Camera Lighting Equipment

Best camera/lighting for professional product photos?

I've started my own business and it's going wonderfully, now I want to make a website to start selling them online too. Only problem is I don't have a good camera for taking professional-looking photos. Also I know that lighting makes up alot of a good photo, but I'm pretty clueless there too. Does anyone have any suggestions for a good camera and/or good lighting to use for it? Any ideas where I could find them for a good price? Thanks. The products mostly consist of musical instruments, larger gaming controllers, clothing (jackets, dresses, etc), and other sorts of things, all covered in rhinestones.

Public Comments

1. How large are your products? Unless you are shooting ten wheelers, you can get a way with three Lowel Tota-light with umbrellas, a background stand and a some reflectors. A good DSLR for your small format and a medium format camera for any advertising or depending upon your client list maybe a nice 4x5 for doing table tops. I have been using a Nikon D300 using the "live-view" in the tripod mode when I shoot table tops. It is really the only use for that feature on a pro camera.
2. Depends on if you use a film or a digital camera. Either way, you need an SLR camera. This will give you the opportunity to do basically anything you want to a picture. Google about it. There are endless pages about photography online. and if you buy a camera, a lot of that lighting information will be in the manual
3. What you want to do to take good product shots is use something called a "lightbox". The good news is that you can make one very easily and cheaply. You can even buy small professionally made lightbox kits... but they may cost $100. Building one is considerably less. Photography is all about lighting. Once you have your products properly lit, you may find that the camera is entirely satisfactory.