Beautiful lily

[Carl's Gallery]

I recently bought a new D3100 with kit 18-55 VR lens. Trying photographing a flower and need your help with inputs.
Should i keep the whole in focus or does the current settings make it more appealing?
How's about the exposure? too dark?

Any other comments would really help this beginner

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The beautiful lily

Camera Nikon D3100
Exposure (1/100)
Aperture f/5
Focal Length 36 mm
ISO Speed 100
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Flash Off, Did not fire

[Weekend Warrior]

Try moving the plant to much less cluttered background. That way the viewer will be able to focus much more attention on the actual subject as opposed to trying to differentiate it from the background.

If the plant is not movable, try physically moving your body around to a different perspective in an effort to make a more consistent background. Adding a tighter crop (45-55mm in the case of your kit lens) will also help single out specific parts of the plant.

[docxnoel]

If I am going to shoot this white lilies:
First, I look for a contrasting background in which the white details of the lilies were visible, I observe an overexposure especially on the back side where there is a hanging plant (i don't know if it's only in my monitor). Then i cropped it a little bit tighter.