Wild Rose / First Post

[djk]

I've been lurking here for a while and decided to delurk and post some photos that I've had sitting around for a while...

First up is a wild rose. I took this one in Red Deer, AB one summer.
http://djk.smugmug.com/photos/16060296-M.jpg
EXIF (http://djk.smugmug.com/photos/newexif.mg?ImageID=16060296)

Next up is a bee departing a flower in Edmonton, AB:
http://djk.smugmug.com/photos/16061656-M.jpg
EXIF (http://djk.smugmug.com/photos/newexif.mg?ImageID=16061656)

Any comments or suggestions appreciated,
-- Dave

[Angelo]

welcome to dgrin and I'm glad you decided to delurk (sic).

These are very nice photos and look forward to seeing more from you. On #2, too bad you couldn't get the bee in focus instead! hmmmm?

[Lells]

Totally agree, if you got that bee in focus that would've been a winner! Can you sharpen it up in post production in any way?

[djk]

Thanks for the comments!

As for getting the bee into focus, I think I'll need to improve my skills with the camera before I could take a shot like that. I think this could be corrected, in the future, by either using a smaller aperture (higher F-stop) to increase the depth of field (I hope I got that right - I'm still having trouble getting my head around exactly how the aperture setting works) or changing the focus.

What kind of things might I be able to do in post-production to fix the focus? I have GIMP (http://www.gimp.org) installed on my computer for photo-editing, but I have no clue as to what I'd need to do with it! Also, all of my shots have been in the highest-quality JPEG, not RAW, so that probably limits my options somewhat.

Thanks!
-- Dave