Flower 3(3) First shootout with the 105 Nikon macro (vr). Please give me some critique, good or bad!

All three Flower pictures taken within 1 minute, handheld between 1/80

and the fastest 1/200 of a second.

 

Plz give me some critique, good or bad!

Andreas, it is always fun to get a new lens and try it out. It usually takes a while to learn what it is capable of and what the best settings are to get what you want from your image. I am a bit surprized that you had to shoot at ISO 800 and still use such a wide aperture with a VR lens. Or did you shoot this in a dark room? Your wide aperture has given you a very narrow depth of field so there isn't alot in focus. I think if you want to have areas out of focus that it helps if they are even more out of foucs so that there is a strong contrast between what is and is not in focus. This will emphasize the infocus areas. So perhaps shooting at your widest aperture and selecting a point on the rose that you wish to stand out would help. Under these lighting conditions it would be best to use a tripod because the slightest shake may lose the selected point of focus. You also have a few hot spots on the petals. Using a reflector or shooting under more even light such as by a window if indoors, or under bright overcast conditions outside will help to eliminate the hotspots. Have fun.