Going a little crazy here - I have successfully photographed insects with a twin-lens Rolleicord with screw-on close-up lenses.  I have also used a Pentax SLR with 200mm macro and lots of natural light.  To me it is not a matter of snapping a thousand shots and throwing all but one away (too expensive with all types of film for me!), but it is a matter of patience, time, and timing.  In that regard the rolleicord has actually served me better.  I only have twelve shots per roll, so I can't snap away.  I see the subject at all times because it is a twin-lens, so it does not move out of focus or get blown by the wind at the last instant as the SLR mirror flips up.  Do I advocate running about with a twin-lens camera to photograph bees?  No, not unless you are a fool like me.  It is fun, time consuming, but I get that extra bit of joy knowing that one in 5, or one in 2 even of my photos are good, rather than one in 20 or one in 100.  It may take me just as long to get that one as it does someone with a fast-firing SLR because I stalk the things and more often than not give up until a better opportunity presents itself rather than snap the shutter.

For me the bottom line is try it, if it works for you, adopt it.  You should be able to rent a macro lens for a weekend at a respectable photo dealer or second-hand photo shop and give it a whirl.  Rent a digital camera too (I like the idea of no film - to a point.  There is still something, for me, in having a tangible film that can be archived and stored for two hundred years - if you go digital you hope that in two hundred years the technology can read your cd).   If it works for you, buy it.  Me, I'll stick with the knob-wind, all manual bulky hunk af machined aluminum called a rolleicord.  Painfully slow, will never make money with it, but with experience it too can be used for insect photography.

Martin Damus

a moderate modern luddite