Just one more comment about the image. From your comments, this is going to be considered a portfolio piece. What you are contemplating may be completely wonderful, but I would offer this piece of advice for what it's worth.

A portfolio piece should be something which aims at the largest audience, neither too far left nor too far right. We sometimes do things for our own gratification, and maybe even towards developing a niche, but these portfolio pieces should be judged through the eyes of your prospective audience.

The pages of SOG are the best teacher as to what the public is looking for in a portrait.

Mike..
 

Don't worry, this isn't too far off the beaten path (at least I don't think) and too, though I HOPE it will turn out to be nice enough for a portfolio peice, if not that is fine. I have rarely ever indulged myself by doing one just to do one without thinking about what it probably SHOULD be.

Of course, Now that I am in the middle of it..I have a feeling that wicker chair is going to end up in it.

Did my previous post help you at all in terms of the kind of camera I got, or are you sighing to yourself about what a lost cause I am..:D

Mary,

It sounds like you have a couple of pretty nice cameras. The Canon EOS 2000 is a very capable film camera with all you would need to produce quality images.

I am not as familiar with digital cameras, I still shoot film exclusively. The Sony FD83 seems not to be heavy on the mega pixels, my research indicated that when you melt down all that spin talk you were getting about one mega pixel.

One thing to watch out for with the Sony digital, it indicates a 3x optical zoom lens. This would translate to about a 28-70 zoom lens on a standard SLR film camera. For portrait work I would make sure you stay out at the far end of your zoom, the equivalant of the 70mm. Any where the equivalent of a 28-40mm will begin to produce a fish eye effect. This is of course assuming that I understand the way these things translate.

Think about adding a tripod to your list of must haves. You can actually pick one up at your Wal-Mart camera department fairly cheaply.

Go burn some film (pixels),

Mike

Mary,

Feel free to use this one. ;)

In case anyone did not get this, as apparently they did not - this is a joke.