A bit of flash - daylight balance.
This is more like it! Settings were 1/250th at f11 and 200ISO. My £50 Vivitar 285hv costing fifty quid was turned down to 1/16th power at about 18 inches. One small addition was the DIY grid made from an off-cut of a corex "For Sale" sign. I cut slices about 12mm thick and stuck then together with double sided sticky tape, then trimmed the outer edges to be a snug fit in the flash window of the Vivitar. This inexpensive grid casts a pool of light about 10 to 12 inches across at 18 inches distance.
As I've not had much luck with flash leads I've now got a radio trigger from John Camera Shop in Hong Kong costing £14 and it works beautifully from five inches up to fifty metres! Go to John Camera Shop (The trigger is on page two)
I've since taken a soldering iron to the reciever of this trigger and added a mini-jack socket so I can also fire off my camera from fifty metres, which in turn fires off the flash via a second radio trigger fitted in the hotshoe. I'll put a post up soon along with a couple of photos of that adaption.

Silhouette shots have always been popular and despite the branches intruding slightly there's still a lot of impact with this shot. I exposed for the brightest part of the sky and then closed down one more stop,or maybe even two stops. Of course you don't just take oneshot in situations like this, you take ten and keep changing the subject position, the camera position, or alter the camera settings. There is never a perfect exposure for something like this, but you soon learn what works and what doesn't. In case you're wondering, Dave Thomas is wearing a woolly hat - he wished he'd worn kneepads like me after kneeling on a thistle.

I surprised myself with the exposure for this one - 1/2000th sec at f11, probably because I was using 800ISO.
Coombe Woods is okay regarding footpaths and parking, but I was into video for a number of years and find it difficult to get away from the "Tiny details make a better story" type of photography. Maybe I did miss a few really good "general view" styled shots, but I'm more than happy with my results of this dandelion head. I was handholding the camera with my head in the stinging nettles and loose change falling out of my pockets as I wriggled and rolled into position so a lighter patch of sky was right behind the plant. 200mm Canon lens.

This is at Coombe Woods near Street, Somerset.
I love this style of flower photography! There's a certain calming feeling about plant photos where the stalk gradually merges into the background before it reaches the lower edge of the image frame. By using f8 to f11 at about three feet the depth of field is around pretty good at between 12mm to 16mm, yet still allows all else to go out of focus. There were a few strands of grass which needed trimming and a thistle prickling my behind, even though I was wearing a boilersuit!
Canon 400D, 28 - 200 lens, F8, 800ISO, 1/250th sec. Why did I use 800ISO? I can't stand using a tripod, too restrictive. I was lying down on my side with camera about two inches off the ground. Without a tripod I'm only there a couple of minutes, whereas a tripod would have added another thirty minutes to each picture. Meanwhile the sun is on its way down, fast!