Not really, it can be done with a couple of cheap Ikea bought LED lights, a secondhand trinocular microscope and a polystyrene cup as a light diffuser.
See 9th post down in this thread to see amazing results with cheap equipment.
http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25177
Charles Krebs [2014 honorable mention X 2, has also won Nikon small world ] uses this set up.
http://micropix.home.comcast.net/~micropix/microsetup/index.html
Wim Van Egmond uses a similar setup [previous winner of both Olympus & Nikon comps]
Yousef Al Habshi [Honorable mention] uses a Nikon D800e with a manual tube lens focused at infinity, with a microscope objective screwed to the front of it, uses a stackshot a Zerene stacker software, similar to this setup
http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12147
Doesn’t really matter what setup you use, it comes down to which technique you choose to best show your subject, and subject preparation.
Started out doing photography at the age of 6 using an uncle's old 1940 kodak brownie box camera. At 15 years of age, I decided to buy my very own 1975 Praktica SLR camera. I now shoot with a Nikon D850. I do unpaid TFP and commercial paid work.