Product photography camera recommendations?

[Chris_D]

I recently commercialised my hobby into a 2nd little business venture and need a decent camera to make some top notch product shots.

Don't want to spend more than 4-500 European Euros. Can get a refurbed/guaranteed Nikon D5500 body only for 350 and have seen some nice 2nd hand complete sets and body/lenses/accessories for about 400-450.
As far as I can tell the 5600 is essentially the same camera but with wifi connectivity.
I borrowed a D3200 and made some decent amateur photos with it but I need to get one of my own so I can start playing around and learning how to make some stellar shots.

The D5500 is long in the tooth now (2015) so I'd be open to alternatives if anyone has any better suggestions.
Main criteria is photo quality, image resolution, multi-focus point. BAttery life, connectivity, portability, weatherproofing etc are not important.

Made these using the D3200. Not bad but not stellar imo.

 

[PDJ]

Both the companies below have used gear for sale a lot of my gear has come from MPB the rest From WEX

Don't want to get into the Canon/Nikon debate
There are too many models of each for me to help you, I have a 5D mk 4 and a 1DX mk3
Looking at what you are photographing you would probably want a 85mm to 135mm lens zoom or fixed at or between those sizes

My interest is sports photo so I have
24mm to 70mm F2.8
70mm to 200mm F2.8
200mm F2
300mm F2.8

my photos are here https://www.photodesport.co.uk/home

https://www.mpb.com/en-uk
https://www.wexphotovideo.com

 

[Chris_D]

Both the companies below have used gear for sale a lot of my gear has come from MPB the rest From WEX

Don't want to get into the Canon/Nikon debate
There are too many models of each for me to help you, I have a 5D mk 4 and a 1DX mk3
Looking at what you are photographing you would probably want a 85mm to 135mm lens zoom or fixed at or between those sizes

My interest is sports photo so I have
24mm to 70mm F2.8
70mm to 200mm F2.8
200mm F2
300mm F2.8

my photos are here https://www.photodesport.co.uk/home

https://www.mpb.com/en-uk
https://www.wexphotovideo.com

That's a decent site, has an EU site too. thanks!

I already found a D5600 with a NIKKOR 18-105, flash, tripod, bag and some other accessories here in NL.
In negotiations with the seller. Might be able to bag it all for Eu450.

 

[Bottom]

A proper Macro lens might be a handy add on, (I've got a Sigma 90mm), it'll generally be optimised for the kind of photos you're looking for but is a superb portrait lens too if you want to diversify

 

[dr_john]

Your pics look great to me Chris, I wouldn’t fuss over trying to improve on them

 

[Chris_D]

A proper Macro lens might be a handy add on, (I've got a Sigma 90mm), it'll generally be optimised for the kind of photos you're looking for but is a superb portrait lens too if you want to diversify

yeah deffo, agreed. I'm always being asked for build photos, showing the cable terminations etc. Some audiophiles are proper fussy about having pristine soldering. I'm happy to oblige ofc as it placates any doubts they have about quality etc.
For this type of photo a proper macro would be a no-brainer investment.

Thanks for that suggestion.

Your pics look great to me Chris, I wouldn’t fuss over trying to improve on them

Thx fella.
But there's a lot of 'noise' and poor focus going on if you look hard enough and with me being a bit perfectionist/OCD.....

 

[Chris_D]

For anyone daft/bored enough to be following this thread I thought I would close it out with what I eventually decided on /found.

After a brief search of some websites including the one supplied by @PDJ I managed to find a 2nd hand Nikon D5600 and some accessories for the spiffing price of 400 European Euros! Delivered too!

I'd already done a little bit of research and saw a lot of positive reviews for both the 5500 and 5600. The 5600 has wireless connectivity which, after configuring it to work is something I'm really glad I pursued as it makes editing and storing photos so much easier. Photos are immediately sent to my phone via BT, then I have my phone configured to automatically send them to Google photos which then makes it easypeasy to edit/save/delte/archive. A really handy feature that works seamlessly and means I don't have to take the SD card out and fiddle about with card-readers etc.

I've only been playing around with the automatic settings and effect pre-sets but I'm hoping to learn how to use the manual settings, including the histogram in order to take some mega spiffy preofessional-looking shots eventually.
I'm a rank amateur and have only ever used a camera phone up to now but the interface on this camera is simple, intuitive and has info prompts to help you navigate the possibilities.

It's an old model which has now been discontinued by Nikon but there seems to be a surfeit of them on the 2nd hand market at the moment, so plenty of bargains like this one to be had.
It came with a very nice Sigma 18-200mm lens and a Nikon Speedlight 700 flash, charger, spare battery, filters and bag.
The lens alone costs more to buy new than the whole kit, so quite a bargain imo.
Has a relatively high shutter-count (145k) but it seems to still work fine with no issues as far as I can tell.
Had to give it a deep clean / sanitisation with about 30 alcohol-soaked swabs to satisfy my OCD'ness about hygiene, especially around the eyepiece but it's now looking nice and shiny and new.

It's fine for what I'll be using it for, which is mainly taking photos of my cables in order for me to peddle them on my various selling platforms, but at least I'll be able to make them stand out a bit amongst some of the other advertisers.
Happy.

Any recommendations for a suitable macro lens from some of the pro-snappers of the forum?

 

[Bottom]

Not a pro by any means, but a serious amateur in my younger days... True Macro lenses are all pretty specialist bits of kit, so they are nearly all IMO slightly expensive and pretty well specified. There's not a whole lot to choose between any of them.
Here's a review of the currently available Macros for Nikon:
https://photographylife.com/reviews/nikon-vr-105mm-f2-8g-macro-lens/4