Tiny fly (5:1), Heesch, Netherlands

This is my first 5x macro insect stack. The end result is really quite bad, and I was in doubt to post it all. I'm posting it anyway, as it perhaps has some species value (even if unattractive), and I'll also throw in some technical notes.

A few weeks ago, there weren't really many insects to be found so I set my targets on this tiny fly found indoors. It's a fruit fly sized fly, although I am unsure whether it is actually a fruit fly, I suspect it isn't. To the naked eye, it's a tiny black stripe.

I figured to catch it with a little tool I recently acquired:
https://www.wemacro.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/catch-clamp1.jpg

In my attempt to snap it inside, I crushed the fly on the edge of the bowl. The odds of that happening given this tiny fly are close to none, but leave it up to me to rise to unprecedented levels of clumsiness. Anyway, that's why the fly looks so bad, several of its legs are broken due to this poor handling.

I pierced it in the gut area with a toothpick, as I did not have a fine needle yet. I should have painted it black, it would be easier to remove it in post processing. For a size reference, a toothpick at 5x macro is about the size of a tree.

The next problem is the lack of a background. At 5x macro, you basically don't have a background, yet there's better ways to handle this, which I'm still discovering.

Magnification: the only good thing about this image is that it does show things impossible to see with the naked eye or even with 1:1 macro. Yet it also shows the limits of 5:1 macro. 5x macro feels impressive, but this subject really is too small for it. For now, my rough take is that topics 1-2cm or bigger are best for this level of magnification. Indeed, when checking high quality extreme macro photos of fruit flies and the likes, most are using 10:1 macro. That said, I've learned better techniques now so perhaps in time I can also cover the 5mm range in better quality.

Finally, optically quality is poor. It's not particularly sharp, details are lacking. It's a smudge. This largely is the result of poor continuous lighting in combination with a too slow shutter speed for 5:1 macro. So far, I'm having better luck with flash lighting, more to follow on that.

I'll let you have a laugh at this first insect stack, yet I shall come back with a revenge.