Look again--I added a penny picture. I didn't tie this fly. It was
part
of a borrowed collection, and the owner couldn't remember who tied
it either (the owner used to be in the business, and lots of people
gave
him things).

RE taking closeups with a less sophisticated camera.

I struggled with film technology for years. The setups are the same
(if using film or digital) but the feedback cycle is so much faster
with
digital it's easier to get the bugs worked out.

There are two ways to photograph little things closeup (and get good
results). You need specialized flash equipment (that reduces hard
shadows,
one way or another) or you need a light tent. I used little Nikon
Coolpix
995 for a long time. You can buy cameras like that for 300 bucks these
days.
Some do a better closeup job than others. Nikon has always been good
at closeups, even in their cheaper, little digey cameras.

The light tent I use is made from cardboard, foam and a hot glue gun.
The fabric you drape over it is any thick, synthetic, curtain like
material
you find at the ladies sewing store. The lights I use are "study"
lights.
The are tungsten, so you have to set the camera's white balance to
tungsten.

http://montana-riverboats.com/Pages/...en-Lights.html

The final trick I've learned recently is to use a directional, not-
diffused backlight.
That means the backlight goes inside the light tent. It could be a
mirror or
a piece of tin foil glued to a chop stick, that directs light onto the
back of the fly.
The backlight makes the fly stand out. Fashion photographers always
use backlight
when photographing beautiful women.

One other trick is playing with color saturation. Diffused light
tents tend to make
slightly flat colors, so, if you bump the "color saturation" setting
up a knotch
or two, on your digey camera, that helps.

If your camera allows, turn auto exposure and auto focus off and do it
manually.
Just play with exposures until you get what you want.

If you can set F-stops, use a tripod and F-36 and a three second
exposure
at asa 200, or there abouts.

Else live with what you've got. I can take very good pics with my
little camera.
Better ones with the big rig.