The measurement depth of traditional shadow Moiré profilometry is very limited. According to the space distribution of Talbot self-imaging under the illumination of point light source, a new technique using Talbot effect under point light illumination for shadow Moiré profilometry is proposed. An exact mathematical formula describing the relationship between the intensity of shadow Moiré fringes under the point light illumination and the distance between measured object and gratings is derived. The numerical simulation and experiment show that the measurement depth of the shadow Moiré profilometry is increased notably by using the Talbot effect compared with the traditional shadow Moiré profilometry. Respectively, the proposed method and the traditional shadow Moiré method are used to measure the surface of the same object, the difference of the results obtained by the two methods is within ±5 μm. Thus the validity of the proposed technique is proved. The proposed method can reflect the threedimensional morphology of object surface accurately.