Under £100 for a good second hand 75-300mm FAJ would be an option.

The trouble with Internet Experts is that we only have their word for it.

No lens manufacturer is totally free from defective products and Sigma and Canon have had plenty. Nikon and Pentax have been much better, although neither totally trouble free.

The alternative would be individual testing and then the cost would go up considerably. So do we on average want much higher prices or will we settle for the occasional failure that is replaced with very little trouble?

I have also had Leica products by the way that were very unimpressive...

Not by the user anyway. I'd leave well alone.

The screens are very soft plastic and should not be touched. A rocket blower may help. In any event, marks in the viewfinder system, annoying though they are, will have no effect on the image itself.

Nothing is a bad thing if it works for you.

The point I was making was that using flash will help with slight focusing errors because of the smaller apertures available compared to available light.

Personally I find hand held macro almost impossible, but with moving insects you can't avoid that, which is where skill comes in.

For static subjects I would always use a tripod and manual focus, avoiding the harsh light of flash and preferring natural light wherever possible.

What sort of macro shots are these?

A second issue arises here. If using flash it will enable small apertures and hence lots of depth of field (relatively) so the presence of any mis-focusing will be masked.

The other question of course is what are we meaning here by a macro shot. Are we really talking about 1:1 or maybe 1:2 magnifications or are we using the tern loosly when we really mean close focusing within say 15cm to a couple of metres?

It's easily misunderstood, just like saying to kids "Don't talk to strangers" which was widely used at one time. When someone actually bothered to ask a class "What is a stranger?" none of them knew....so what I'm saying is that perhaps we should define our terms?

Manual focusing is the way to go for still macro subjects. Tripod, low ISO, 2 second delayed action to remove any shake and manual focusing with SR off.

Not from here, but I can tell you that it went to someone in Bologna.

Excellent, hope it adds to your success!