I've learned much from this thread, mainly by trial and (lots of) error it has to be said. But, I think I can safely say, it's been fun. Never one to shirk a challenge, I've tried a variety of subjects over the last year, the ones made from shiny metal and glass being the most challenging.
I've spent about 2 weeks trying different flash permutations for a still-life arrangement of beer bottles. The more I tried off-camera flash, the worse it got; this wasn't helped by having large glass patio doors on one wall of the room, they reflected all sorts of stray light from the flashgun(s) into areas I didn't want it to go. Having a large mirror at the other end of the room didn't help either.
I decided to keep it simple and stop fighting the reflections from the patio doors, and instead use them to my advantage. The camera was set up in position with the glass doors behind, a single on-camera flash was used, with the head pointing up towards the ceiling. The bounce off the ceiling diffused the flash and reduced the hot-spots on the glasswork. As long as I used the self timer timer (and mirror lock-up BTW) and got away from the doors when the shutter released, then some flash was also being bounced off the glass doors behind the camera which filled in the shadows that would otherwise have been present underneath the glass.
Following Don's tips, the table was cleaned and dusted, the glass polished to remove fingerprints - they really show up big time under flash lighting. Much time was spent before pressing the button to arrange the objects in the frame, the glass was empty at this point as I wanted there to be some head on the beer in the final image. Plenty of test shots were taken with an empty glass and the results scrutinised for hot spots, stray bits in the background, dust marks, exact point of focus, etc.
What have I learned? Keep it simple has to be the biggest lesson. I don't have any diffusers, so using walls and ceilings in my main method of spreading the light. We have light, neutral colours in the dining room so it helps. Diffusing the light, by whatever means, is essential with glass or metal objects - if you don't, it won't look pretty, trust me. If you can't get it right with multiple flashes, used off-camera, go back to basics with just one. Look at what it's doing and change your position to use the effects to your advantage rather than trying to fight them.
Rather poor image of setup used is attached.
Result is here:
http://www.worldphotographyforum.com...1&limit=recent
Duncan