But wait! Did I just see something move? Yes, I did! There's a tiny black speck! And another one, and another one! What are those critters??
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the 10X loupe that always lives there. That helped a lot -- with the loupe I could clearly count six legs. Insects! Yes!! But what kind? I didn't recognize these critters. I thought at first that they looked like tiny rove beetles. But I couldn't make out any elytra. What then?
So I set up my trusty 38mm Olympus on lots of bellows at f/8 with electronic flash, brought the mushroom inside, maneuvered it by hand in front of the lens, and clicked the shutter a bunch of times -- basically every time I thought I had something in focus. A few of the pictures seemed helpful, but on a quick look I still wasn't sure. Here's a sampling of them.
Canon 300D with Olympus 38mm bellows lens at f/8, electronic flash, live specimens.

I really wanted to be sure, so I dispatched some of the beasts and put them under a microscope. Ah! Springtails! Very small springtails...
But how to photograph them? Stack, of course -- but how to hold them? Somehow glue didn't seem appropriate. The solution turned out to be a paper towel with dimples. Stable to 30 degrees tilt or so, and no adhesives required.
For this picture, I selected a specimen that shows off the furcula (the springy tail). You can also, if you think about it, make out the really quite large groove in the abdomen that the furcula is normally tucked into. And then, just to confirm how everything fits together, you can go look again at the upper right picture in the first montage, which (I now see) shows the furcula in its normal position in a live specimen.
Canon 300D with 10X NA 0.25 objective on 150mm bellows, halogen fiber with pingpong ball, stacked at 0.00033". Reproduced here at about 200X.

Not what I'd call wonderfully esthetic results, but maybe you'll find them interesting. I did!
--Rik
Update 10/7/2012: See http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... hp?t=18359 for a stereo rendering of this subject.