One of the challenges when starting out with macro is to get a photo of the eye segments of a fly. There are a number of ways you can go about it - a dedicated macro lens like a Tamron SP 90mm 1:1 macro or Sigma 105mm EX DG macro (or the Canon / Nikon/ Pentax etc. equivalent) would be fantastic.

You can still shoot the Eyes of the Fly without a dedicated macro, though.  For the photo below, I used my Pentax K100D digital SLR with a 25-year-old Pentax 50mm f1.7 manual lens with extension tubes.

One day while out shooting bugs, a fly landed on my finger and decided to have a feed. Luckily I had the extension tubes on already, and it landed on my left finger so it was easy to swing the camera round to get a few shots . I’m not sure what species of fly it was - some kind of blood-sucking blowfly thing - the kind that annoys everyone at the barbeque. For photographic models, these flies are great, as once they are feeding they stay still for a while giving a wonderful opportunity to practice your macro skills.

This shot was taken just after it finished feeding. To get acceptable depth of field, aperture was set to f11.

It is a bit disconcerting to see that spiky thing being poked into your skin, but for the keen photographer that is a small sacrifice …gross.

• Camera Make: PENTAX Corporation
• Camera Model: PENTAX K100D
• Image Date: 2007:10:12 14:22:22
• Flash Used: Yes (Manual)
• Exposure Time: 0.0080 s (1/125)
• ISO equiv: 200
• White Balance: Auto
• Metering Mode: Center Weight
• Exposure: Manual
• Exposure Mode: Manual

And finally here is a crop to show the Fly Eye segments

Happy shooting.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 18th, 2007 at 4:33 pm and is filed under Close Ups / Macro. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.