When taking macro pictures, or pictures of fairly small objects in general, a common problem is to get the lightning right. More even lightning can be achieved by using a "soft box", essentially a contraption that spreads light from one (or a few) light sources over a larger area. A very cheap and simple soft box is a transparent bucket, like this one: Preferably, it should have as neutral density as possible. If it has some colour tint, the images will get the wrong white balance. It is of...