RE: Macro photography - Insecta #3
Flower macro outdoors is a pain, and the bane of the photographer - the closer you get, the higher your f-stop needs to be to maintain depth of field, but the wind is blowing the flowers around (it's VERY noticeable in close) so you want your shutter speed up to try to fix the subject's motion blur (even in-camera or in-lens stabilisation doesn't help here), but all that does is drive ISO up and risk introducing noise. Bright light, sunny day - or a ring flash so that the lens doesn't blank out part of the on-board unit for those cameras that have it and you get an even light all around the subject. I'm getting to the point where I think I can justify a P-TTL flash for my K-5 - it's either that or buy a secondhand *ist-D which can still work with the true TTL flashes of the film era (which shut themselves down on the camera's orders once enough light has come in). The old true TTL was best, but P-TTL is fine for when the subject isn't moving of its own accord and does not blink. :p