This is a small single dahlia flower just starting to open. It was
probably about 1-in across. I had two objectives here, the first was
to see how close I could get to a flower using both the 12mm
extension-tube and 25mm extension-tube stacked together with my 50mm
lens.

My second objective was to experiment with an off-camera flash cord I
bought recently. One of the problems with macro photography is that
you often have to be so close to the subject (my glass was about 1-in
from the flower for this) that a traditional camera-mounted flash
won't work because the lens itself blocks the light and casts a
shadow. If you are really serious about macro photography then in
addition to a "real" macro lens, you get a special-purpose macro flash
unit that attaches to the front of the lens. That whole get-up can be
quite expensive, however, and I am not prepared to spend that much
money on macro yet (note that dangerous little word at the end). What
I did buy was a coiled "extension cord" for my flash that attaches to
the camera and then to the external flash unit that I have so that I
can hand-hold the flash away from the camera body and light the
subject without any shadows. This cord itself cost $70, but that is
better that the $450 for the "cheap" ring flash or $700 for the "good"
macro flash. Anyway, I still need to mess around with this concept
more, but for a first attempt, it isn't bad. I was using Av set to f22
for the best DoF possible, and a high-speed flash-sync at 1/300-sec.
The camera was on a tripod using a 2-sec shutter delay and I was
holding the flash (with a diffusion cap) camera-left and high, an inch
or two behind the plane of the lens-front.

Canon 1DmkIII; EF50mm f1.4 + 12mm ET + 25mm ET + off-camera flash;
ISO-200; f-22; HS-sync @ 1/300-sec
e-mail: blissful-wind(at)usa.net

Additional images at;
http://www.flickr.com/photos/john-pa/