Chew me up!

I recently started to play with a light box, and also different types of lights. I have also been reading a ton on "Strobist", as well as on this site. I think my pictures always "lack" something, but I do not know what it is. My g/f tells me that the pics looks great, but I just don't see it. What can I do, or what is it that I am not doing?

This was taken by a Canon A75, in full manual. ISO of 80, f:8, and I cannot remember the speed. I did do a "Custom" white balance (at least what the camera allows me to do). Please be as brutal as you can be.

Thank you!
-Tim

I'm not sure if the narrow depth of field does it for this image, if you were trying to achieve product photography-like results, or otherwise either. I'm no expert though...
I think this image needs much better composition, as nothing appeals to me here.
The blank space on the right side of the image is very disturbing; on that same note, I am guessing that if you work on whitening the dark corners (top two, and bottom right) to make the surface completely white, and uniform, the arrangement of the objects wouldn't seem so inappropriate and might result in a better overall composition. I'd still like to see wider DOF in this image.

You might want to turn Image Editing On; pretty sure you'd get more suggestions on improvements that way.

Assuming that this a practice shot, I will ignore composition and make two technical suggestions:

• greater depth of field is essential
  
• for better contrast on shiny metallic objects, I suggest placing a sheet of black paper or poster board behind and above the objects so that it is well out of the scene, but arranged so that some of the darkness gets picked up in the reflective surfaces.

Ditto what mi reefy and bill said.

Your f/stop is f/2.8 and not f/8. That's why your Depth of Field is so shallow.
Also, depending on your focus point, you may have front/back focus issue.

Thank you guys. This is the type of comments I need to hear. I don't know what I don't know right?

About the composition:
Just playing around with things.

It was a practice shot, and no real desire for anything other than playing with a light box.

Chauncey,
What do you mean front/back focus issue?

Once again, thank you for the feedback!
-Tim

Does your focus point match up with the sharpest point in the image or are they misaligned?