Beginning in Macro

Image 1: Canon 17-85, close range.
Image 2: Canon 100-400L, Reasonably close range, zoomed in majority of the way.

My questions/critique is getting at the fact the Macro looks a lot better with the 100-400L (zoomed in a lot) than it looks with the 17-85.
I'm very curious, am I doing something wrong, or am I not understanding something? I just don't understand why this is.

I have left the EXIF in tact this time, I did adjust the brightness of the second image.
Thanks in advance

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These aren't macros in the sense I am used to , to me they are close ups?

You can get the answer to this problem at www.dofmaster.com
However, I can also give it to you in a nutshell here.

Making some reasonable assumptions for the unknowns, we will calculate the depth of field for the two cases. For lack of a better value, I will assume the flowers are about 1 foot from the camera. As bad as that guess might be, I think we can still find the answer to the problem.

For the 17 mm focal length with f/4, and a focal distance of 1 foot, the depth of field calculates to about 2 inches.

Conversely, for the 400 mm focal length with f/5.6, and the same 1 foot distance, the depth of field is zero.

Scary, isn't it? It sounds like the depth of field with the long lens will be so shallow for this scene that nothing will be in focus except some teensy slice of depth. Two inches was shallow enough, but zero - that's a bummer. Might as well forget using long lenses for close up work. Prove that to yourself by playing with the 400 at different distances. You can get reasonable depths of field, but only at much larger distances. In fact, you will get a two inch depth of field at a distance of 20 feet.

Well neither are macros, really. Just close ups. Macro is an ant or a lip of of a quarter but just like 1/16 of the lip.

When you say the longer focal point looks better, that's very subjective. Do you mean its sharper? More detail? Are you looking the depth of field (blurred background vs. not). [See Robert_Lay post].

I actually like the first one better, although I would have moved in closer and used a larger F-stop, a little bit of an angle wouldn't have hurt either. A little 3D helps.

The only advantage that I see in the first one is a background that contrasts nicely with the flowers. Otherwise, as pointed out by Robert, the DOF is almost non-existent. Although the background in the first image is not the greatest, I think that it is a much better shot.

BTW, some telephoto lenses have a "macro range", but it is really more like the ability to focus a bit closer than comparable lenses. A true macro normally gives yo the ability to focus to 1:1 (meaning that the image projected onto the sensor or film is the same size as the actual subject). Here is a macro shot of a guy that I found in my potato patch.