What's your approach to gear?

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"We don't plan on being experts in ANY of these fields instantly. Is anyone instantly an expert in anything? I don't think so. We plan on starting small, and working our way up."

Good, so you should start small, in one genre and work your way up. Trying to play to all categories means you are sub-par at all.

"Newborns- we plan on traveling to the home of the client, working in their place, and making a make shift studio. Couldn't be that hard to do for newborn shots. We won't need a studio, and the same gear can be used with all other portait and wedding shots. "

Wow, a make shift studio. I'm sure the client will be thrilled at a bed sheet and a lamp. "Couldn't be that hard to do". I'm telling you it is not that easy. But you'll find that out. "The same gear" - did you even read what I wrote before?

Weddings- we have talked about different ways of doing things. Offering prints vs. a CD and giving them the printing rights. Offering albums is another option. Not experts yet... but working out the details. That is why I am on these forums trying to learn.

"Sports- I would do this on the occasion of being asked to do so by family, friends, or coaches that I know. Not an expert, but have plenty of knowledge in the area. This would require the biggest change in gear, but like I said, I don't think it would be impossible to get some decent shots with a D300 and 50-200 2.8. Could be totally wrong, but again, no I am not an expert."

I'm sure the clients will understand "you're not an expert".

"I don't understand where you come off thinking that someone has to be a "master" of something before doing it. How does someone become a "master"? By getting out there and doing it! I am not going to act like we are experienced professionals"

If you're charging money, you are a "professional", and you should be able to competently deliver. More and more, you're sounding like someone who got some good snaps with their birthday DSLR, and fancy themselves a photography company. Sorry, but it just ain't that simple.

We absolutely plan on starting small and working our way up. However, that does NOT mean that we have to stick to one form of photography to do that. What makes you think that someone who is a skilled portrait photographer couldn't do some research and try their hand at wedding photography? Isn't much of the needed gear the same? And for maternity and newborn shots... is there THAT much more experience needed that it would be impossible for a wedding or portrait photog to do a good job on newborn shots?

May I ask which niche part of photography you are a master of? You sound like someone who can do 1 thing and can't seem to be creative in finding ways to get into other types of photography. I have seen lots of photographers do shoots at the client homes and get WONDERFUL results! Most sites I visit have wedding, portrait (senior and family), and baby galleries.

I think a skilled photographer should be able to fairly easily shift between portraits, wedding, and newborn photography. We aren't experts, but we are working on learning and gaining experience, just like many photographers out there. Many "pro" photogs we know wouldn't walk around calling themselves "experts" in any one field. They shoot weddings and portraits and newborn and maternity... and that's that. I don't see the need to be some "expert" of one thing before trying something else. These types of photography compliment each other nicely.

Maybe my posts came off as me saying we are going to be charging out the nose for all those types of photography. All I was saying is that those are the types of stuff that we would be open to doing, depending on the market and everything.
 
Don't spend the money for photoshop just yet--Lightroom might be your best bet.

I have a D300s, but for the high iso I'd get a d7000 before I got a D300s. Of course, the D700 would be ideal for you, but it costs more.
 
Don't spend the money for photoshop just yet--Lightroom might be your best bet.

I have a D300s, but for the high iso I'd get a d7000 before I got a D300s. Of course, the D700 would be ideal for you, but it costs more.

We recently picked up Lightroom and have been liking it so far. Still learning to use it to its full potential. Seems like a great program, and teaming it up with Photoshop sounds like a killer combo, but we will stick with just LR3 for a while until we feel we need something more.

The D700 is way out of our range at the moment, but I am definitely interested in the D7000. I think the D90 should be able to handle what we are doing for now, but we are certainly going to be picking up lots of new gear before our first wedding in September. Thanks for your input.
 
Don't spend the money for photoshop just yet--Lightroom might be your best bet.

I have a D300s, but for the high iso I'd get a d7000 before I got a D300s. Of course, the D700 would be ideal for you, but it costs more.
With Lightroom it is difficult, and often impossible, to do many of the edit types that retail photography buyers want.

For a retail shooter using lighting, high ISO is a non issue, but the resolution gained from full frame is definately a plus.
 
If you use high iso make sure you have a decent noise filter, I use the Nik Software filters in photoshop, especially useful if you do not use a full frame camera. Also only buy gear when you believe it will make you money and have backups.
 
If you use high iso make sure you have a decent noise filter, I use the Nik Software filters in photoshop, especially useful if you do not use a full frame camera. Also only buy gear when you believe it will make you money and have backups.

I thought that Lightroom3 actually had good noise reduction capabilities. We haven't run into too many spots where we needed to be shooting at high iso since we have been choosing decent times to shoot outside with plenty of light... but I am sure those times will be popping up more frequently as we start doing more work. Obviously in doing weddings we will be running into many tougher lighting situations than simple senior portrait shoots at the location and time of our choice (or the choice of our client).

Like the idea of not buying gear until it will make us money. We have been putting off any major zoom lens upgrades until we get closer to our first wedding shoot since our prime lenses have been doing a great job so far. We will certainly need a lot more gear for a wedding though, including fast zoom lenses and at least 1 more body (hopefully better than a D90 too, since everyone has been telling me that a D90 really isn't ideal to be shooting weddings with). Thanks for the input.
 
I thought that Lightroom3 actually had good noise reduction capabilities.

It does! ;)
But, when you reduce noise you also decrease detail.

Sharpening and noise reduction are opposite sides of the same coin.

If you increase the sharpening you induce noise. If you reduce noise you decrease the sharpness of the image.
 
I thought that Lightroom3 actually had good noise reduction capabilities.

It does! ;)
But, when you reduce noise you also decrease detail.

Sharpening and noise reduction are opposite sides of the same coin.

If you increase the sharpening you induce noise. If you reduce noise you decrease the sharpness of the image.

This only applies to LR and not photoshop? We have actually been trying to find ways to make our images sharper or more crisp or something... we can't quite put our finger on it.
 
But, when you reduce noise you also decrease detail.

Sharpening and noise reduction are opposite sides of the same coin.

If you increase the sharpening you induce noise. If you reduce noise you decrease the sharpness of the image.

This only applies to LR and not photoshop? We have actually been trying to find ways to make our images sharper or more crisp or something... we can't quite put our finger on it.

It applies to both.

Anytime you remove noise, you are also removing detail and softening the entire image. Some can be brought back with carefully applied sharpening. The latest versions of LR3 is actually quite good at removing noise yet retaining detail and sharpness...much more so than previous versions.

Its a delicate balance when dealing with noise reduction...finding that right combination of reduction yet still retaining detail and sharpness can often be a little bit of a challenge. The people who like to pixel peep are the ones you will find complaining about this most often...

Generally speaking though, most mild\moderate noise reduction wont give much of a noticeable decrease in detail in smaller prints or in larger ones viewed from more than a couple feet away. In the grand scheme of things, the detail loss is quite minimal unless you apply some seriously hardcore noise reduction.
 
Indeed which is one reason that photoshop CS has an edge over many of the lower tier adobe editing products (elements and Lightroom as well, though I don't know about LR3specifically) as it has a smarter more indepth control over layers and more specifically layer masks. You'll find if you search around that along with external software (like Noise Ninja and Neat Image) using layermasks to limit sharpening to only the areas with detail that you want sharpened and noise reduction to the blurry areas you want noise removed from can give a massive difference noticeable in print and resizings.
You can also do funky sharpening methods with colourchannels and LAB colour space - again this is mostly limited to photoshop and its methods that require a fair amount of reading into in order to get proper control over them, a proper understanding and thus be able to implement them in a manner that will not only work, but get the advantage out that you seek. It's also something that might not be needed on every shot, but which is good to have "in the skills bag" for when you do need it.
 
My approach has always been, buy way more than I can ever use and use almost none of what I own.
(I know it's an old thread, but the forum recommended it for me.)
 
The forum might recommend threads for you to read, but please don't resurrect old threads.
 
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