In insect photoreceptor cells there is a close relationship between the phototransduction cascade in the rhabdomere and the oxidative phosphorylation in the mitochondria. On one hand the light-induced depolarization and the Ca²⁺ entry into the cytosol present a load on mitochondria, while on the other the blocking of oxidative phosphorylation can cause the opening of normally phototransduction cascade-activated channels TRP and TRPL. The functional status of both systems during animal's life determines the strength and the nature of this relationship. We assessed the status and the plasticity of the photoreceptor cellular respiratory apparatus during the course of blowflies' adult lives. This was done by non-invasively measuring the changes of individual respiratory pigments' redox states upon exposure to anoxia and upon illumination. Measurements were performed in situ using dynamic differential absorption spectroscopy and the individual respiratory pigments redox states were extracted using PCA-based spectral deconvolution. While the responses to anoxia gave us the overall redox state dynamic range of individual pigments, their responses to 10 second illuminations told us how responsive the mitochondria are to sudden changes in metabolic loads. In animals kept on a 12h/12h day/night cycle there was a 3.4 (haem b) to 5.6 (haem c) times increase in the respiratory pigment redox state dynamic range in three weeks post-eclosion, while in animals kept in darkness the increase is 2.0 (haem a₃) to 3.1 (haem c) times in the same time period. The dynamic range plasticity is retained even in adult life. If the culturing regimes changed after two weeks (light/dark to dark and vice versa), the dynamic ranges changed correspondingly. The observed values however never reached the levels of the other group. The responses to 10 s illumination periods also varied with age. While most of this variability is due to smaller dynamic range reflecting the cytochrome content, some features especially the shapes of the reduction (oxidation) time courses did change substantially – most notably in haems c, b and a₃. Taking into consideration the close relationship between the phototransduction and mitochondria our results demonstrate the need for caution in interpreting the electrophysiological data from freshly hatched animals, with immature biochemical apparatuses, normally used in preparation of isolated ommatidia for patch-clamp experiments.