I don't know how much experience you have with macro lenses, but depth of field will be extremely thin at close distances. It can be tempting to shoot handheld and wide open, especially with the stabilization on that lens, but your best image quality will come on a tripod, stopped down, with stabilization turned off. Try shooting around f/8 or so. You should still be able to isolate the subject from its background, but you will get more than a thin slice in focus. Use your DOF preview frequently. The tripod is important, since your effective aperture will be smaller than indicated when shooting macro, so you'll be getting slow shutter speeds. Despite what Canon and others say, stabilization is not very effective in macro range. Lighting is very important too. Aim for diffuse lighting. Because you're so close, dust and small imperfections will be visible under hard, oblique light. Hope this helps.