This is more a Tutorial like “How to bulid your own home studio.”. lg

That looks like a pretty basic photography set-up. Things to add are thin, rice-paper like sides to diffuse the light a little more; see any number of photography blogs on what what does to your lighting and shadows. The photo lamps are a great suggestion, as is finding the white balance option option on the camera. Just do not mix your bulb types unless you want different colored shadows. Xenon flash bulbs are around 5500K, not the same as the 3200K constant light bulbs that she recommends. Most DSLRs are going to have a tungsten and a daylight and maybe a separate flash white balance setting, pick the right one.

Only part I would disagree with is the wide-angle macro. I personally don’t like them for small projects because you either have too much white space on the side, or you are too close and get a slight curve to your straight lines. On a point and shoot, you don’t have much choice, but with an SLR I like a zoom macro. My favorite is my 300mm, 0.95 meter focus, but it was free.

@ Quin and nave.notnilc

A really great way to combine your ideas is this:

Take white or black felt, whichever your project looks best on, and put half of it on a table, then drape the other half over a box. Place a piece of plexiglass/acrylic about 2-4x the size of your piece on the cloth, then light at about a 45* angle.

This gives you AMAZINGLY professional looking results. You can also place a quarter or dollar bill in the picture for reference.

(Other reference items are much prettier looking than graph paper in my humble opinion. Try the blades of calipers or a stainless steel micrometer and let me know how many more compliments your projects get.)

I would skip the hot lights and go with some cheap slave strobes. Get them off ebay for cheap and they are good enough for small stuff. Cheap umbrella are less than $10 each too.

But I am spoiled with my Photogenics…

Great post! Thanks.