[Wasserpest]

One thing, not related, that I noticed immediately... that substrate in the first picture looks very familiar... is that really what I think it is??? :biggrin:

That snail image is great! The cherry one has some blown out highlights, and the amano trouble with focus, but the snail turned out lovely, goes to show that even P&S cameras are very capable of macros.

 

[Wasserpest]

It's exactly what you think it is :icon_mrgr

Great stuff!! At $2.50/25lb, it is even cheaper than topsoil. Love it!

Any suggestions on how to go about fixing that?

You will learn how to avoid these things, just keep on snapping. If you notice blown highlights, see if you can manually reduce exposure by maybe -1 step. Another good option is exposure bracketing, where your camera takes 3 images in quick sequence, one with regular exposure, one under- and one overexposed. Then you can pick the best one, or even combine them for the ultimate enhancement.

Focus is mainly just experience, you don't want to focus exactly in the center of the animal, but a bit in front. For example, in your shrimp image, you want the plane of focus at or just slightly behind the eye, not in the middle of the shrimp body. (Don't worry about that, it's a good shot, I am just overly critical).