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The bare minimum camera for portraits would be a Nikon D90, with a 50mm 1.4 lens. For flash, you could go three ways. The Nikon SB-600, 800 or 900 flashes, and use the Nikon CLS and TTL metering. I would want 3 flashes as a good portable studio. The second option would be to buy cheaper Vivitar 283, 5200 or 5600 flashes, and use manual exposure control and a light meter. The best way would be to buy some Alien Bees with soft boxes, but then you lose some of the portability. The quality with the Alien Bees would be the best for studio lighting.

The cheapest way is th Vivitar flashes, around 50.00 each, with optical slaves, and then you'll need a soft box or diffuser for each one. You can make something yourself, or spend 20.00 for a lumiquest bouncer, 40.00 for Lumiquest softbox or 70.00 for photoflex softbox.

You'll need 3 light stands with any of the setups, Bogen is the best.

Around 1300.00 would be the cheapest setup you could get into and create good quality photos.

here's some info on using fill flash:

http://cgipix.com/Photography_Flash_Online_Courses...

With digital all your costs are up front, and it ain't cheap.

A Digital SLR is the first requirement, some flashguns and light stands, soft-boxes, with these you can save a fortune by going Manual and forgetting TTL which rarely works and is more complicated to control - and expensive. A few Manual flashguns will get you started. See here for details

http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/

Look in the 101 and 102 Archives for tuition.

Chris

digital has revolutionized the marriage/portrait company via permitting the photographer to end the shoot, polish up the p.c.., and upload to a internet printing company. you basically email the customer w/the album information and password, they p.c.. those they choose and organize them from the printer. So in theory, once you finished the shoot and enhancing, your involvement ends. remember, you may desire to attempt a number of on line printing centers, i admire snapfish, yet there are a number of obtainable. upload a number of copies of a similar photograph, with diverse colour profiles assigned to verify what report produces the terrific outcomes.you will need no longer basically a high quality Dcam, yet a speedy internet connection, and a company draw close of colour calibration/administration if your going to realize consistent outcomes. study on line or take a classification in digital to get the fundamentals down, there is greater to it than maximum folk think of. i could additionally propose you examine wedding ceremony photographs, contracts, think of roughly an assistant for the day of the shoot, and you will choose to have a minimum of a million 2d digicam physique and flash set up in case... so as you will see that there is plenty to think of roughly, no longer to point a important financial investment to be made if your going to do it precise. G'luck...

Portable lighting and umbrellas/softboxes, tripod, good quality DSLR, 50mm prime lens, remote release.

Plus, you will need liability insurance, a good computer and excellent knowledge of PS so you can edit your pics if needed.