Unfortunately Toadstar those pictures in your link do not have the resolution required, or the depth of field. Most are also showing diffraction effects at that resolution and aperture.
Compare this example by that outstanding macro photographer Charles Krebs using focus stacking and a wider aperture to reduce diffraction. I only wish I could get anyway near that resolution. This shows what resolution is obtainable in digital photography with our present cameras, something we all should be aiming for, certainly at the normal magnifications and without focus stacking we use for our plants.
Also he is not using some modern high megapixel camera for that image, but a Nikon D200 like mine which is only a 10 megapixel camera, therefore most of your cameras probably have more megapixels than his had. In any case the average computer screen only has the resolution of an around 5 megapixel camera, therefore you are only seeing that wasp image at about 5 megapixels resolution on screen. Even if he had used an all singing 36 megapixel camera, 5 megapixels on screen would be all the resolution you would get. Therefore we all have far more megapixels these days than are needed for the web.
http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... .php?t=243
As much of macro photography comes down to technique as equipment. It is getting used to working with minute depths of field, getting the lighting right and doing everything possible to prevent camera shake or vibrations.
It depends on what magnifications you want Gemhunter. As long as you can stop differential movement between the camera and subject, what you use does not matter. The advantage of coupling both camera and subject together on a single rail at higher magnifications is that any vibration causes them to move in unison therefore the images remain sharp. It does not need to be a metal setup, I have even seen similar wooden ones people have made that do the job just as well, simply coupling both camera and subject together on a single board.
It is not necessarily a longer macro lens that is needed, but extending the lens from the camera body on either extension tubes or bellows. In fact a longer focal length can be a disadvantage, because if I remember the old rule it is you extend a lens set at infinity 1 focal length away from the camera for every 1X increase in magnification. Meaning with a 60mm lens you would have to extend it an extra 60mm to get to 1:1 if set on infinity. Of course macro lenses that go to 1:1 have in effect 60mm of focusing travel from the infinity setting to do this (although many now using moving elements instead). As you can see you would need 120 mm of tubes on a 60 mm lens set at infinity to go to 2:1, but a 200mm lens would need 400 mm of tubes to obtain the same magnification, though giving greater working distance between lens and subject. Therefore at high magnifications shorter focal lengths are better in order to keep the extension from the camera required down to sensible limits.
Camera bellows are in effect a constantly variable extension tube, their problem being they have a minimum extension factor when compressed, unlike smaller extension tubes or rings. When using longer focal length lenses at high magnifications some couple two sets together to get the required extension.
http://www.nicovandijk.net/macro.htm
It's even worse with large format cameras since they have to extend their standard focal length lenses even further to get similar magnifications therefore even longer bellows extensions are used.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hU8c_iAcU0