check out GHO's web site. Very good info on taking pictures and also very easy to understand explanation of the basics of photography.
My basic setup is to:
1. make sure the glass/acrylic and clean
2. turn off the pumps to stop flow during the shoot (well, not always, but it helps)
3. get out the tripod and set it up so the camera is as close to the front panel as possible
4. always shoot as perpendicular to the front panel as possible
5. use as little of the zoom as possible
6. set the picture to the largest possible, more pixels to work with
7. turn on the macro mode if you have one, it helps
8. play with various settings in manual mode until I get it just right
