Sharon - nice bead! I'd stick with the smallest aperture you can, and even with the current lighting setup there's some Photoshop magic that can be done. I downloaded the third picture and played with the levels; you can look at Scott Tanner's tutorial here in the Darkroom. I'm sure other photo editing programs have a similar function. Anyway, here's what I did:
-Diane
p.s. Here's the link to Scott's tutorial:
http://www.lampworketc.com/forums/sh...ghlight=levels