if you could only have 2 lenses....

[L&NProductions]

my friend and i are starting up a photography production company similar to phil-flash.com

we are both buying nikon d80s in the comming month as well as attending one of the workshops next month in dallas, which we plan to bring our cameras and 1 lens each.


we both know a little about photography already but we have noticed when it comes to lenses everyone has their own opinion

our photography will generaly speaking will be close up, just over full body in frame and closer. also almost all of our work at first will take place in doors.

since we both will be shooting at the same time its best if we each get a different type of lense and each get our own style.

with that known i would love some suggestions on what you would do if you were in our shoes. check out phil-flash.com if your not familiar with his style of non nude photography. obviously we dont want to copy him, we want to out do him. and with the girls we know we believe we can.

any advice on our first 2 lenses would be greatly appreciated.

[L&NProductions]

also i neglected to mention that we would like to buy mid range priced lenses. i understand that in photography your lense quality goes hand and hand with price.

we really are just looking for some advice because weve heard everything from prime 50mm 1.4 would be best to zoom lenses so we can stand a little further from the model...

since its such a large investment i feel like we need some professional advice

[isaiahbrink]

Well, it looks like I'm the first to respond. While I haven't gone digital yet, I do shoot Nikon and I've found 2 lenses have come in really handy. For a fixed or prime lense, I recommend the Nikkor 85mm D 1.8. It's fast on the AF, very sharp, and gives some really nice speed. As far as the other lense is concerned, I'm going to recommend the Nikkor 28 - 100 mm. I just got the "G" model, and there's a few drawbacks though. There's no appature ring, so you have to shoot on a program or shutter priority mode, but it is more affordable, it is Nikkor glass, so you are getting a solid lense.

Isaiah

[From Annwn]

if all studio and pictures of people, why not 35/2 and 85/1.8? should be of quality and affordable.

[glamrockin]

Maybe a Nikon 28-105mm 3.5-4.5 and a Nikon 50mm 1.8. The $100 Nikon 50mm 1.8 on digital is "sorta/kinda" like the $300 Nikon 85mm 1.8 on film. If you both want zooms you could also get a 24-85mm 2.8-4. If you both want prime lenses the 35mm f2 and 85mm 1.8 are both great lenses.

[Jigo]

In my camera backpack I usually carry the Nikon D50, the D2H and the Sigma 18-50 2.8 and the Sigma 70-200 2.8. For me this is all I need as far as lenses go 90% of the time. For landscape work, which I do very little of, the Tokina 12-24 works.

[racket4life]

i checked out the site and it is not a photography site--it is pretty much just straight low-end porn. i think that picking two lenses will be the least of your concern considering that if you are going to copy his style of work--the legalities of your business venture will highly out-weigh the choosing of good lenses....

[L&NProductions]

We understand that's low-end porn. All legalities issues are being take care of as we speak. However, when we said similar we didn't mean an exact copy. We want to do photography that is in essence will be non-nude porno. However, we want to take good quality pictures of models where he doesn't.

Another site, that we are going to be following as a guideline will be www.met-art.com We sort of want to combine the two. Met-Art is strictly the fine-art of nude photograhpy in my opinion while Phil-Flash is strictly the pornographic side of the photography. We want to get a happy medium between the two. That is why lens choices for us are very important.

[racket4life]

I think if you had the quality of images like the photogs on this forum have, you would do a lot better than phil-flash. Everything here is sharp, crisp, new, and highly composed. Although some are nude here--all of it is done in class. Something like that would set you leaps and bounds ahead of phil-flash.....

[L&NProductions]

Exactly, we want to be better than Phil-Flash. He has decent girls but his photography is sub-par. Our goal is to have a lot more models, but acutally have Photographs not Pictures.

To help progress our skills, the Nov 18. & 19. Dallas Workshop by Rolando we will be attending. Also, thank you to everyone who has put input.

On a sidebar, would 2 monolights w/ umbrellas be sufficient to setup a studio in a living room of an apartment?