Spec my kit please. £2500 budget

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Retinaphoto

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Matthew
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Hi,

I need someone with more knowledge than me to help with which kit to buy for £2500. I have used a few slrs but sold up a few years ago and want to get back into it with a view to perhaps doing portrait photography for money eventually. The must have items are...

  1. Digital SLR
  2. Portrait Lens
  3. Prime Lens
  4. Battery Grip
  5. 3 head lighting kit
  6. Background System

Any particular brand fit my budget better? All kit must be good , no cheap and nasty.

Thanks

Matthew :thumbs:
 
Does the successful specifier get 10% of the 2.5k for doing your hard work for you?
 
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most from flea bay well 2-6 you may have enough left for a decent camera
 
bowens 400 3 head kit
sony A290 + 18-55mm
Sony 28-75mm F2.8 SAM

shold leave you with around £250 for a decent stand and background.

you don't need a grip or a prime lens for portrait work. f2.8 will give you small enough DOF

Retinaphoto said:
Hi,

I need someone with more knowledge than me to help with which kit to buy for £2500. I have used a few slrs but sold up a few years ago and want to get back into it with a view to perhaps doing portrait photography for money eventually. The must have items are...

  1. Digital SLR
  2. Portrait Lens
  3. Prime Lens
  4. Battery Grip
  5. 3 head lighting kit
  6. Background System

Any particular brand fit my budget better? All kit must be good , no cheap and nasty.

Thanks

Matthew :thumbs:
Click to expand...
 
for that sort of budget in the canon stable you're really looking at a canon eos 5d mark 2. it's really the canon for portraits. various 3rd and 1st party grips available depending on what you want, i don't use one personally. the battery lasts for ages.

as far as lenses go, depends really, there are loads of great lenses for portraiture in the canon range -

for primes/portraiture on a full frame body you could look at the 85 f1.8, 100 f2, 100 f2.8, 135 f2 these lenses are great. i have the 135 f2 and it's lovely.

you could also look at 24-70 f2.8 24-105 f4 lenses. i have the 24-70 and it's a nice lens, especially if you need to work close. maybe a tad too short for some things, but it depends how much space you've got to work with.

i have a 70-200 f2.8 zoom which i use for the bulk of my portrait photography these days, it's great for outside but probably not fantastic for indoors because the minimum focus distance is about 1.5m.

i recommend you take a look at www.the-digital-picture.com for reviews and resolution tests of all the most popular canon and other 3rd party lenses.

there are some non-canon lenses which cover the exact or similar ranges as above, i don't have huge experience of those but by all accounts there are some real gems out there.
 
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I've just bought what I consider to be my first serious dslr kit and I'm very happy with my results so far. As far as your wish list is concerned I'd say:

1. Nikon D90. Easily good enough to get you up to and through your first few paying jobs. Image quality that many reviews say is equal to or in some instances, superior to the D300 for a lot less money.
http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d90.htm
Once you put some money on your hip, you can rethink or not. I picked up a 6 month old body in immaculate nick with 2k clicks for £450. If you can't be bothered to shop around, you'll pick one up on here pretty quickly for £500-520 in good condition

2. and 3. You'd be hard pushed to do better on a budget than a combination of Nikkor 18-70mm @ £80-110 and Nikkor 50mm 1.8D @£65-75. Read the reviews on here and beyond. These two are unquestionably amongst the most highly regarded cheap gems from Nikon. For a faster prime, the Nikkor 50mm 1.4 is also sweet and only little more expensive.

4. MB-D80 grip. Get one used on here for £80-100.

By my reckoning that will keep you the good side of £800 including your shipping, leaving you £1700 for the lighting kit and background. That should cover it.

Don't forget to put £50 beer money aside so we can have a drink when you get your first paid job. :thumbs:

Good luck, Jon.
 
Jon, if you are going to post links to KR at least make sure that your tongue is placed firmly in your cheek first.

His site may offer many things (amusement being one of the foremost), but sane, reliable reviews are not at the top of the list! :)
 
And where do the illuminati get their articles from? :razz::razz::razz: :lol::lol:
 
Canon 100mm Macro f2.8 L with Image stabilisation will do perfectly for 2 and 3 (it has very fast focus and it focuses to infinity, so it's a very useful prime as well as allowing 1:1 macro).
For portraits, take a look at the Canon 5D mark 2. With the above lens you'll have a fantastic combination with excellent colour, contrast and detail.
 
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