Monarch on Flower

Nice shot for first macro BF Brian. I might consider a slightly higher iso setting which would give you a faster shutter speed. You might also like to try to smooth out the BG as it is just a bit busy. The colors of the BF and the flower are also very nice.

Brian, this is a good looking view of this monarch.  A fine "first attempt" at macro.  While the macro world often pushes smooth oof backgrounds, such surroundings can be very hard to find.  I think the surroundings here do a good job of showing off the environment.  There are two parts of this shot that I think could be worked on.  You almost always want to get the subject's eye(s) sharp and while the eye sharpness is decent here, it's clearly not completely sharp.  The dark green in the background strikes me as unnatural (of course, it could be a brightly painted wall...I wasn't there).  If you're not shooting RAW, controlling the colors can be challenging.  If you are shooting RAW, the the green saturation needs to be reduced.