[/caption] Beautiful Dahlia flower that looks more like a golf ball sprouting pedals! This type of Dahlia is pretty cool to photograph but you have to look for a specific focal point in order to bring out its personality. I took this shot with my Sigma 50mm prime/macro lens and had the camera only a few inches from the flower. The entire background is out of focus due to the low field of view but I did want to have as much color in the blurry background so I made sure to locate a flower that had several other flowers directly in the background. I made sure to remove my CIR-PL but made sure that I had my warming and UV filter attached in order to bring out the natural tones and awesome colors of the flower. The shutter speed was fast at 1/320 second and I set the ISO at 100 and the white balance at 0. The aperture ended up at F-7 and I had the camera mode at Normal/Program. I wasn’t using a tripod and I almost never us a tripod when taking macro photos so you want to make sure and keep a steady hand as well as utilize light and avoid too many shadows. You also want to always utilize your histogram and review every shot that you take so you don’t miss an opportunity to adjust your camera settings.