Hello! I am an artist, interdisciplinary but mostly in sculpture, and I need to take good photos of my artwork and artwork of some colleagues, both product photos and photos to document installations.

I have pretty good knowledge and equipment for lighting, composition, etc. The problem is that I am as earlier stated A Buffoon, at least in a general sense around tech, and know next to nothing about cameras.

I've been using my phone, and it's fine to an extent, but I need solid documentation for catalogues, grant applications, and digital slide presentations, and phone pics aren't cutting it.

The nature of my work is not such that I can hire it out either- I do multiple versions of an installation in studio in a day, and I need to document every version. I respect the work that goes into becoming a photographer, and that isn't the goal for me- I just need to be able to take some decent studio shots myself.

I haven't got a huge budget, under $1000 max. I was gifted a Canon Digital EOS Rebel XT, but the lens auto zoom is broken, so I'm not sure what to do with it- is it too old to be worth fixing or replacing the lens, if that's even an option that I could afford? Will it take a better picture than my phone at this point? I just don't know!

(I also have a Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II lens, but I have no idea what any of that means.) All I know is that the camera isn't compatible with Dragonframe stop motion software because it doesn't have "a live screen", and I will want to get something that does at some point, but if there's a way for this camera to work for the above needs Now, that would be amazing

I'm sorry if anything I said comes off as rudely ignorant, I promise it's just clueless-ignorant; I don't know enough to even know if I've said something stupid 😵 thank you in advance for your time, I truly appreciate it!