soopa

Are a fucking rip-off!

Teenagers running wild taking "professional" photos with a 30D and a $200 lens... then charging you $200-1000 for a few lousy prints of the digitals - which they wont give/sell you.

Time to setup a lighting studio in my basement.

Light setup suggestions anyone?

Dan Martin

You can get some really good results with just simple lighting equipment. Check out www.strobist.com and read his Lighting 101 articles. A couple off-camera flash units and some stands are all you really need to get going.

If you're looking for a more professional home setup, check out www.alienbees.com. They make some really good kits for not a lot of cash.

Sarlacc

You can get white or whatever color syke paper from a good photo store as a backdrop and then a lowel lighting kit, or arri lighting kit with some diffusion of you choice. Or a like Dan was linking you to, a flash set up.

I've been saying it for years, with as amazing as all this new technology is, its also put it in the hands of a bunch of idiots claiming to be pros.

Roadmaster

You aren't kidding.

I just took my daughter to see Santa at the mall. They charge a "minimum photo fee" if you want take your own picture.

I certainly didn't mind paying the minimum fee as they have to make some money and stay in business.

They have Santa lit but are using a D40 Nikon with what appears to be a non Nikon knock off cheap-o lens. The Camera is tethered to a computer to capture the images.

Their image was not in focus and over exposed.

I had the 1DMKII and a cheap-o 28-105 Canon on the front, no flash and shot wide open at ISO 1600 and the image is a billion times better than what they handed to us at the end.

Billiam

If you're considering actually dropping some coin on this Soopa, then I'd say to also check out the SpiderLites from Westcott. These are daylight balanced continous light sources so it's WYSIWYG and you don't have to worry about flash syncing. If you go to B&H you'll see that there are a variety of kit options available.