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Originally Posted by Paul Markham
[I]Stills Camera. $1300
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The camera is not so important. If you want to shoot fancy fish-eye photos, you need a full-frame camera, of course.
But having a good lens is more important than the camera. You'll be shooting at ISO 100 the whole time, anyway.
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Studio Flash lights with accessories. $2000
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Seems to be much too high. It's a two-light kit, with 400 Ws each.
I have one 500Ws flash, and I kind of regret purchasing it. Indoors, I always use it at 1/8 of its power (the lowest setting) which limits the things I can do with it.
I'd say rather get more smaller flash units @ 200 or 250 Ws than bigger ones.
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Video lights with accessories. $1500
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I've never done video lighting. But what keeps you from buying some cheap daylight bulbs and screwing them on a plate of wood?
I test-ordered a $15 5400K bulb. Didn't last very long (I used it to light my room). But still, it's only a matter of buying enough of those things to get some light into the scenery.
For somebody who's starting out, I would actually advise to drop the studio flash equipment and go with video lights only.
1) Flash lighting needs more experience.
2) You have no immediate results with flash lighting. With constant light, you can see the effect of the light immediately.
Depending on the type of pics that you want to shoot, video lighting could already be sufficient.
I am leaning out of the window again with the following comment.
But is a flash meter really necessary? You'll see the histogram on your camera's display, so you should be able to correct the exposure without the meter rather quickly.
Far mor important is a gray card, imho.
What about wireless clip-on mics? Are they used in porn? Probably not, with people being naked all the time.
But using a mic with boom also means having the need for an assistant. Okay, if you are not shooting in your home studio, you'll be in need of an assistant anyway to set up and move the equipment. But still, it's additional costs.
Before all that equipment is bought, one should have a clear idea on how to sell the produced content.
I see a lot of people doing mainstream photoshoots with models from modelmayhem etc. and I have no idea how they sell their pics.