and you my friend.

Hi Mony good to hear from you again.

I use the MP-E 65mm Macro lens and MT-24EX twinlite these days.
A little bit expensive unless you are as mad as a kipper!

Cheap extension tubes are usually a disaster and there should
be a law against them. A set of Kenkos will get you 2x and a
good close-up filter lens like the Canon 500D or Nikon 6T will
add another .4 and .3 respectively.

You will get sharp images using these however the most
important bit of kit is a flash unit. It needs to be mounted
on a bracket, as close to the subject as possible and have
some sort of diffusion. This thread has some examples and
may give you some ideas. The main thing is that you want
to get the light from the flash on the subject as quick
as possible as the flash is going to work as a virtual
shutter.

If you put the flash on the hotshoe not only will it cast
a shadow it will also take forever to reach your subject.
The motion blur this induces is often mistaken for an out
of focus shot. You need to hone your awareness of the
difference between missed focus and motion blur. You will
be very surprised at how many people just can't tell the
difference. Even when you show them the problem they can't
get their head round it. Don't be one of these people, it
will blight your progress in photography forever! Look at
every slightly blurred photo with a critical eye and ask
yourself "is motion blurred or blurred focus?"

The closer you get to insects, the more you get to know
them and respect them. They are pretty incredible and
apparently erratic behaviour usually has a pattern and
a very good purpose. With practice you start to predict
where they will go next or how much intrusion they will
tolerate.

Good luck, and do let me know how you are getting on and
if there is anything I can help you with.
Snowy

The 5D blows the 550D into the weeds!

Noise wise they are sort of similar, they both
generate noise from around 800 ISO, at approximately
correct exposure. But the noise from the 5D is so
much more acceptable, it is reminiscent of film.
It doesn't nearly offend as much as the pixellated
digital version of noise from the 550.

Hope that helps.