Hi,

After looking at your gallery I was particularly impressed with the sharpness of your photos on general except for this one. In macro photography there is a problem with depth of field being very small,usually less than one inch. It is important therefore to shoot at a very small aperture to minimize this drawback,usally about f16, f22, or even f32. Another problem is camera shake at close focusing so a tripod should be used whenever possible. When I looked at this phot I was immediately aware that every part of the flower is out of focus. I think if you had focused carefully on the pistil or center stem of the flower it would have made everything appear to be sharper. The same would be true if you were photographing a bug front on. Focusing carefully on the eyes would make the slightly out of focus rear become less apparent. I have recently become serious about macro-photography and find it to be the most difficult I have tried but in many cases the most rewarding