I'm setting this up as a record of what I'm doing with my camera in various shoots...and hopefully I will learn something from it. All pics posted will be exactly as they come out of the camera, except for resizing.
For this group, I set up a piece of white posterboard on the kitchen island. There is a small light suspended approx 3 ft above the surface. It's a crappy set up, but I broke down my old photo box because I needed the space & I wasn't really happy with the lighting I had for it.
Since the lighting is insufficient, I set up two 18" fluorescent fixtures with natural white bulbs - one on each side of, and approx 8 inches above, the photo area. Talk about a cob job, lol.
Shooting with my Nikon D90, 18-55mm lens. These shots were taken in manual mode, with no other setting changes. (I tried starting in Auto - but the surrounding lights prevented the flash from firing, and the pics were too dark.) The first shot - the firefly - was taken from behind, almost between, the fluorescents. It gave the best light, but was a tough angle to shoot from (leaning over the sink, from the side); so I didn't bother with it for the rest of the shots. The remainder were from the "front" of the set up - and are still disappointingly dark, with lots of shadow.
I probably won't do more pics until I put my photo/light box up again, and (hopefully) get the lighting more to my satisfaction. I'll see how the initial shots turn out, then decide what to mess with first (thinking it will probably be aperture, unless I nail the lighting).