- The horrible blurriness is associated with higher ISO settings. It's fine at ISO 100.
- The sharpening setting that's part of the sensor-to-image development process in the camera's firmware was set to "normal", and its a good at ISO 100.
- The "flash" WB setting isn't accurate, compared to the color of my strobe anyway.
- Importing the RAW files rather than processing them on the camera gives much better results. I can set the WB by pointing to a neutral color in a sample image, interactively adjust the "sharpness" setting, and even correct for lens characteristics.
The main light, a strobe with an umbrella, was on my right. The camera flash was set to 1/64 and was just enough for some fill and to trigger the strobe's slave eye. I determined that f/13 gave as much latitude as could be captured, and the lens was zoomed to 80mm (factor 1.6 compared to 35mm perspective).
This is as minimal as I can get: a stand for the strobe and a tripod for the camera, and set the things on the kitchen table. No reflectors or other things that need to be set up, clamped, suspended, or otherwise gaffed.
I posted them on my site.
So, what do y'all think?
--John