What is a "necessity"?

[Andrea Brewing]

Hey all,
I have a canon Rebel T2i, the EFS 18-55mm lense it came with an I managed to pick up the zomm lens EF 70-300mm 1:4-5.6 IS USM for $150. It retails at $799 and I have the original receipt for it from the guy I bought it from. He also gave me his lo-pro camera bag and lense hood. I have a tripod as well. What other lenses should I be adding to my wish list? Also, what type of external lighting, etc? Keep in mind that I am "poor". This is a hobby that I would like to turn into extra cash on my own time.
Thanks for any suggestion,
Andrea

[Steve Paxton]

You have a pretty good start on your photography gear. Since you are diving into shooting portraits, the very next thing I would purchase is a collapsible reflector. A medium to large size reflector would be a perfect (and affordable) piece of gear that would allow you to start introducing fill light into your portraits. You could grab a new one on B&H Photo (I have one similar to this and it works great!) or pick one up on eBay. Using a reflector to add fill light will make your portraits pop! The only downside to reflectors is that you usually need a second person to hold them while you shoot (maybe bring one of your kids along as a helper!).

The next piece of equipment would be to add one flash head (550EX or 580 EX). Further along, I suggest getting at least one more so that you can be even more creative. The 550EX is no longer made, but they are solid strobes. You can get them on eBay for a very reasonable price. Adding a couple of flash heads to your gear bag is important as you start taking more and more portraits. I know Canon flash heads are expensive - but it's something to shoot for!

[Michael]

I think that the answer to your question depends a lot on your style of photography. I have found I really like off camera light for my portraits, so if I were doing it again, one of my first purchases would be some cheap flashes, light stands, and triggers. For around $200, you can get a couple decent used flashes, light stands, and triggers. Other people prefer only natural light, it just depends where you want to go.

I think Steve's suggestion of a portable reflector is a great, its an inexpensive and effective way to manipulate light. I have yet to buy one, though, I use a large piece of white foam core with silver wrapping paper glued to one side. It works great, and costs all of three bucks to make.

Another idea would be to look into a fast, cheap lens. Something like the 85mm 1.8 (~$400), the 50mm 1.4 (~$350), or the 50mm 1.8 (aka the nifty fifty, ~$100) allows you to have really shallow depth of field on the cheap. All three of those lenses are very sharp and are wonderful for low light and portraits.

When it comes down to it, though, I think as long as you have a reasonably good lens on a decent DSLR (which you do), additional gear doesn't matter so much. Sure, its nice to have telephotos if you do sports or big strobes for studio work, but composition and subject matter are much more important. If you work on those things, your gear collection will grow over time. Good luck!

[Tim Gomez]

Hey Andrea, I am pretty much in the same boat you are in...a non-pro hobbiest looking to possibly make a little on the side. I'd recommend Lightroom 3 as your next investment. It helps with workflow, keeping track of images, makes small color corrections and creative processing exceptionally simple (I think it's about 200$). Lightroom is pretty easy to learn and use, you can find tutorials online. To paraphrase Ansel Adams '3 quarters of my time is spent in the darkroom'. That would include the digital darkroom of today, which is about accurate in my limited experience. The small color corrections, noise reduction, and sharpening that I do in Lightroom makes the pictures 100 times better...THEN the creative processing adds completly new dimensions to Portraits.

A light reflector is very nice as well, especially gold. I bought this one:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002ZIMEMW
It is a 5 in 1 (Black, Gold, Silver, White, Translucent) and is collapsable/portable.
It is rather "difficult" to use though, you need another person to help, often times the light bothers people's eyes, and it doesn't help if you are in the shade. I have yet to really get into off camera flash, although I do have a Vivitar flash.
For single Portraits I have the 85mm 1.8 lens Michael mentioned and/or 70-200mm f/4.0L IS (it is expensive, but possibly the best lens canon makes-it is light for a telephoto zoom-the IS AMAZING and it is ALWAYS sharp as tack). The 85mm is an EXCEPTIONNALY nice lens for the $$$...GREAT for single person Portraits, but on our crop sensors that 85mm is more like 136mm...so not very good for multiple people or limited space situations. It is also good for indoor sports stuff for the kids--which was the main reason I bought mine. For Family Portraits I usually use my Kit 18-55mm, but for indoor stuff I bought the 35mm f/2.0 it is roughly $375 right now.
SO...If you only plan on doing outdoor natural light photography your kit lens will do just fine...if you need some more range the 85mm f/1.8 is the best bang for the buck from what I have found. If you want to spend some more the best lens ever made is the 70-200mm f/4.0L IS--though it's roughly $1200. So as far as camera equipment goes I think you have the necessities...However I would put Lightroom as a necessity.

There, you have 2 cents from somone in the same boat as you :D

[Steve Paxton]

I'd recommend Lightroom 3 as your next investment.

Yes, purchasing Lightroom 3 is a great idea! So many little things to think about! As photographers, there is always something more to add to your list of things to get. :)

[Andrea Brewing]

Thank you everyone for your input. Now I know how much money I have to squirrel away. My son might want to help me with shoots because he wants a camera for his grading present. He's almost nine. I think I will tell him he's my back up photographer since it seems he wants to be like his momma.

Michael, if you want to see my style, I have one album in my profile that is my nature/landscape work and I am going to add one for the portraits.

Thanks once again everyone

Andrea