Macro Photography Practice..

Nice start! Macro photography is one of my favorite subjects in the field. It is also one of the fields where a point & shoot can shine. Most P&S cameras have a decent to good macro ability. As a photographer who owns many cameras and does macro photography for clients, I end up using my P&S (a Lumix LX3. High end but still P&S) for most of my personal macro stuff due to ease of use and the fact that it's always easily accessible to me.

Going up to the dSLR range Nikon or Canon doesn't matter much since you want something not too expensive and basically $1000 USD and under bodies are pretty close in terms of image quality. Second, macro photography is really reliant of the lens and some other accessories. The lens WILL be the most important thing. Is it a true 1:1 macro lens? How close can you focus? Do you want a wide-ish angle, normal or telephoto macro lens? That decision affects how much background will be in your photo and how close you will need to be to your subject. When choosing a lens, do a little research to make sure its a real macro lens and isnt "having macro abilities or macro functions." This term is used in lenses that allow you to focus closer than normal but is not a true macro.

Next is a decent tripod. Does not need to be expensive per-say but should be sturdy and all movements must be able to be locked down securely. Nothing worse than framing a shot perfectly then having to fight a tripod that keeps drifting down.

My personal setup is Nikon based for dSLR. On a cropped sensor body, the 60mm micro is amazing. You end up being pretty close with a bit more of the background but at $4-500-ish is a great lens to have for macro, portrait and general photography. I also use the 105mm micro which is even nicer since it allows you to be further from the subject but it's closer to $900. To save some money the older Nikon 55mm can be had for $3-400 used. It is fully manual but macro isn't about speed anyway.

Some items that might not be obvious are flexfill reflector discs. These pop open and generally have a white side and a silver or gold side to let you add some light to shadows. These will also serve double duty to help block out some of the wind if you are macro photography in the field. Wind + lightweight plants and grasses = blurry photos.

For now just keep shooting, experimenting and learning from your photos.

Happy shooting!

Those are very nice macro photo results! Personally do like macro photography as well, it's really amazing though quite challenging.

CopperChef put some great advice up there. A decent point and shoot will go far in terms of macro photography and be more budget friendly (and often easier to use).

While I still need to learn much and gain experience, have tried my hand at some macro photography using my Canon Eos 450D DSLR with the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 macro USM lens. A very nice and sharp Canon lens with 1:1 macro in case you should opt for a Canon, it has more range than the 60mm and is more popular, but costs more, so you might like to try the 60mm macro instead if the budget is tight.
Definitely invest in a decent tripod, the slightest movement on a macro lens can ruin the shot.

For those interested, some of my macro photos are up on my blog: http://bluebluewave.wordpress.com/tag/macro/