It's the lens, lighting, and how you use what you have, you don't even need a slr as any good camera will do the trick. Food photography is not all about flat lighting and small f stops as many creative shots are taken at f/5.6 with lots of masks creating shadows and hot spots.

That is not true, polarising filters can reduce reflections and increase contrast that cannot be done post production. Linear polarisers can have effects that are not reproducible post production. Example skid marks at a road traffic incident in bright sunlight can either disappear or be increased in contrast with a linear polariser.

OK, Try this. ISO 400 (YES!)WB: 5600K. Apeture f/11 - f/16 and Bulb or B shutter speed.You will also need a piece of black card, tripod and shutter release cable.
Set the camera up on the tripod fairly wide angle of view. When things are about to start open the shutter with the card held just in front of the lens but NOT touching. When a firework starts then just move the black card shutter let in the light and then put back in front of the lens. You can either then add the next burst to the same shot or close the shutter and open again with the card as your shutter. Shoot all in raw and post produce in LR. As you are on a tripod you can merge shots if needed. Good luck - trust me it works!

Glasses are usually curved - so will distort - but if it is art you are after!!!!

I really reccomend Victoria Bampton - Lightroom Queen. She has the new Lr5 book available direct from her web site or via Amazon. When you buy the book you can also download the tablet digital version for free!
www.lightroomqueen.com

Uk and America - Two nations seperated by a common language!!
Enjoy the 4th July and don't forget we do have a different sense of humour.
We love you all really!!

When you export from lightroom you can click the watermarks box and either a graphic or text one will be put on every image automatically.

Shoot RAW and set the camera to -half ev

Digital zoom is also known as empty magnification. For example if you have a 35mm negative (remember them do we?) the only non zoom print is a contact print. Put the negative in an enlarger to make say a 10 x 8 and the magnification is empty. That is in effect the essence of digital zoom. HOWEVER ......... I use a D800 and shoot a lot of social presentations full lengths in landscape mode cropping to what I need using empty magnification. As the chip is so good a large print is possible.

All said above is true - one minor point It is a POLARISING filter the effect after using it is Polarized.

Are you printing or saving for screen use? When printing 8 bit is far enough. If it were me i would shoot at 16 bit and then convert to 8 bit on output for printing.

Come to Dorset instead as we have the Jurassic coast, old harry rocks, poole harbour and lots more!

For what you want get lightroom NOT Photoshop as it will handle the NEF (Nikon RAW) files very easily via import as raw and export as tiff/jpeg. A modern Mac mini as I am using, is very good - better than PC (standing by for the flack from you pc chums!) you can use your existing screen, keyboard and mouse.

Don't do it.. Wedding photography is primarily management of the day. You can take lots of photos and yu should get an albums worth of photos. That is the easy bit! Timings, permissions etc are paramount to arrange up front. The wedding and reception venue will not care if it is only your second event they have a schedule and you will have to fit into it. The meal time is set in stone and you must get all the family group photographs done before that, if you don't you will be onto a looser as alcohol will win! If you really want to do this go out with another experienced photographer and see what is involved in the organisation. The is no such thing as mates rates . Charge properly and get at least 50% up front

I have been through this in the past. If you are just in business for yourself then use your name. If you are creating a business that you wish to sell along with the goodwill etc at a later date then you need to create a studio name such like DAP Imaging or something that drips off the bottom lip!