Insect Macro Photo Equipment: A Price-Tiered Guide
- Andrew Johnston
- Dec 10
- 7 min read
Documenting insects via photos can be very difficult due to their small size. Several previous posts gave some feedback on different macro lenses in the field and in the lab. This post provides very simplified equipment recommendations for varying levels of financial investment. These are far from the only options and I would encourage anyone interested in purchasing new gear to research other options on YouTube or other photographic blogs.
This post primarily covers lenses but diffuse lighting is just as important as sharp magnification. Once you have a camera and appropriate macro lens, there are many options to DIY flash diffusers or you could buy one pre-made. I have really liked my AK Diffusers and have purchased multiple units after absolutely loving the first one I bought, but other brands such as Cygnustech, and the Pope Shield are well liked throughout the macro community.
A note about camera bodies
Macrophotography does not benefit as strongly from the latest and most feature-rich cameras like many other photography genres do. Macrophotographers typically use manual focus, flash lighting which freezes motion and mitigates stability issues, and its resolution is typically limited by the physical properties of a lens and the physics of light. While more expensive and feature-rich cameras can provide convenience and perhaps a slightly sharper photos than less expensive cameras, just about any semi-modern digital camera (DSLR or Mirrorless) will work fine.
The largest issue is you must determine lens compatibility with your own camera. There are so many options for lenses - and many of them are made for multiple lens mounts (i.e. different brands or camera generations) - that you will need to be very careful to purchase a lens which will fit your set up.
Price-Tiered Guide
Under $100
If you want to try out macrophotography and have very little budget to spare or want to at least try an inexpensive test first before investing more heavily, you should invest in diopters!
I recommend the Raynox DCR-250 (priced $75 as of December 2025). This is a +8 diopter that will snap on to the front of any lens that has a filter size of 52-67mm. You can typically find this printed on the front of your lens written something like "∅67mm." The Raynox DCR-250 works best on slightly longer focal length lenses (100mm-200mm focal lengths) but can work with any lens (though you might get a dark ring on the outside of the frame for shorter lenses like a 24-70mm lens). This diopter will work on most standard kit lenses that come with your camera. Simply clip this on the front of your lens, focus as close as you can and shoot away! You will probably want to turn autofocus off and use manual focus.
One benefit of this purchase is that the DCR-250 is compatible with dedicated macro lenses! This means that if you purchase one and later purchase a true macro lens, this will "stack" on top and give you an even higher magnification than either one individually.
If you do not already have a standard "speedlite" flash, I would recommend picking one up. Finding one that is able to work with flash triggers is quite useful, but any tier will do. I use Godox flahses on my systems and they have worked well for me (such as the bare bones TT520). You could also use smaller and less expensive flashes (like the Neweer Z150), but they may prove harder to adapt a diffuser to and probably have less utility for other types of photography as well.
There are many other diopter options out there as well, including brands like Nisi, FotoZ and others. You will want something with the +8 to +10 range for macro. The Raynox has had the most reviews and is the only one I have tested myself, but the others should do you well, just be sure to do some research on other options.
Under $500
A true dedicated macro lens will deliver at least 1:1 (or 1x) magnification. This means that your sensor will capture an image the same size as it is. For example, if you have a Canon R50, at 1:1 magnification you will photograph a rectangle 22.3mm x 14.9mm in size (the exact dimensions of the sensor). A 2:1 (or 2x) lens would then capture an 11.15mm x 7.45mm rectangle, and so on.
Venus Optics Laowa lenses are some of the best in the industry and provide fantastic sharpness and magnification. You can hardly go wrong with any of their lenses, but their 85mm, 90mm, or 100mm are all great options (current $400-450 each) - each one going up to 2x magnification! But be sure to purchase the model which matches your camera lens mount!! I prefer the 85mm because it is lighter, cheaper, and more compact. I then might take the 90mm over the 100mm, but they are very comparable to each other, cost basically the same and only vary in a slightly closer working distance for the 90mm lens.
You will definitely need a flash to work with these in the field, so see some of the options listed above.
At the $500 price point (or just over) you can also start getting into some used gear which could work well for you. Check sites like MPB or KEH for deals that could serve you well. If you do not have a bit of photography experience, then you might want to stay clear of purchasing used gear at first just because there are so many options, variables, and versions of lenses that it can become overwhelming quickly without a good sense of what to look for.
A final option in this range is to look at the 2-5x range. I would not start with these lenses because you will not be able to photograph most "normal" sized macro subjects, but this will let you get super up close and personal with tiny bugs and other objects. Options like the AstrHori 25mm (2-5x, $250 for mirrorless cameras only) or the Laowa 25mm (2.5-5x, $360 for DSLR and mirrorless) are great options. These can also be good to pair with one of the lenses mentioned earlier to increase your magnification range.
Around $1000
So you know you want to be serious about macro photography and you are thinking about investing real money into gear?! The big jump in this range is opening up high-quality lenses with some camera-controlled functionality which improve ease of use, though they do not provide any more in strict terms of sharpness or image quality than the $500 range.
Three lenses are worth noting in this range, though many others exist. Two are for Canon cameras and one is for Micro 4/3 / OM systems cameras. One major advantage of these lenses is that the aperture is controlled by the camera. This means that you are typically (or at least can set your camera to) look through the lens wide open at its lowest aperture (typically f2.8) which makes finding your focal plane much easier in my experience. Then when you fire the trigger, the camera closes the aperture according to your settings to get a deeper depth of field in focus. This is in contrast to the full manual lenses from Laowa and others where the aperture is set both during your preview and shooting. I personally find that I will get half of the focus correct and miss the other half very frequently with the full manual lenses, where I can get the narrow focal plane of the automated lenses centered where I want it easier, to then have a fully in-focus photo at the end. This is hard to explain and somewhat trivial, but boy does it improve my mood while I am out in the field and nailing focus at a higher percentage of frames!
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I have been incredibly happy with my Canon RF100mm 1.4x macro lens (currently for $1250). This lens is best paired with a crop-sensor APS-C camera (like the R7 or R50) and can be further magnificed with the Raynox DCR-250. This lens has autofocus and could serve for nice portraits and other non-macro purposes.
The classic (and discontinued) Canon MP-E 65mm goes from 1x-5x. This lens does not have autofocus and just camera-controlled aperture. You can pick this up used on various sites such as Ebay for $700 or so. If you use a newer canon mirrorless camera you will also need to purchase an EF-RF adapter. One major limitation of this lens is that you cannot zoom out larger than 1:1 so if you pair this with a full-frame camera the largest subject you can get in focus will be just over 30mm on the long end, so no portraits or photos of larger objects here. The lens is super sharp and has been the 'industry standard' for years in the insect community, especially for taking focus-stacked photos in the lab.
The final lens that needs to be mentioned is the OM-Systems M.Zuiko 90mm 2x macro lens (currently $1600). This is all the rage currently in macro circles and works with the popular micro four thirds OM Systems bodies. This lens provides great magnification, autofocus, and is compatible with their teleconverters to go even higher in magnification. The other major selling point for this lens is that many medium to high end OM System cameras allow focus bracketing with the use of flash. This menas you can obtain focus stacks of macro subjects very easily. Other camera brands have focus bracketing but (for whatever frustrating reason) they are not compatible with using flashes so that rules out most macro focus brackets.
Final Thoughts
The best macro lens is the one you have. Getting out and taking photos, experiencing insects and nature, and having a good time is what it is all about. Photography is one of those fantastics obsessions where there is always something else to build, buy, or test. Though there are always shinier and more expensive items you might want to buy, you do not have to break the bank to get into macrophotography
Just like other genres, the best macro photos tell a story. They are about composition and capturing something special to share with others. 'Better' equipment can help to realize some of those artistic and scientific visions in your head, but practice and time spent with your camera in your hand is the most important. I hope that this guide is helpful for some of you, and most of all I hope that these tools can help you get out and experience the amazing diversity and habits of insects around you.
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