Portrait photography - suggestions

[1982chris911]

Lenses: 50mm f1.4 or f1.2L , 85mm f1.2L and 70-200 f2.8 IS II

and if you can't afford all of that, try subbing out the 85 1.2L for the 85/1.8, sigma 85/1.4, or samyang 85/1.4, for a fraction of the price. Nothing wrong with no AF if it's a sit-down portrait
70-200 f/2.8 non-IS can also save you a bit of scratch, especially if you're outside, well lit, and for portraits you'll be at f/2.8 anyway.

For the 85mm I agree the L lens is of course a little overkill but if the funds are available you won't go wrong with it ...

For the 70-200mm I disagree for two reasons. First the IQ of the IS2 is significantly higher making primes in the longer range obsolete, till it comes to the very professional ones (200mm f2, 300mm f2.8 and 400mm f2.8) and together with Ext 2x III it will be quite usable till 400mm and secondly the IS2 will make it far better regarding the results as 200mm f2.8 is already quite hard to hold in low light without IS ... a third reason is that this lens is quite new and very stable in value, so money is not really lost as long as it in good shape. That is also true for the 85mm f1.2 compared with the third party ones...

 

[ablearcher]

It all depends on your style/desired style of home portraiture. For available light you will need primes. You will also benefit from a 5D/7D body. However, if you are trying to build a studio-like setup, then you will mostly need lights & modifyers. And by lights I mean monolights, not the speedlights. The 550D will do just fine along with a decent zoom (personally, I am using 24-105L most of the time for studio shots). Don't get me wrong - I love primes, but for a studio setup they provide almost no benefit as you stop down anyway. I believe the most cost effective way to handle photography as a hobby is to know what you actually want to achieve and then picking up equipment accordingly.