Charles, I can't tell you whether your equipment is going to work or not but I might suggest that you take another tack to solve your problem. Use your on camera flash to capture the machines at work. You will probably need the stopping power of the strobe if the machines are moving quickly. You could test the output of the flash by taking a picture of a flash meter set to non-cord or you could bracket like mad. The machines will likely be ugly enough not to suffer from the on camera flash too much. For the people shots why not use tungsten film? It is very likely that the factory will be lit with flourescents. If you can shade the people a bit from the flourescents and re-light them with a quartz or even incandescent light, they will achieve a suitable color balance while the background will take on a very pleasant blue cast. The juxtaposition of the warm light on the subject and the coolness of the background can be very attractive. Use your fastest lenses as tungsten film tends to be quite slow. You may have to actually ask the people to pose as a still life to get sharp images but it is much nicer to look at than on camera flash. Tell your clients that thin DOF is all the rage. Later, as you get more equipment you can filter your strobes to tungsten and use this technique to its fullest advantage. For your light sources, use inexpensive work lights from a hardware store. Be sure to get them off the lens axis and use the light to sculp the subjects. You can bounce them off walls or foamcore or through diffusion to get different qualities of light. I shot an entire annual report using this method once while my equipment took it's own holiday to a different destination. good luck, r
