Hello, thanks to everyone for the comments. I'll tell you what I did on these shots...
d50, nikkor 28-105mm (macro mode), manual focus, pop-up flash on d50.
In order to reduce the wash-out/harshness of the pop-up flash, I took an opaque end-cap that I got w/ my 50mm f1.8 lens. I used this to cover the pop-up flash so that the flash hit the curved edge of the cap. This caused the light from the flash to diffuse a bit.
My birthday is next month and I'm dropping hints (like mailing direct links) about an sb600 and G. Fong diffuser, so I will hopefully be switching to that setup and retiring the lens end-cap.
The rest of the camera details are as follows...
WB - Flash
ISO - 200
Ap - f8-11 (lens seems to be sharpest at these ranges)
Pop flash w/ Custom Diffuser
Sspeed - 1/80
manual focus
focal length 105mm
thanks again for looking and the comments.
matt
