Studio Setup

Hello,

Ive just bought a Pentax K20d body and buying the other stuff i need tomorrow. Im going to be using it for studio work only. I have used Olympus in the past but got irritated with their high iso noise.

My question is..

What lens or combination of 2 lenses would make ideal portrait lenses in a studio environment?

I had the idea that the Pentax 17-70mm F4 and the Sigma 50mm F2.8 would be ideal as surely in a studio the normal stuff would be shot with a higher aperture than f4 anyway? and the 50mm f2.8 could be used for more closeup creative work.

If im on the wrong lines , please feel free to correct me and offer an alternative.

Many Thanks

Matt

Hi Matt

What sort of studio work?

For portraits you'll only need the 17-70mm. Studio flash is ideal and Interfit offer the excellent EXD 200 kit at around £300.00 Add to that an infra-red trigger and you'll have everything you need apart from the backgrounds.

The 50mm f2.8 (why not a Pentax?) would be useful for small item photography, but the 100mm macro is generally better because of the increased working distance.

I would go for just one and that's the DA*50-135, simply perfect for portrait.

If you want to do product photography then I would recommend a macro lens and those are all good lenses so any brand is fine.

ps. good to see we don't always agree

I did consider the Pentax 50mm ,but couldnt find anywhere that had them in stock?

Also , that interfit gear looks good. So what would i need to remotely fire the studio flash off from the camera?

An alternative (that I'm looking at) to the Interfit gear is the Lencarta one:
link

Includes a radio trigger set so you have everything you need!

The Interfit (or similar) IR trigger fits on the camera hotshoe and will fire the studio flash with out the need for wires.

Which cheap flash maker used the Bowen mount btw?
Someone suggested that one to me some while back but I forget the name
Since they used the same mount you can get a lot of gear for it and the price was good as well.

here you go for the macro lens, free shipping for forum members btw.
http://www.srsmicrosystems.co.uk/124/Pentax-smc-DFA-50mm-f2-8-Macro-Lens---LIMIT...

It's the Lencarta stuff I linked to in the post above

Does the Pentax K20d have a wireless trigger built in? I mean could i place my external flashgun at the side and then wirelessly trigger it off?

Just read the manual and it looks like you can. It doesnt say whether the popup flash goes off aswell when its set in wireless? If so thats a bit daft as the popup flash is bad quality

There is the pre-flash to worry about when we use the pop-up flash, but if you go for the Interfit kit you can select whether the flash goes off on the first, second or third trigger flash. Problem solved.

However, I still use the IR trigger as it makes no possible contribution to the exposure.

yes the pop up flash does go of to trigger it but there is an digital connection as well so you still have P-TTL metering for example with dictated flashes.

Studio flashs on the other hand are always manual so far as I know and not dictated.
I believe there are some that you can trigger with your pop up flash but Pentax DSLR pop-up use P-TTL and therefor you've a pre-flash that can trigger the studio flash.
There are smart flashes keeping that into account as well.

The easiest way is just to use an IR/RF trigger as said above.

Hi,

Okay , moving onto the lenses.

Am i really going to be as close as to use the 18-50? , if not then would a 28-75mm tamron f2.8 be a better lens to use or would that be too short aswell?

I really want to get this right so i dont buy the wrong thing

I would say to sort but that's me and I'm not you

I believe the 70-200mm was the lens for portait and the 85mm was the prime lens.
The 50-135mm on an cropped sensor comes close to the 70-200mm on fullframe.
And 55mm on an cropped comes close to the 85mm on fullframe.

I think 28mm is more then wide enough so would go for that if I need to pick one of the two lenses you named.

for studio work, my 50mm prime 16-45 zoom and 100mm macro rule the roost...
my advice: if you use zooms, pay for constant aperture zooms... the last thing you need is to have to "Fix" exposures every time you zoom the lens. which is what's gonna happen if your using studio lighting...