Need camera advice for my specific needs

I'm creating a website for my uncle's bakery and I'm in the process of creating a gallery page where I'll be uploading every cake he makes to add to his portfolio. I told him to send any pictures he has and as you could see by the images in the link, they're really low quality and unprofessional. I'm pretty sure they were taken with an old smartphone, and he didn't even bother to make sure it was in focus. I'll be the one taking the pictures from now on so I'll just educate myself if I'm not familiar with your recommendations. The quality I want to achieve is that of the cakes you get on google images. What would you guys recommend? My iPhone 7+ camera, iPhone lens attachment, DSLR? Willing to spend up to $500, however, I would prefer not having to spend that much. If a $300 DSLR camera could do the job, so be it.

Old Photos

What I want to achieve:

Added (1). Thanks in advance!

I would recommend a DSLR by far. They are incredibly versatile, uncomplicated, robust and a person that knows what they are doing can take exceptional photo's with them. You can effectively teach yourself good photography and lighting with some research and practice. Check up on some editing pointers too, you'd be surprised what positive differences you can make in post production. You don't have to spend too much either $300 is ample for your needs. I have friends that that made professional stop motion projects using DSLR's.

2 years as a film student.
Current independent film maker (I'm content with that my future is bleak lol)

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX80

Actually your iPhone would be fine! You will have to understand lighting, and if you light the cakes properly, you can achieve what you want with it. If you really want to spend the money on a DSLR go ahead, but it really is not needed. If you have talent, then practice with what you have and see what you come up with. Composition and lighting will help you the most.

If you find out that your iPhone is not giving you the quality you want, find a friend who has a DSLR and borrow it for a few hours or a few days to see if it improves your photos.

Best wishes

The challenge of food photography is that the subject has depth. You want it all in focus. That means a small aperture, wide angle lens on a large-sensor camera. You could go out and buy what you need. However, web images are not demanding. At best they're 1000 pixels wide. You want them small because higher resolution images take longer to download. In my experience 500 kilobyte images look fine on a web page. You can do with a lot lower. Modern smart phones have pretty good cameras. They have wide angle lenses. With good technique and scaling the shots down in post-processing, you could provide good shots from a cell phone for your uncle's web site.

If you want to get more professional gear, go here for an education and unbiased reviews: https://www.dpreview.com/...eview.com/

I looked at the two shots that you gave as aspirational examples. The wedding cake isn't bad, but the lighting could be improved: it's too harsh on the right side. The raspberry one is not so great. It gets lost in the white background; there's little detail in the icing; and parts are out of focus because of the shallow depth of field.

If you take a picture of a cake with white icing, make sure you overexpose it. Your camera's light meter will try to make it grey.

@Jack -- interchangeable lens cameras with a multitude of manual operations (e.g., SLRs) are uncomplicated? I don't think so. There are a multitude of stories of people who accidentally flipped their cameras off full auto mode and subsequently thought their cameras were broken or defective.