Compound Eyes 24 Feb 2011

I caught it resting on the leaf of one of my potted plants outside my house at 2am in the morning.

This common housefly was quite docile and allowed me to take many shots with flash.

That was until it realized of the intruder to its peaceful rest and turned around to face me.

That momentary confrontation allowed me to take a final portrait shot of its compound eyes before it dismissed me as a nuisance and flew into the night.

Turn around and confronted the intruder before it flew away

Some sharpening was applied via GIMP and using the "unsharp mask" filter to enhance the details of the compound eyes.

Wanna know the list of current camera gear I am using?

Illegal camper outside my house

I discovered an illegal camper outside my house.

Before the camper escaped I quickly took some photos as evidence.
Lucky for me, the illegal overstayer was oblivious to my camera equipment and did not shun me. It was also brave enough to see me in the eye and tell me that its not leaving this place for now.

This is the hairy resident whom is staying illegally outside my house in a pot of curry plant that Auntie Jaey gave us. For 2 nights in a row, it was still in the same pot of plant...

I am staying....

Now look me in the eye, I am not kidding!

This 3rd shot is actually a revised version of the 2nd shot, cropping and rotation with some colour/brightness adjustments and minimal sharpening with Gimp's "unsharp mask". Thanks to criticism and suggesions from Clubsnap's Macro Gods.

Wanna know the list of current camera gear I am using?

More Macro with my 90mm Tamron at Bedok Reservoir Park

The following pictures were taken at Bedok Reservoir Park on a cloudy afternoon.

Flash was a bit harsh on this pic, I need to learn how to diffuse more.
This one was taken with my Nissin di866 with a white translucent party plate cutout placed 
at the filter thread of my lens

This was taken with the same party plate but with the popup flash

Popup flash with party plate, I wanted to get closer but I was currently comfortable with my lens
proximity of about 15cm away from the subject. I didn't want to scare it away. The extended branch that this fly was perching on, was swaying like mad due to perpetual breeze. I had to hold the end tip of this branch with one hand, and with the other hand, hold the heavy Canon 40D singlehandedly and depress the shutter button. I wished I could get closer, I'm sure I'd be able to capture more of the compound eye details if I were to move nearer by another 3-4 cm.

Wanna know the list of current camera gear I am using?