My one weakness is never tracking my settings. I got into the bad habit when I learned to use a SLR and do the settings instinctively now. For example, when shooting water droplets, I start with ss 1/1000 if there's enough natural light and work my way down(up?), if necessary - in low light I lose some of the action because I need a slower shutter speed. I'm guessing by the available light this morning that this was close to a 3.2 aperture (the depth of field isn't as shallow as the pollen head photo which was somewhere in the 2 range, probably 2.5 or so, conditions were somewhat cloudy and the lens was in the actual flower - I needed more light than if I was shooting outside the flower).

I keep telling myself that I'm going to start tracking my settings, but then I miss too many pictures.

Oh, another important aspect - with our cam, I have it at +sharp always and in the case of yellows, I sometimes set at +contrast or they wash out slightly. The only two photos where I used +saturation were the Ant In Lily and Sun Worshipper (hence the really vibrant, deep color) photos.

Best,
Rachel #1657383