Looking for suggestions for portrait gear

[DiskoJoe]

First let me just say, WOW!!! Thank you to all who responded and with so many options to choose from! It just goes to show that I know absolutely nothing and have so much to learn. My simple mind thought that I could put a sb700 on my camera and that would add the fill lighting that I would need. Lol.
As for the options, I'm not quite sure which direction I'm gonna go in. I like them all. I'm gonna try and talk my wife into a mix of all the options I think and use my birthday as leverage Oh! and the fact that I wanna take a nice picture of our niece. hehe The only thing that I know I'm not gonna be able to get is the 70-200 2.8. That is on my list for the future though.
Again, Thank you everyone for taking your time to answer my questions.

You can find used tamrons for about 500-700. You can also get a nikon 80-200 used for about 600-700 if you are lucky. Most are up for open auction so you would have to bid on it. very useful lens. Definitely get the flash and a softbox maybe a reflector too since they are pretty cheap.

 

[Infidel]

There are some very good deals to be had on used manual focus 85, 105 and 135 mm fast Nikkor primes. Team one (or two) of these with a "strobist" kit from Midwest Photo Exchange Home page and you've got yourself a nice portable portrait rig for well under $1k.

If you need to spread the purchases over time, get the lighting gear first. In the mean time, use the 18-105 lens well into the tele range with a relatively wide open aperture. Combine these lens settings with the right combination of camera-to-subject and subject-to-background distances, and you will have a flattering focal length that can yield convincingly blurred backgrounds (if that's what you're after) without dropping a fortune on fast glass.

 

[shefjr]

So here is what I got for myself. It's nothing expensive. With what I got it was under $350 which will allow me to grab up a quality lens or I may still grab an sb 700. I couldn't see spending a lot of money on gear that I may never use. It's a mix of what everyone here had suggested, minus working with film I haven't touched film in 18 years since highschool. So thank you everyone for the suggestions. I now have a lot more to read and try to learn by June 9th.


Portrait gear by Shefjr, on Flickr