One of my few attemps at macro

[John Hawkins]

I am not sure of the bloom, or the insect. The insect is verry small sort of "Bee" looking. Shot in Ft. Myers, FL.
Used my Sony A700 with a Sigma 105 f2.8 macro lens. Data=ISO 400, 2.3 ev, f2.8, 1/500, auto white balance, shutter priority, metering mode-pttern, auto exposure. Thanks for looking, John

[Jerry van Dijk]

Hi John, welcome to the wonderful world of macro! I can't help you with the flower, but the "bee" is actually a fly, from the hoverfly family (Sirphidae). They're excellent mimics of bees and wasps. Some even mimic specific species!
I like your image, but see some points for improvement. I noticed that your main subjects are rather centered. In the repost, I've placed the subjects along the lines of the "rule of thirds", drawing more attention to them. Furthermore, I've cropped the image to draw even more attention to them, using a 3:4 ratio that IMO fits the vertical composition better. Althoug I like the patterns the OOF leafs are creating, they are distracting from the subject. With the crop, there's less of them. Along the flower, there's a lot of color fringing (especially blue). Easy fix in ACR 5.0 with the color abberation sliders. Finally, I added a little sharpness to the hoverfly, because I felt it looked a little faded next to that wonderful flower (but I'm a bug fan, so I always regard the bug the main subject;)).

[John Hawkins]

Thanks Jerry, I like what you did with your repost.

[Leon Robinson Jr.]

I love this, the fly makes the picture for me!

[Jay Sheinfield]

John,

I like the OP. I can see what Jerry is after, but this could go a number of ways depending on what you had in mind. I'm a flower guy, and that's what draws me the most about this photo, along whit the vivid colors. The bug adds interest. The colors are wild, yet well controlled. I might tone down the bright greens just a bit, but not too much, just to get the overall BG light level more even. I like it a lot............

On a technical note, shooting macro at f2.8 will result in a very shallow DOF and your were fortunate to get the bug in focus, but then again I can't fault the nice bokeh of the BG courtesy of the f/2.8. My overall recommendation, do more macro! and let's see it!

[Ken Childs]

Hey John, great timing on this! Jerry covered some of the points I would have made and his repost is taking this in the right direction. You have lots of options on a crop and I suggest rotating this different ways and see what you like best. I probably would have tried a slight CCW rotation and cropped with the fly near the LR ROT position but that's just 1 of many options. Keep 'em coming!

BTW, Your flower looks like a Mimosa.

[Steve Maxson]

Hi John. I like your flower plus the multiple shades of green surrounding it, but the in-focus, hovering Syrphid fly really takes this up several notches! As noted above, there are several viable options for cropping and I tend to like the tighter, more vertical crop of Jerry's repost. Keep up the good work and let us see more of it! :)