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The cactus is cool. I see what James is talking about.

About the harsh lighting, please explain, it looks pretty good to my untrained and unqualified eye. If anything, the flower is on the dark side to me.

The latest shrimp flower shot is very good, but the lighting is direct and hot.
The Spider is Awesome! I like that a lot. Great composition and exposure. The color is great as is the sharpness. Clipping off the tips of his hind feet is a little distracting, but only slightly. And of course with the same lighting, the flash is a little harsh.

Yeah, he had started moving around at this point and I was chasing him with the lens and his feet were not in the frame. Had to stop at this point, the batteries for the flash gave out.

The lizard is great, composition is your main issue there. Look at how sharp that eye is:)

I guess you mean "how sharp" in a positive way?

And that spider is very cool!. Composition, exposure and sharpness all great. But again the flash is hot.

I like this one also, wish you could see his eyes better though. On the other forum one said I should crop out the right side of the image but I kind of thought of it as space for him to crawl to.

For flash work like this here is what I use, a Lumiquest bounce card. It looks though like you are using maybe the onboard flash, and that will give you the direct hash lighting. If you get an external flash and remove it from the camera and bounce the light, you will be very impressed. You are making some great progress.
No, it's an external flash shot directly. I will get one of these bounce cards to help soften the flash.
Thanks for viewing and your comments, Dean