help me with outdoor portraits please

[lenfisher1973]

thank you to everyone for all of your advice, i plan to stick with it and learn as much as i possibly can, one thing i learned when i was a recording musician/engineer was that old saying: garbage in, garbage out, meaning that what ever you are recording if it goes down on a track and it starts out as garbage, it will come out as garbage, you can have many thousands of dollars in equipment and software but you will never be able to improve it, just try to mask it, i have realized that this caries over to photography as well, if you record a garbage image, you can spend all the money and time you want on it, it will come out as garbage, this applies to my focussing as well as exposure and composition, with all of your help i have seen the light(so to speak hehe) i was in today and extensively tested an ef 70-200 f4L and realized that the jump in price to this lens is well worth the money, this is only a start for higher quality lenses for me, but a good one, with my ef 100mm 2.8 returned and the new one on hold until friday(payday) i'm horny as hell to get out with it and practice all the things you guys have pointed out, i would have loved to have been able to afford the 2.8 version, but this is enough of a jump for me to be happy with for now, i have to remember to be a little patient, and do the best with what i can afford at the moment, and be appreciative of it as well, again, thank you and i'll be sure to post some new ones for your advice as it is very valuable to me, and to ernst: thank you so much for your patience and advice, you are an amazing photography and a great human

Len

[Mad Aussie]

Sold my daughter my first DSLR and kits lenses and bought a better camera and L Series Canon lenses ... and she often produced better photos than I did. Learn to control the light ... the lens shouldn't matter.

[AcadieLibre]

I agree the equipment is secondary to learning to use what you have, the oft-repeated adage that it is the photographer that matters most and not the equipment, it should be the first thing every photographer is taught.