comments:
Heck yes, another D3300 appreciator! I shoot my kits on that body as well. For OP: the light box and background are a good place to start. Concerning the camera, don’t trick yourself into thinking newer/more expensive gear will help- it usually won’t, or not to the extent that one might hope. As epicurius-seven said, lighting is going to be key- having enough of it to start, and putting it where you want to get the look you’d like. If you want to shop, look for wired lights (batteries are a hassle and most of the time you’re not doing this on-the-go) with diffusers so you avoid really harsh shadows. I like to shoot with the manual settings for optimum control. There are artistic choices to be made, but I like to start with the aperture closed down as far as the camera/lens settings permit- this makes your depth of field as large as the lens allows, and brings as much of the kit into focus at once as we can. From there, you can play with the exposure times and your lighting intensity to get the brightness you want in the image. A tripod is also going to be important, since with the aperture closed all the way down (large f-stop) you’ll need longer exposure times; without it, just handheld, your will get blur from camera motion at exposure times longer than 1/30 s. Tripods can be very expensive, but I use a cheap one because I don’t need to travel with it, so it’s ok if it’s a little heavier. I recommend hooking your camera to a computer- preferably something with a decent monitor. This, with a good control program, will allow you to get feedback on focus/color/saturation/highlights etc in real time. Some suggestions: White Lights: orange mobile halo bars Key/Color Light Ulanzi RGB Video Light Controller SW: digiCamControl (you’ll need the right usb cable to connect your camera to your PC) The other important thing is what lens you’re using. I have a 40mm macro lens for my Nikon. The shorter the focal length, the closer you’ll need to be. What are you using now, out of curiosity? Good luck OP! Edit: the GIMP image editor is a fantastic, free, open-source alternative to PhotoShop for editing the photos once you’ve shot them. Lots of tutorials online and it does nearly everything the expensive programs do (except that AI-fill nonsense…).