Fire

Stunning colors and they do look like flames. The DOF could be a bit more to sharpen the FG petals a bit.

Wow, that's red. Very striking. I love the middle of the image. I think I'd crop a little off the bottom to reduce the prominence of the OOF foreground, but that's my subjective op.

Steve: Hot indeed! With the rig you had set up there won't be much DOF even at f36. I think I would crop this from the bottom to 4:5 ratio. Finding the hyperfocal point on comps like this is tough even if you have DOF preview capability. Stopped down with a tube aboard the image will be so dark that the purpose will be defeated. I tend to bracket my POF and then select the best compromise in editing. Nice job getting this tight. >=))>

I like the extracted detail of this gerbera Steve. The details such as the tips of the petals is excellent.

Nathan

Steve:
I like the intensity of color here and the details of the petals. No a fan of blur FG though - another way beside cropping is focus stacking to get the foreground in focus.

Very well seen and captured...can also be a bubblying caldron of a volcano!!

Hot, hot red colour. Compo and all details are excellent. Well done Steve.

I like this as posted Steve. It is red... I like the sense of depth in the image and for me part of that is due to the amount of oof fg.

pat

Cool shot. Well, maybe a hot shot.

Hot indeed. I really like the sense of depth shown here, and also the colors. Great capture.
Bob

A very original take on the gerbera, Steve, beautifully coloured. Like others I might just prefer to see the fg elements sharp as well, though i understand you wanted it that way to set off the bg petals. Whatever, I do think you've brought out the character of the flower with its array of tiny features ( I never did understand the amazing profusion of stamens etc at the heart of a gerbera !! )