Blacksheep

Wow, this was awesome! Thank you so very much Brian for all this info! I'm really liking the D700, lenses, lights and studio recommendation, so thank you so much for showing me how it could be done!

The D90's limitation with ISO has been driving me nuts! I'm laughing at your story about the focusing time, thanks for sharing! I definitely feel like I'm starting from scratch. I had to stop photography altogether for about 4 years and despite almost a year of reviewing and learning, I've been letting fear hold me back from doing this professionally on my own, and I'm not sure how much I'm letting myself get hung up on the equipment side due to this fear. I'm frankly scared to invest more than 2K into something that I'm only going to be able to do as a part-time business, and at the same time am feeling like I probably should be prepared to invest more in a business venture. So a long winded way of saying that you hit the nail on the head about "settling". For portrait work, fx is going to serve me better long term, right? So .. invest in some nice fx glass now and save for an fx body?

Honestly, my comfort level is around the 2K mark, but I have a large settlement coming my way and could go higher. I have a good tripod and a Nikon speedlight, and a Nikkor 18 - 55mm lens (freebie from work 'cuz someone dropped it, but works fine, but I rarely use it), so I definitely haven't invested in good glass, and want to add a 50 or 35 mm prime for sure. I have a disability that leaves me limited in how much equipment I can lug around to the kinds of locations I have in mind, so off-camera lighting isn't worth investing in until I'm in a position to set up a studio.

I have a Nikon D90 with the 18 - 105mm kit lens (dx) and am wanting to move to pro level equipment. I know I need to invest in glass, but am not too sure what I should be investing in body wise. This will be a part-time venture rather than my sole source of income, and my focus will be lifestyle type portraits, and no weddings. Down the road my hope is to have a place big enough to have a home studio and at that point I'd like to get into boudoir. I'm guessing the D90 isn't considered pro level enough to really make a go of this, so would love to hear your recommendations for upgrading my camera body please?