What's in your beach portrait gear bag?

[ChrisF79]

Greetings:

Some friends of mine have asked me to take some portraits of them at the beach over the holidays. We live right near the Gulf of Mexico so it's rather convenient. I have a Nikon D80 and I'm in the market for some new lenses right now anyway so this might be a great excuse to gear up. So pro's... what would be in your gear bag?

I'm thinking about the Nikon 50mm f/1.4 for my lens, and maybe a lense hood on it. I have an SB-600 as well that I'll probably use on camera. What else? Filters?

 

[usayit]

The nikon 50mm f/1.4 is fine for portraits. Focus on lighting... you'll probably greatly improve your results by using a nice big reflector held by an assistant.

 

[GeneralBenson]

Looks like this...

 

[anubis404]

The 85mm F1.4, the 50mm F1.4 (and their F1.8 variants) are great for portraits. The SB-600 is also a fine flash. Like usayt said (lol), a reflector would help. Also, do you have diffusers?

 

[ChrisF79]

I actually don't have any diffusers. I see professional photographers doing portraits on the beach here quite a bit and I'm always surprised that they generally only have their D300, SB-600 and a prime lense. I never see any relectors, diffusors, and I'm not sure what filters they use.

 

[Dao]

Maybe they are using the very strong flash light to over power the ambient light. i.e. underexpose the background and expose correctly for the subject with the flash.

That is what I read so far, but I have not did anything like that so ...
Here is an example I came across in the past.


Actual photos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/luisx_net/2811980279/

The setup for the photo above
http://www.flickr.com/photos/luisx_net/2812829550/

As you can see from the setup, the above photo was shoot with a Canon 30D with a 50mm F/1.4 lens and a flash on a stand.