had a Uniloc (basically the same as a Benbo), and it was great until the thread of the single 'bent bolt' stripped. I got a Manfrotto 055proB to replace it, and find it much better as an all-rounder. You can still get right down to the ground, but it's way better for 'normal' standing up shots (I feel).

Dan

Absolutely! Where would we be if we all like the same thing?

Dan

A tripod for flower shots like these really does help I find, not necessarily for allowing a smaller aperture for more depth of field (I happen to like the look of a narrow DoF with flower shots), but to allow you to focus on the critical point. That might mean taking several shots with the same composition, just 'bracketing' the focus.

I love the soft muted tones some of these have got, 'punch' isn't suited to all subjects.

No. 1 - I would have been tempted to go for a more central composition, and perhaps cropped down to a square. So what if it looks like a coaster? Still a nice picture, and not a viewpoint you normally get with Clover. Perhaps a little more contrast might bring out the detailing a bit, but I do think Sockpuppet's gone overboard.

Dan

Well, I thought that, but I think that even when I switched the camera to never go to sleep, it still did it. I'll have another go at some point.

Dan

The wireless one for me is best if I'm doing some quick macro shots where I need to wait for a lull in the breeze, just whip it out of the grip, and wait for a still moment. If there's no breeze, I'll tend to use the 2 second timer with mirror-up.

I tried to use it the other week in the garden when I was remotely shooting birds coming to a nest box. Frustratingly the wireless remote seems to switch itself off after about 10 minutes, so when the bird arrives in the perfect spot, you press the button and nothing happens. Haven't found out how to disable this 'feature', but to be honest I will use the cabled remote in this situation normally. I just couldn't be bothered (initially) to go back into the house to get it.

Dan

You don't work in a camera shop do you? I'd hate to ask for a 2Gb card and come out with a 256MB one!

Although I see there is perhaps the potential for confusion here, I don't see it as a real problem - I think we all know if people say 2gb, 2Gb or 2GB, they're talking about the same thing when discussing memory cards.

Dan

This statement followed a mention of your Cybershot, but I think it refers to photos from your Pentax. If so, then it would suggest that the camera is fine, but there's something wrong as far as your home printer is concerned. If that's producing bad prints, whilst the supermarket is doing fine, then that would point to the problem.

Dan