I'M trying to take professional homecoming pictures. I have a NIKON D5000 AND D3100. The lenses are 55-200mm,70-300mm,35mm,18-55mm

I'M trying to take professional homecoming pictures. I have a NIKON D5000 AND NIKON D3100. The lenses are 55-200mm, 70-300mm, 35mm, 18-55mm, 18-105mm. So my question is what is the camara and lens combination for my pictures.

Either camera with the 18-105mm lens.
(Professional just means that you get paid for taking the photos)

18 mm to the 105 mm will allow you to take group pictures easily as well as a pretty good portrait lenses.

The other choice is the 55 mm to 200 mm but you will be limited to how wide of a picture you can get.

The Nikon D5000 is slightly higher rated than the D3100 but both will produce virtually the same result. I would go with the 18-105mm lens.

-Kate Yelkovan

The 18 to 105 lens will cover almost all that you need for a "homecoming", presumably a joyful family reunion. Probably better to use the D5000.

What you need to focus on is the people involved, not the technical aspects. By "professional" do you mean that you hope to sell some of the photos?

No matter how good your equipment is and how hard you try, if you don't get paid, you won't get "professional" homecoming pictures.

With a crop sensor camera, I'd go with a 70mm lens for portraits, a 21mm for group shots or an 18-105mm for a do-it-all.

When it comes to noise, the better camera is the D5000. Other than that, it may not matter which camera you use for these images.

The lens you use will depend upon the scenario and what type of look you want. For example if you want to do an environmental portrait, say a farm boy and his gal on a tractor, you'd want to use a wider lens than say a 1/2 body portrait where the 55-200 would be the better lens. Since you do not mention anything about the shoot (e.g. Lighting, location, situation, the type of portrait) it's really hard to make a recommendation.

But, if you are going to be doing traditional portrait of about full body length shot, then go with the D5000 and the 35mm lens. You can also use the 35mm for closer shots if you really want to blur out the background, but at the expense of a flattened perspective. If you want to flatten out the perspective, which makes people look more attractive than when using wider lenses such as the 35mm, then go with either the 55-200 or the 70-300. You can see how the perspective changes with the focal length, thus producing a more or less attractive rendering of the face here:

If you want a tighter shot, then go with the 55-200 or 70-300.

Well… As a 30+ year retired professional photographer, military photojournalist, I would tell you, but… Amateur help is free however, unreliable. Professional consultation is $$$.$$ but then I graduated from a number of schools of photography. No offense, but it sounds as though you are just taking candid party photos. Use anything you feel comfortable using. There's no special combination to make you a success. It's all just you.