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School Portraits

PicMePicMe Registered Users Posts: 3 Beginner grinner
edited December 5, 2011 in Mind Your Own Business
My daughters school asked me if I would do spring portraits and I need help picking out the lighting kit. All I have is a Nikon D3000 and homemade backdrops. For the future I would like to start doing school portraits for the yearbook etc.. I need something easy to transport. Any suggestions?

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    GlortGlort Registered Users Posts: 1,015 Major grins
    edited December 3, 2011
    I bought a set of cheap chinese 300W lights a few months ago for carting round to onsite events and no having to take my Elinchroms down from the studio and to save them getting knocked about.
    So far done 5 events with them and they have been faultless. Seeing they only cos me $500 for a set of 4 with stands, softboxes, transmitters etc, if they died next time out, at under $100 an event they are cheaper than hiring and could be written off as a cost of doing business. Not to mention tax.

    If you were doing school stuff you would hammer them harder and probably wear them out quicker but then again you have a lot more money coming from the gigs so it would still work out.

    I'm so impressed with these lights I'm going to buy another set. The colour and light quality is excellent, much better than I anticipated and bloody close to what my Elinchrom's do which surprised me greatly. the best aprt is the things are Tiny so take no space and i have a large pelican type case I can fit the ENTIRE studio in including stands, power cords etc. I have one case for the studio setup and anotehr for the printing setup with everything I need less camera's and laptops but the laptops easily fit.
    I re pack the cases after every event and i know all I have to do is grab them, the camera's and the laptops and I'm good to go literally at a minutes notice.

    I'm looking into some similar work to this and I'm going to go greenscreen. That way i can drop in backgrounds that will give me a huge edge over my competitors and allow me to provide something they can't so I can compete on product and quality rather than the useless endeavor of price.
    People WILL pay for something outstanding and different and all you have to do is give it to them and your set.
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    BradfordBennBradfordBenn Registered Users Posts: 2,506 Major grins
    edited December 3, 2011
    You might want to consider some of the Strobist Kits. He goes through the ideas for a basic kit in this thread http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101.html
    -=Bradford

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    sweet carolinesweet caroline Registered Users Posts: 1,589 Major grins
    edited December 3, 2011
    I do school/yearbook portraits for two small schools outdoors using a nikon SB-800 flash in an umbrella. It's tricky if you live in a place with lots of rain or other precipitation.
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    PicMePicMe Registered Users Posts: 3 Beginner grinner
    edited December 5, 2011
    Thanks for the replies. So many choices.
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    Rocketman766Rocketman766 Registered Users Posts: 332 Major grins
    edited December 5, 2011
    About 3 years ago, I bought an inexpensive light set from ebay when I was asked to take some T&I photos. I figured it would be a good set to learn with. I still use that kit now that I am getting more and more T&I jobs and (knock on wood...) have had zero problems from it. I was recently approached about getting a school contract for the districts photos. If I get the contract, I will likely just buy a duplicate set of what I have and carry it with me as my backup. 1 case about the size of a small suitcase and one longer case for the light stands.. thats it, other than my camera bag and backdrop items.

    Lance.
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