What equipment do I need?

[texxter]

What kind of equipment do I need to produce something of this quality? I have a Nikon D50 with a Sigma 28-70 lens. Any help would be appreciated.

You should be able to photograph a still life and get good results with the camera and lens you have. Let's look at what we mean by "quality" in the photo above:

(1) The bird is quite sharp and well define - this requires you to use the sharpest focal length on your lens, say f/8, and good use of digital sharpening on postprocessing.

(2) The light on the duck is pretty - there aren't hard shadows or areas blown out - you can achieve this soft light with natural diffused light from a window.

(3) The background is pretty because it has a color tonality that matches the duck, and also the vignette brings the main subject out. I am pretty sure that this is a digital background, as the light on it doesn't match the light on the duck. Getting this background to look right is probably where good postprocessing skills are needed.

(4) The colors are nicely saturated and the tonal gradations look great - again, you lens should be able to capture this detail, but you'll need curves and contrast adjustments to bring the colors to life. Again, more postprocessing.

(5) The composition is good, with diagonal lines intersecting and a "life-like" pose of the bird - this is, in my opinion, the best aspect of the image, it makes the bird look alive and in flght. That's an attribute of how the piece was mounted, and also how the photographer chose to photograph it - nothing to do with the equipment.

So, in summary, what makes the image "good" is the combination of these factors above, and none of them seems to be directly related to the gear.

Your second image is looking good, but it's underexposed with a less than ideal background. Keep on working this, you dont need another camera or lens, or even flash. But do check out postprocessing tutorials if you don't have a lot of experience with it.

[RedTX]

Man thanks for the help guys. Im looking for little more help if that is at all possible, or it least maybe you guys could guide me in the right direction.

I downloaded a free trial of PSP4. My problem is I know zero about post processing. I have been playing with it for that last few hours and for the life of me cant figure it out.

All I'm trying to do is separate this duck (shovoler) from the original pic and drop it on a digital background and I just cant seam to figure it out.

I think that is the main reason I've never liked post processing even on the simplest level. A thousand tabs, buttons, whatever and Im not really sure what any of them do.