Portrait purpose equipment

[loopguru]

So, lately I've been getting a lot of inquiries in portrait and modeling work. However my equipment has been geared toward nightclub settings so my *huge* arsenal of 2 lenses are for that purpose only. I am shooting with a D200 with 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 and 17-70mm f/2.8-4.5

Would anyone advise on a particular focal range for portrait and modeling work? Also, would prime lenses be a bad choice to do this sort of work professionally? I am debating picking up a prime 55mm 1.8 lens and a 18-200mm nikkor to use both for portraits. I am looking for advice or if you want to laugh at my lack of understanding of modeling and portrait technicality be my guest.

 

[Protean]

the 50* 1.8 prime is great for portraits (the whole one session of my sister that i've done ) but i wouldn't go for the 18-200 for portraits, maybe a good walk around lens, but for portraits, you generally want a nice blurred bg, and its hard to get that at 5.6... im not sure hwo much working distance you want (portrait photographers, help me out here, JodieO...?) but i'd eather go with a 50, 85, 105 primes, or a 70-200 2.8, but the later 2 might be a little to far away, especially with the dx sensor crop