Of course you could purchase a light tent and lighting or a Table Top Studio:
Problem is these things can be expensive, though you can look on Ebay and similar sites for cheap second hand deals. Unless you intend to do a lot of "table top photography" you might have a hard time convincing your spouse/partner of the need to spend the family budget on this equipment.
Here is a very cheap alternative using materials you probably already have, if you don't then I would suspect the only thing you need to buy is a desk lamp. The one I used was fitted with a 40W Tungsten Light Bulb.
The only other materials I used were an old white shirt, 3 sturdy boxes, the grill from our oven!
You might also notice a metal weight - that was simply to help keep the creases out of the shirt! Of course you will also need a DSLR camera, a tripod and an optional chair to sit on!
Here are a few pictures of my inexpensive table top studio!
Having mounted the camera on the tripod I then set the camera so that it had the following initial settings:
Camera = Pentax K100D Super
Lens - the Standard 18-55mm lens that comes with the Camera
Flash - Off (Manual Mode)
Aperture Priority
White Balance = Tungsten
AV Compensation +1.0
F13
The only setting that I had to alter dependant upon what was being photographed was the value of the AV Compensation which I would either move up or down a notch to make the item brighter or darker.
Here are a few pictures taken using this simple and inexpensive set up.
Click a thumbnail to see the full size picture.
