Hello all:
I was sitting in my classroom yesterday when one of the parents who is organizing our homcomming banquet stoped by and said "you take pictures, right?" I should have recognized the sandbag decending toward my head at this point. The long and short of it is they would like me to take the portraits of our students for the banquet. I actually am looking forward to it, but I have never done this type of photography. So I need some adivice on how to procede. I dont have a lot of resorces (money) to purchase equipment, but I would like to use this chance to make some money to be able to buy some new toys.
My equipment
- Nikon D70
Onboard flash
hotshoe flash gun - Promaster FTD 5200 with the module for the N70 (yes the N70) - its a bounce gun
Good Tripod and ball head - no problmes there
Sigma - 70-300 1:4-5.5 D DL Macro Auto Focus Zoom
Sigma - 28 - 70 1:2.8-4 D Zoom
Promaster Spectrum 7 2x Teleconverter - N-AFd
A strong mastery of Photoshop CS
All the computer horspower I could ever need
Epson R200 photo printer
The one major weakness that I see is that I dont have any kind of studio lights. The pictures are likely going to be in the foyer of the hotel that is hosting our banquet. I do have access to some halogen floodlights - Strand 65Q fresnels, and Par 64 and 56's as well as maybe one 9 inch scoop. I just stopped by our local camera store, and they said I could rent some studio strobes, but they want like a 1500$ deposit.
So anyway, I need some recomendations in the following areas
- Lighting
- Posing
- Techniques
- Costs (remember these are students at my school, so I am not planning on charging studio prices - it's more like shooting for friends
- format - (NEF vs JPG Fine etc)
- Filters, post processing etc
- Recomended reading etc
In short folks, I need some help - this is an area I have wanted to get into, but his is pushing my timetable up by about 6 months, so I gotta learn quick --- The shoot is on December 18, 2004
Thank you for your time and your help
Timothy A. Holmes Fine Light Photography
