Small studio lighting and backup body question (nikon)

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Andy
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Hello friends, please bear with me as this might be a long one! :)

I have a few photoshoots coming up in the future as a favour for my "mother in law". She is holding afew evenings where ladies come along and have makeovers and massages etc and at the end of their session she would like me to take a few portraits of each lady. Nothing fancy just a nice picture of how fabulous they looked :)

Now, in the past i have done a few short photoshoots with family etc just using 2 cheap flashguns and 2 umbrellas triggered remotely with a cheap-o trigger and remotes. These have been fine but i'm worried about battery usage/power over the space of an evening and to be honest i was looking at possibly some strobes or continuous lighting.

I have afew questions, what are the advantages of one against the other? Of course with continuous lighting i wouldn't need any kind of trigger etc and could therefore still use my cheap flashes/remotes as filler but is this necessarily the best way? I'd love to hear some opinions on the matter :)

My next dilemma is that i only have 1 camera body, if for any reason it plays up on the evening/s it means that i can't take pictures of the ladies after their makeovers. Of course they can't come back and have another makeover in order to get their picture taken another day so i need to have a working camera on the night.

I currently have a D7000, but unfortunately i won't be able to afford another as a backup. I've been researching alittle bit at older models, in particular the D40 variants, D70 variants and the D50 etc but i don't know which is the best to go for. All these can be had for sub £200.

My first question is: am i aiming too low as a backup to my current camera? In theory it is only going to be used as a backup for portraits in a well lit studio environment. No tricky lighting situations, high ISO etc. Or should i be aiming abit further up the ladder at a D200 perhaps or something of the like? I'm not massively clued up on the older models so i don't particularly know the advantages of a D200 over say, a D40.

In my head i wasn't looking at spending hundreds and hundreds of pounds on either the lighting or the backup camera but if the evenings take off it may become more of a permanent affair. Who knows if it takes off i might find myself doing other shoots etc. The more i think about it the more i feel that i should be spending the extra on decent gear, but at the same time without breaking the bank. I'd love some pointers here, i've been thinking about it so much i'm getting myself into a daze. I need a fresh mind to cast an eye over the situation :)

If you've made it this far then i applaud you, it felt like an essay to write so it probably seemed like one reading it too :D
 
I think it will be a very expensive night for you if you get no more work from it ( if your being paid) I would always buy the best I can afford with photography or else I still end up wanting. So I think it's a hard one, I would imagine the ladies arnt going to expect top pro results and I think a few packets of batteries are going to be alot cheaper than a studio kit for your speedlites . With regards to a backup I think anything would do.. Again it's down to how much money you want to spend, if their wanting 3ftx2ft prints of themselves then maybe you will have to spend more but the chances of them wanting a print like that are about the same as the chances of your camera suddenly dying...... Very slim! If you were a paid wedding tog my advise would be alot different, I'm no pro but that's my view .also I just bought a lencarta studio kit last week after 2 years of using speedlites , the kit hasn't suddenly made me a better photographer ,I'm getting similar results as I was getting with my speedlites because I know I have a long road and a steep learning curve ahead of me, so if you don't have the time for alot of practise getting to know your new studio kit then I think stick to the speedlites in the mean time and see what comes off the back of your 1st shoot
 
Thanks Stuart, i think thats the answer i needed. I could just take plenty of AAs with me and i should be fine with the speedlites. The backup camera might be a must but there perhaps isn't a way around that. Besides if i'm not buying more lighting i could potentially put more money towards the second body/backdrops etc.

If it does take off and i get more work from it i'll look at more gear then :)
 
I agree with what Stuart has said about getting extra batteries and using your speedlites. As for a back up body, if you want one then any of the three cameras you have said would be fine.
 
I had a D50 and rated it highly, punched well above it's price bracket at the time in terms of image quality.

However i'm not sure in this case you need to splash out £150 on a 5 year-old body as backup for one shoot.

Rent/borrow a body or even keep a compact in your bag for piece of mind that you can at least get something if your D7000 fails. You can even use the strobes with a compact if you have optical triggers.

Then you can put the money saved towards a more contemporary backup body or upgrade.
 
Well the backup won't just be for one shoot, theres afew in the pipeline with scope for alot more (tickets for previous events have sold very quickly). I don't have a problem buying a second body, being somewhat of a hoarder of cameras (all film though so not really a feasible option, besides i don't think the clients would be very impressed if i rocked up with a Canon AE1 loaded with a lovely bit of Portra, even if i'd love to use it), some un-used film gear will be going to fund the venture in fact.

Unfortunately i don't actually own a digital compact. The money spent on one could be used towards a D50 or the likes which would probably be more up to the job. But i like your thinking, it doesn't matter so much what it is, as long as it takes a picture on the night :)

If i'm not spending the money on more strobes etc i'd be freeing up money that could be used on a better body. Perhaps even stretch to a D90 or the likes :thinking:

I'll clarify that things are going ahead and collect money together then see whats available at the time :) its all in the new year anyway i'm just trying to plan ahead :)
 
If you can stretch to a used D90 then that would be a good backup to the D7000.
Higher usable ISO, 12.2MP, and live view/video if you want it over the D40/50/70.

We all know megapixels aren't everything but a step back from 16.2MP to 6.1MP may frustrate you.
 
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