Need some ideas...

Hey everyone

Looking for some advice here on what equipment i need (if any) to...

Take high quality photos with great lighting (color in the photos is KEY) in a room measuring approximately:

Height: 200 cm (tilted roof down to 186 cm)
Length: 292 cm
Width : 247 cm

My current rig is:

Nikon D50 Body
AF-S Nikkor 18-55 mm 1:3.5-5.6G ED
Nikon AF Nikkor 70-300 mm 1:4-5.6 G
Nikon SB-600 Speedlight

As i say the colors in these photos must be crucial, they are of tattoos and piercings that have JUST been done in our shop. Money is a bit tight for me so lets try and keep ideas reasonable?

Should we paint the room a certain color? matte or gloss? Should i get a different lens or some studio flashes with umbrellas etc?

All help is greatly appreciated... might even be a cookie in it for you if its REALLY helpful

-- Bry

BUMP to the top

-- Bry

Sounds to me that you have everything you need already. White painted ceiling to bounce the flash from your SB-600 speedlight should be fine, and all the gear you've listed should do you just fine. Your main issue would be printing the results, which I would suggest doing professionally at whatever version of what outfits you lot in the UK have that do photo processing. Using natural lighting would work fine as well.

About the only thing I would suggest is a 50mm lens with that D50 for non-flash portraiture; doesn't matter if it's not auto-focus since you'll be able to manually focus it, right?

Perhaps also twiddle about with the white balance depending on whether you're using fluorescent or incandescent lights if not using flash. Also get some big-assed SD cards for the camera. If you have 4GBx2 cards to play with you can snap a metric bum-load of shots at different settings to make sure you've got it right at very little cost. Just pick very carefully which ones you're going to print.

Take a look at the Gary Fong Lightsphere, it should make the flash look more natural.

Maybe if you post an example we can give you more feedback on what you can do to enhance the setup.

If the ceiling is low enough, bouncing the flash off it is a great thing to do. The ceiling has to be white though.