Lifestyle Photography Grrrr!

[ps_bond]

Carole, I bought something called Prop Wax to stop pices moving - it's clear and you only need a tiny bit to hold somethibg still.

I have some of that too; it's good, you hardly need any - but it's a pig to clean off surfaces.

I also slways use a shutter release cable and manual focus whilst using the screen (zoomed in) to view rather than looking through the viewfinder.

Yup. Shutter release/remote or timer delay, live view (on Nikon anyway - mirror up is useful if you aren't using live view), zoom as far in as possible, manual focus, *image stabilisation OFF if it's on a tripod*; I usually check DOF at the same time and invariably use about f16. And/or focus stack.

I can go to about f64(depending upon focal distance) on my macro lens, BUT once you get down to the really tiny apertures the thing becomes a diffraction grating - so while the DOF is theoretically wonderful, everything gets fuzzed as a result. Oh, and it focus breathes which is sometimes a PITA.

Pieces of white card are also useful to reflect the light where you want it.

Silver card is good too.

Dust blowers, anti static cloths to keep dust down, polishing cloths, only handling pieces with gloves on... And so on. Macro photography is unforgiving.