Verified answer

Bellows, extension tubes, reversal ring (if those still exist - and your lens is useable without any electrical connection to the body).

Bellows are nice, but for bugs it can be a little ridiculous. They are bulky and awkward, using a tripod to get the bug in focus correctly can lead to frustration in the craft of macro photography. You can get the reversal ring, but then you have to deal with a small DOF (depth of field).

I would recommend a used 50mm macro (roughly $200 street). You wont be able to get intensely crazy close, but you probably would be happy with the results. The glass is better than your kit lens so you will get better colors, and its not overly pricey.

If you want to get a 1:1 ratio to infinity, there is the 100mm canon (I am of course making a crazy assumption that you are using a canon :P) Very good, very sharp lens. Those can run around $550.

This was taken with an old Pentax Takumar 50mm lens and a set of bellows on my GH2.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chris-judge/811557389...

The total cost of the bellows and lens was less than £50, you'll also need an M42 adapter for whatever camera you have.

Using the same equipment I also took these

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chris-judge/405004581...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chris-judge/356286866...

Both of these are the title pages for AV (Audio Visual) presentations.

Bellows are the most effective means of Macro as you can set up the magnification you need and focus by moving the whole camera/bellows/lens contraption backwards and forwards to get focus where you want it. A focus slide (around £20) is a useful addition. They can usually get close enough to magnify at least 4:1 (4X life-size) longer bellows can magnify more, Macro lenses can only manage 1:1 (i.e. life-size). Auto focus is useless for Macro shots as it's just as likely to focus where you don't want it rather than where you do due to the narrow depth of field.

You will also need a tripod (see below) and a cable release so as not to disturb the camera by setting up a vibration when you take the shot.

Macro is difficult as your camera only sees the light reflected off a small area so the image you see in your viewfinder is dim and focusing becomes difficult, Live View or, better still, a mirror-less camera helps here as it will give you a brighter view to focus with. Some Mirror-less cameras even allow you to focus with the lens stopped down and adjust the brightness of the screen so you can see exactly what is in focus.

The depth of field gets tiny when your this close so you have to use a small aperture (large f number) so shutter times can be long.

Using flash gets around this problem as a flashgun used close is on low power, flashguns alter their power by reducing the flash duration, used close like this you can get effective shutter speeds of 1/50,000 of a second which enables hand holding. The bellows as above and a cheap manual flash off to one side (to give modelling) attached to the bellows and you have my 'bug hunting' kit, the limited depth of field means that the camera/lens/bellows are always the same distance from the subject, get the exposure right for that by altering flash power and flash to subject distance and the exposure will be automatically be correct every time. The second picture above was shot this way.

As was this one

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chris-judge/351013612...

Chris

Tamron AF 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 XR Di II LD Aspherical (IF) Macro Zoom Lens for APS-C DSLRs with a decreased photograph circle recognizable by way of the Di II (Digitally built-in II) a part of the title. Di additionally refers to an extended coating of the lens factors to care for the certain reflection characteristic of modern-day picture sensor. The subject-of-view of the AF 18-200mm is similar to ~29-320mm on a full body digicam. The lens is on hand in all principal SLR mounts except four-Thirds.