How can I photograph a 1 mm object with a Canon EOS 80D?

One cheap option is that you buy a reverse lens adapter.

Of course, you need to take care so you do not let dust inside your camera or let the lens get scratched.

You can also increase the magnification by adding extension tubes.

A cheaper option is using a camera cap as an adapter. If you want a DIY option, for example adding some cardboard extension tube, I recommend that you only use electrical insulating tape. This is elastic and gives you a better grip on the irregular shapes and sizes of the lenses and does not leave residues when removing it.

You will need enough light, so you probably need to use a flash or shoot close to a sun-lighted window. This is especially true if you close your diaphragm to increase the depth of field (But you need a special adapter for that because a kit lens will stay open at max aperture)

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This question additionally has one more variable. Can you crop the resulting image?

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Here are some tests. Excuse the lack of color calibration.

A reversed lens on extension tubes

I used an old manual Prime lens 50mm f1.8 with an aperture of f8. The camera mounted on a tripod looking down and I used a flash to reduce the motion blur produced by the same camera while moving the mirror.

The lens was reversed with some extension tubes of only 7.5 cm.

The camera has a 24Mpx DX sensor.

The focus was using the live view and moving the pedestal up and down.

The first image is a close-up of a vernier (precision ruler) to set the scale.

And here are some grains of sugar. Between .5 and 1.5 mm approx. The red rectangle is a simulation of a FullHD Crop.

And here is the real size of that FullHD crop. (You can open it in a new window)

By comparison, here is the cropped (FullHD) image of the kit lens, mounted normally at 55mm the closest possible. I cheated a bit and applied a small sharpening.

So, to update my answer. Depending on the crop you need even using your normal lens could be an option. Using a reversed lens is a good option to experiment with macro photography.

You can try to get one prime lens of let's say 35mm, a reverse ring, and some extension tubes.

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One interesting thing about the reversed lens is that for example using the kit lens at 55mm gives a lot less magnification than using the 18mm side. You probably do not need an extension tube at all at 18mm.

Reversed lens over a telephoto lens

You need to be extra careful with this setup, put your mounted lens on manual focus mode to prevent any damage. Keep the arrangement in a vertical position to prevent any bending, especially on plastic lenses, like the kit lens.

Here are some new tests using a zoom lens in the 200mm range with an old manual 50mm f1.8 lens on top of it.

The new reference photo is on green, and the old one is in red.

The full framing and the reference FullHD Crop.

And the 100% FullHD Crop.

Additional notes. It is really hard to keep something in focus in this macro setting. I used f32 on the mounted lens, and obviously, it got really dark. I used the flash really close to the subject.

Hall of shame

• My reversed Kit lens got really blurry images using it on the extension tubes. Also, it is hard to set up because the zoom and the focus ring (which should be in manual mode to avoid messing it up) is very loose.

Resampled but no crop.

At 18 mm

At 24mm

• I tried a realllllly long cardboard as an extension tube (70cm), but it presented a really dumb problem. As the image projected is very dull, and a lot of the light is projected into the tube's walls it reflects the light even it was black cardboard. It needs to be painted with really matt paint. That is why I only used at the end the extension tubes that have a special roughness. This is so shameful that is a shame to put it in the hall of shame.