the irony in this for me is I started out doing b&W on tri-x then color doing slides on velvia, and kodachrome, then negative films like agfa portrait 160, ultra 50, and kodak max 800. Shooting digital required going back to what I learned from slide film at first...

Slide film made me a better photographer. period.
nothing on earth teaches you to think about photography, like slide film.
to this very day, I can walk into a room or scene or set, guess the exposure (I'm usually within 2 or 3 tenths of a stop compared to my lightmeter) and guess what color balance I need...
if something in my camera's display info doesn't jive with my guestimate, I know right away to check my camera's settings to see if something is not where I expect it to be set...

the only people "Terror-fied" of cameras are crooks, crooked cops, and dirty politicians.
Your/our photos/videos can put them in jail or out of a job.

Our right to bear cameras needs to be protected even more so than our rights to free speech....

recent riots in Toronto during the g20 summit, police had help from civilians whose cameras helped identify the rioters.

I do them all the time.
My fave though is my wife.
used several lights to do a nude study.
rim lit the bump, small pool of light on the face, using shadows to hide... well you know....
sorry cannot post...
but it's easy enough to figure out.....

another popular shot I get asked to recreate is the "Benny and Joon" as I call it..
there is a scene in the movie where Jonny Depp playfully sticks two forks into two dinner rolls and uses them as feet to make a little dance.... I have the father take two baby spoons that I've glued sponge balls onto and we slide the baby booties (we ask them to bring thier own) onto the sponges and do the dance on Mom to Be's belly bump...

we always get a nice shot out of that game of Mom and Dad interacting, and usually guarentees a dvd sale since we do video and photos during a shoot.....
link

I have the ds2 and love it.
only one dial, but I don't miss it....

silver umbrellas work well with low powered flashes, but shoot through is better...

I use the polaris.
tested side by side with a sekonic and an older minolta.
it is always within 1/10th of a stop of the much more expensive meters.
can't argue with that....

here is a cheap rig (start to finish) for a portrait artist on a fairly tight budgetcanadian dollars)

2 cheap clamp on style work light fixtures ($4.00 to $14.00 each)



2 paper chinese lanterns ($5.00 to $25.00 each)



45-65 watt cfl (daylight balanced) (18-65 dollars)



Pentax kx and 50mm 1.4 ($800.00 to $950)



Epson 13x19 printer ($400.00 to $900.00)



add in a large reflector with stand, a backdrop kit or just buy a roll of seamless, or even tape drapes or sheets to a wall...
after that it between your imagination and image editing software, where you go from there!
good luck!
here is one I shot with a single vivitar 283:

two routes I'd suggest:

One: buy professional name brands new or used (used can be a lot cheaper if you catch somebody quitting the business).

or

Two: go the strobist way (save on flash units, spend on the radio slave) and buy vivitar 285's or any decent flash like the pentax af 500 ftz's.

buying cheap or off brand studio strobes is not a safe bet. Waiting for repairs or parts is money out the window... What about accessories? Daily studio use is hard on equipment, and cheap units aren't up to the task.

If money is a real problem, skip the strobes and go real cheap with daylight balanced l.e.d. or cfl lights.....

unsharpmasking

link
interesting read
Pentax does medical imaging....come on Pentax, make one for me please...