With a 100mm lens. I suck at handholding the camera (up to now, I've mostly shot stuff using a tripod). I had to open the aperture up to get a fast enough shutter speed to prevent the blurry pictures I usually take when handholding. I couldn't stop it down enough to get the whole flower sharp (I'm not actually sure if any of the flower is sharp - some of it kinda looks ok to me). I plan to get more practice in this weekend.

 

what aperture were you using? the flower doesn't look sharp. For macro shots try using the flash to control the light. It helps a lot. I don't remember if the Canon DR XT allows you to adjust the flash but it's a digicam so try out the different settings.

Here is one I took using my Nikon but I was using a 18-70mm at about 50mm or so (~75mm).

I didn't use the flash in this case but because the Sun was out I didn't really need to.

sorry for the size I don't have PS at work and this is the only size I have.

http://members.roadfly.com/dakar2m/wall/DSC_0012.jpg

 

Aperture was f/4. Shutter was 1/200. I would assume that camera shake wouldn't be the culprit at that shutter speed, so I guess it was just out of focus (I was using the autofocus).

Here's another one with the kit lens, 17-85mm f/4-5.6. This one was at 85mm, f/5.6, and 1/1000s. Full sunlight. I think the focus came out better on this one.

 

which focus scheme was being used? I find that with my nikon if I use multiple focus points for macro shots, the focus becomes a little soft. So I switch to single focus point. I don't remember the Canon terms for them but there should be an option to change.

This pic looks better but still looks a little soft to me. (but it could be the crappy monitor I have at work) Do you have the full res version that you can link to?

 

I don't have a place to host photos other than my geocities page, but here's a 100% crop of the flowers.

 

I still see a little softness but that could be from the aperture being wide open. maybe try iso 200 and F8.

 

I'll give that a try, thanks. I plan to head out again soon (before it gets hot and the flowers die). There's a waterfall in the canyon that I also shot. Even with image stabilization, I wasn't able to get in focus pictures at the slower shutter speeds needed to blur the water. I might take the tripod with me next time for that.