1) Get Closer - This is a tip that applies to flower photography as much as it does to most photographic subjects. Filling the frame with your subject will produce consistently better images than standing back to get "overall" shots.

2) Even Lighting - In most situations you are going to want to make sure the lighting is even across your shot. This means that cloudy days are great for shooting flowers. So are afternoons and mornings. Shooting in midday sun will often blow out the colors in your images and give you unwanted harsh shadows. There are one or two exceptions to this guideline such as getting back-lighting on a flower, but generally even lighting is the way to go.

3) Depth of Field - In general you will want to shoot with a wide open aperture so that your background is out of focus and your flower in crisp focus. You can even use the macro setting on most cameras which, as luck would have it, is usually indicated with an image of a flower! Just remember that in some situations, such as when you are close but want every part of the flower in focus or when you have several flowers that you want in focus, you may need to close your aperture.

4) Steady Your Camera - Shooting close up can present problems with camera shake. You can also have problems if you are shooting with a closed aperture. The easy way to avoid any potential problems is to take a tripod or make sure your camera is stable.

5) Get Down Low - Don't just stand up and take a shot of the face of the flower. While that can work, you are still more likely to get a better image by getting on the same level as the flower and getting some interesting background into your shot. You can also look for other colors that contrast with the color of your flower. Basic knowledge of the color wheel can help here so you can pick out opposite and complementary color backgrounds for your flower such as the yellow on blue that works nicely in the flower below.

6) Composition - There are many composition guidelines that work wonderfully for flowers such as the Golden Section and the rule of thirds. Even if you want to break these rules, it's best that you know them well first.

7) Get Out of the Wind - This is probably one of the biggest challenge for flower photographers. If a flower is dancing all over the place due to windy conditions, it forces you to change your camera settings when you may not want to. Many people get up eraly when the wind is least likely to be blowing so that they can shoot in more suitable conditions to control their shot.


Hope this helps tk

I would say the first image is overexposed and the light meter has metered for the window plus you have had your f/stop on something like f/4 or f/5.6 and the foxglove plant is spoiling your composition.
The second image looks ok.

Image 1) it's to busy, there are to many distractions going on. You have something in the foreground which is out of focus and shouldn't be in the image. I would have tied the leaves and stalks out of the way to just leave the subject which I assume is the flower head. I would have stood back and used something like 170mm to 200mm and used a high F number say 2.8 to 5.6 to blur the background out. If it was windy taking the image on 1/60 is not going to give you a good focus I would have used at least 1/125 or higher depending on light.
Image 2) Again what is the main subject and what are them 2 out of focus things doing in the image, get rid of them, move round the subject to get a clearer view of the main subject tie flowers, leaves and stalks out of the way to get your shot. Shutter speed if it is windy higher than 1/60.
Image 3) The post with the bell on it is taking your eye off the main subject, the flower I take it to be.
These are my thinking of actually taking pictures of flowers is to have the flower clearly as the main subject and to take everything else out of the way by whatever means.
As they say "keep practising".

Have to say that the basic rule in composition is the rule of thirds, to get your subject on one of the lines that intersect on the rule of thirds. As to say about the supermarket we are talking about totally different images, in the supermarket the images are there to attract your attention to a product so you will buy the product, end of. If I was cropping a landscape image I'm I going to crop it in portrait mode I don't think so, portrait mode is for portraits, end of.

All taken at Martin Mere, UK

Pochard Duck


Wood Duck


Mandarin Duck

Sorry it does change. The crop factor on the 7D is 1.6, so on a 200mm lens the real focal length is 320 so you should not have your shutter speed lower than this.

C/C is something I have been giving for more than I can remember and I do it in good faith and not as a fault of the photographer, we all are learning each time we take a image whether we have been taking them for 30 years or 30 days.

Image 1) IS out of focus whether be that through wrong f stop, wrong depth of field it is still out of focus. If you have a dof button press it and make sure everything is in focus that should be or use your live view function.
Image 2) For me you have the subject and it should be, imho, clear to see what the subject is, it makes for a better composition.
Image 3) It is better to have the subject facing the camera if you want to show it off and again get your dof right or bracket the shots which means taking a image exposure wise 1 stop up from your chosen exposure and 1 stop below.
Image 4) Again out of focus through your f stop being the wrong choice. Again if your unsure bracket your exposure 1 stop above and 1 stop below.
Image 5) Out of focus due to the wrong f stop causing the first lot of petals to be out of focus.
Image 6) Right f stop for the chosen image, everything in focus.
Image 7) The main subject is what? What I do is either take the flower you want to be the main subject and either take the other flower out or move it out of the way so you can have the main flower by itself.

Hope this helps and feel free to pm me with any Q.

Image 1) decent exposure, but you have chopped off part of the petal which spoils the image.
Image 2) quiet good exposure but I would have blurred the background more and especially the leaves at the bottom which distracts from the main subject, the flower.
Image 3) out of focus or wrong dof.
Image 4) out of focus or wrong dof.
Image 5) why are we seeing the back of the flower, we want to see the flower in all it's glory from the front.
Use your dof button if you have one or bracket your images until you have learnt how to master the dof. Keep practising.

I'm sorry to say but....
image 1) is so out of focus
2) the composition is all wrong and you have chopped off some of the flowers petals, and I would have moved the front flower out of the way and just took the one flower.
3) out of focus
4) out of focus
5) out of focus
6) in focus
7) as in image 2, you have chopped off petals off both flowers, and which one is the main subject.
This is not criticism of your image taking but you have to sort out your focusing. When you look through your view finder is everything sharp? If not you need to adjust the 'Diopter' which should be right next to the view finder, it is a little round wheel that when you look through your view finder and turn this little wheel you can set the view finder so everything is much clearer through it. As they say 'keep practising'.

You can still get motion blur at 1/1000, it's not the speed it's the photographer taking it who is moving the camera so creating the blur.

I would say that the second image the duck is moving and your f/stop is at 5.6 giving you a shallow dof and your camera was not rock solid, not on a tripod. The first image the duck is static and there is no movement so no blurry image.

Love taking images of lovely flowers.

Iris


Water Iris


********

"The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain". Tat iz gud inglish init.
:D

Thanks everyone for your lovely comments. The Mandarin duck is one of my fav birds to take.

These images where taken at Martin Mere near Southport in the UK

Mandarin Duck


Mandarin and Wood Duck together


Wood Duck