I like this one too...How do you get the flower so clear and yet have the background blurred..i am trying to learn how to do that, haven't got the hang of it yet.. Leigh

...I bet Alpha can tell you the right way, the easy way and the hard way. And many other ways to do it. (not how to do IT, you perverts!) But basically, you gotta use very narrow focusing point. Try different aperures, bigger the number, more blurry back- & foreground. (..or was it smaller the number? Damn, guys help me.) I'm using that closeup lens of mine. Lens optics is 'poor', so area where pic is sharp is really narrow. I dont consider it a fault, I try to get blurry backgrounds. ...libraries contains many intresting manuals and you can also find really good tutorials from net. Worth of reading. Optics, blaah, sounds boring, but when you are holding your cam in your hands and trying to figure out how different lenses works, its not boring at all. Really useful information, opens many new doors. .n

Antoonio got it right. The bigger the apertures number, the narrower the depth of field (acceptable focus area). So the faster the film, the lower you can set the apertures because faster film needs less light. So if you want a wide depth of field, try a faster film. For less depth of field, use slower film. Of course, this is general, and your lighting conditions and what type of shot you are looking for is a factor too. The more light, the more ability to have a wider depth of field. Less light, less D.O.F. I hope this makes sense.

Well, what I can say about f-stops is, it doesn't really make sense until you actually try it, take the same photo using different f-stops, record which is which, see what happens, and you'll understand :-) (That is with film cameras anyway...Digitals I have no clue about)