It's not the camera that makes good pictures, it's the eye behind, we all know that, but a pro or semi-pro camera (DSLR) with good lenses makes it a lot easier to take perfect pictures thats a fact, too.
But what does one do without the money to by all that fancy gear?
Very simple - get to know the limits of your camera and/or flatbed scanner, experiment and try over and over - again and again ... Pick your best shots, buy a reasonable pen tablet as it is almost essential for manual retouching and for drawing illustrations as well, and much easier to use for little details than the mouse.
I've been running into a lot of limitations with my little, but handy pocket cam (Olympus,C-50,zoom), but with the right lightning, a good portion of patience and manual retouching of the photos (shoot in best possible quality) combined with illustrations I've managed to join in after all, and one big step ahead on my way to buy a better camera.
Let the money sum up on the account, and one day, it might be possible to buy a DSLR.
So to all of you who would like to try the 'Art of Stock' - give it a try - whenever you own a camera or a simple flatbed scanner. The 'photo' here of almost perfect almonds is made in a flatbet scanner - the raw-scan however was not very nice, but my tablet pen and an hour or so did the rest ;-) The candle was photographed with additional lightening from a common desk lamp ... so ... ->
Use your eyes and most of all use your imagination to make 'different solutions'. Good Luck ;-)
