I have always been fascinated by the compound eyes of insects. Having relatively large compound eyes, the common housefly would be the natural subject to photograph to show the details of a compound eye.

This picture of the head of the female housefly was taken at my home in Singapore. I was experimenting with macrophotography for months, trying to capture what the unaided eyes cannot see. I am still learning and I have a long way to go!

The pictures were taken in the early afternoon. Six frames were shot between 2.35pm to 2.36 pm. I know it’s a female fly as she was laying her larvae at the time and kept still long enough for me to take the shots in natural lighting.

The camera I used was the Leica V Lux4, at full 24 times zoom i.e.108mm, (600mm in 35mm equivalent). I had a Raynox close up lens ( DCR250 ) attached to my Leica V Lux 4 camera. The settings were: ISO of 160, f.8, and shutter speed of 1/25sec. The final picture is a composite of six frames, shot within 60 seconds in JPEG, camera on a focusing rail mounted on a tripod to facilitate the use of two hands.
I cropped a little over the top and right margins to trim away excess blank space and to cut down the vignetting. I then stacked the frames. Minimal Post Processing to correct exposure and saturation in order to produce the actual colors.

This picture was submitted to ViewBug and has to date been awarded :

*Won Featured Picture, June 2016.
*Won Contest Finalist in A World Of Macro Photo Contest April, 2016.
*Won People’s Choice in Bug Eyes Photo   Challenge February, 2016.
*Won Staff Winter Selection 2015 December, 2015.

Tips on Macrophotography:
Watch lots of uTube videos on how to do macro photography!
You may want to look at some of the focus stacking software that’s available. This is a software that compresses several picture frames at different focal planes to give you that depth of field a single frame cannot give. I use the Zerena software. You need to purchase this software.
Most of all is a lot of patience, perseverance, and breath control! Yes, you need breath control, believe it or not!