It does have a nice autofocus, which can be overriden on shutter and aperture priorities, but it takes some experience to do this right.

Like you said, it helps if the subject pretty much fills the target field.

Overcast days are helpful for removing shadows and getting even balance.

It has wide angle and zoom capabilities. When shooting macro, I find the wide angle works best. I'm going to try to take my time this summer and always use my tripod.

I prefer to take photos in early morning or on a cloudy day. Using shades/reflectors (with an assistant) is sometimes needed to reduce glare. The most difficult time of year (here in NC) to photograph is autumn due to the early morning angle of the sun.

Depth of field (look at my zinnia photos where there are flowers growing behind them, yet the background is almost black) is important to get a good individual bloom shot.

Play around with the settings on your camera other than auto. Do you have scenes settings, such as foliage, beach, night, etc.?

If you have a good zoom on your camera, you can sometimes achieve better closeup shots and depth of field by not using the macro setting - stand a good distance from the bloom and zoom in to frame the bloom.

Salvias are THE most difficult blooms/leaves to photograph IMHO. (The most photogenic flowers are zinnias and echinacea!)

Since my thing is colorful, deer resistant flower garden combinations, I like to take "group shots" of plants and the salvias don't show up very well.

I was experimenting with 'Mystic Spires Blue' in a number of companion combos last summer and I probably took over 100 shots trying to capture the vignettes. I wasn't happy with any of the photos! You'll notice that I haven't watermarked my salvia photos and I have other flowers. :-)

Ignore the captions as these were in stories that I published on my blog. Only one photo (the red salvia) was cut to take the photo. All other photos were taken in situ.

Cameron

How I like for flowers to look in my photos:

No damage. The blooms kept coming and lasted until November. The nice thing about most zinnias is if the blooms are picked, they just branch out and bloom even more. It's the rabbits that I worry about with zinnias, so I spray "I MUST GARDEN RABBIT REPELLENT" when the plants are below rabbit nose height. I have no affiliation with the product, but it is made locally here in Chapel Hill, NC.

I LOVE to use the tall zinnias with salvia Black & Blue. Stunning combination!

I wrote a story Are Zinnias Deer Resistant? on my blog.