What equipment will I need for my portrait/photography studio and is my camera good enough?

Question

I am looking to start a portrait studio. I will be taking pictures of families and children/babies. Maybe even senior pictures. I have a 8mp SLR Canon Digital Rebel XT. Is this good enough to start out with? Also, I read that the Tamron 90mm macro lens is good for portraits. Is this true and what other lens will I need? Will I need the following things and if so what kind do you recommend: studio lamps/lights, bounce cards, light reader/meter? Is there anything I'm leaving out? As for backdrops. I'm thinking of having my white background be the kind where the wall curves as it meets the floor..is there a certain name for this? Should I also get a backdrop system for muslins? Any help would be appreciated! Thanks!!

Answer 1

First of all, I do wish you good luck on your venture.

So, you are going to open a photography studio, but don't have any idea whether you have the right camera, or lighting, or meter, or backgrounds, or lenses.

I think the first thing you need is some education in studio photography. It ain't brain surgery, (or even wedding photography) but you need at least to have some notion of the things you will need for start-up and more importantly, how to use those things to produce images that customers will treasure enough to pay for. Just having the equipment is not enough, you need the knowledge to use it!

Also, another important thing you will need is business savvy.

For the record, you could shoot portraits with a digital Rebel, although that camera isn't exactly awe inspiring I would rather have a medium or large format camera for studio photography, though, or at least a professional level DSLR.

Answer 2

I probably won't get Best Answer for this, but I Googled
"studio photography lights" and "studio photography backdrops" and pulled up dozens of pages which should answer at least some of your questions. Here are a few:

http://www.studiolighting.net/
http://photo.net/learn/studio/primer
http://photography.about.com/library/weekly/aa063003d.htm

Plus www.amazon.com show about a half-dozen books on the subject, and I'm sure there are a few in your local library.

Hope this helps.