Makeup portraits and DSLR advice?

[KD5NRH]

My wife is wanting me to do the photos for a couple of makeovers. Three shots will be basic mugshots; as they show up with their regular daily makeup, cleaned up in prep for the makeover, and after. After that, we'll do a couple more shots in more normal poses just to show off the makeover, but for those three, color and tone are critical. Any tips for how to make sure they're accurate with minimum PP? Natural light is pretty much out of the question due to the time, and whatever setup I use will have to be portable, and preferably capable up being set up and taken down quickly.

Here's what I've got at the moment; Minolta Maxxum 8000i, Canon PowerShot S2IS, Samsung S730. (Well, there's also an Ansco Shur Shot Jr., but I'm not considering that a viable option) In general, film is not really an option since we want to be able to look at the photos ASAP, and even if I had a few press kits laying around, I'm not going to carry the scanner, process on location, and hope it dries enough to cut and scan before we shut down, though I'll probably load some Tri-X in the 8000i and take it along for a few of the fun shots. The P&Ss aren't too bad compared to what she was doing, (mug shots with an even older PowerShot with what just nearly has to be the world's harshest flash - even the after pics looked like booking mug shots from the jail) but I'm planning to get a DSLR soon anyway.

I'm thinking about a used Maxxum 5D, mainly so I can use my exisiting lenses and flash with it for other projects. Anybody out there use one of these for portraits? How does it do on nighttime sports shots and high-speed nature work? Also, are the lenses made for the 5D backwards-compatible with the i-series film bodies?

 

[Alfred D.]

That's a pretty confusing summing up, KD, would you care to rephrase and complete it?
Also it would help if I could understand what your actual question(s) is/are.

 

[JimmyO]

Well i would used a point and shoot with some type of good difuser on the flash (toilet paper?)

 

[Rachelsne]

you can make a defuser out of a plastic milk bottle carton-cut the handle off and cut a slit in it then place over the pop up flash-did that with my S3IS

 

[KD5NRH]

That's a pretty confusing summing up, KD, would you care to rephrase and complete it?
Also it would help if I could understand what your actual question(s) is/are.

Basically, she's going to be doing some makeovers and wants before and after shots to show what was done. Those need to show the makeup pretty accurately. Afterwards, we'll also be doing some more standard portraits to show off the work; these can be creative.

I plan on getting a DSLR soon anyway, but I don't have that much interest in standard studio portrait work, so I want something that I won't mind lugging around for landscape and nature shots. I was hoping someone here might have some portrait work done with the Maxxum 5D that I could look at, or some tips on using it for that.

As far as lighting, I wouldn't mind having some studio lighting, but don't care to throw a lot of money at it. One off-camera 5200i, some stick-in-a-can stands and AC slaves in clamp light sockets, or something similar are most likely for these shoots, with the possibility of upgrading later.