More macro experiments. Help!

[TonyW]

These were a little easier than insects that I found difficult. This creature was less mobile and quite docile. I had to get my hand under it and give it a push to get it to put its head out of the lavender patch. To give some idea of scale, the lavender leaves were around 30mm long. They were taken with a Canon 5diii camera and a 100 mm macro lens. The first is cropped at the sides and I have tried, not very successfully, to improve the background. The second is just as it came off the camera, not cropped. They were converted from raw to JPG with Canon's Digital Photo Professional.

Still not a very good depth of field but the central points look focused to me. I was disappointed by the amount of noise in the background in the second photo. Even at ISO4000 I thought it should have been better than that.

1. Finding the way. 1/200 f11 ISO3200

056A2762 by tonyw36, on Flickr

2. Smelling the lavender. 1/100 f9.0 ISO4000

056A2774 by tonyw36, on Flickr

[Brownbear]

I think that the 2nd image is a beauty and the background is nice... the snake is also very beautiful.