I shoot with a Canon DSLR (up until a couple of years ago an old D60, now a 7D), and I have a macro lens but I don't take it on canoe trips.  It just adds too much weight.  My butterflies and insects are almost always shot hand-held with a telephoto lens from some distance away. 

The pine bark beetle was shot in 2010 with the 7D, with an L-series 70-200 IS lens, and probably shot at almost 200 mm.  I made quite a few shots and this was the best one.  (The joy of digital.)  The background was my shirt which just happened to have been thrown on a log near the fire grate.  If you could see the original of this one, (not compressed) it is very, very sharp.  I can enlarge it to 16 x 20 easily.

This spider was taken in 2007 with my old D60 and a Canon 75-300 lens, back on the biffy.  Again hand-held from some distance (although I didn't kill it, and I did use the throne with him in residence for a couple days.)

When I am shooting very, very tiny flowers and have lots of time (with the tripod close to the ground), I have a Canon 500 diopter that I can put on the end of my telephoto lens for extreme closups, but haven't used that much since getting the L-series IS lens.

Have never tried to shoot butterflies and damselflies from a tripod--they just move too much.  I stalk them with the telephoto lens and try to be patient.

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