Need help with Strobes and picture tranferring

[PollitowuzHere]

I've been forced, against my better judgment, to take the whole Christmas Photo Shoot at my school. That means I'm in charge of taking the shots, processing, and printing all at the same time. These are just going to be posed family portraits, but still, never had to do this sort of intensive studio photography before. Now that's a problem in itself, but the shooting conditions are worse still. Imagine shitty low lightning indoors and those are my shooting conditions. This, however, gives me a chance to get a strobing kit together. So I'm asking, how reliable are Vivi 285 HV flashes paired with the eBay wireless triggers? Also, anything to get other than flash stands and umbrellas/diffusers? Bonus question: how can you link a K10D to a PC for fast picture transferring? I would love to work with RAW files rather than canned jpgs from the camera, but don't know if this could be done in a fast reliable way.

*edit* I know this might be in the wrong place, but I need the help fast, and this is one of the highest read parts of the forum*

[Venturi]

Baptism by fire sure is fun, eh?

The 285HVs are great workhorse flashes. Powerful enough for just about any situation and completely reliable in my experience. I shot a pageant last weekend and the 285s worked flawlessly for all 650+ shots.

I don't have direct experience with the "ebay" triggers, but I do have the Cactus V2s which I think are the same thing. They work great at home even at 30 or more feet and around walls/doors, but every time I have needed them they have let me down. I let myself get roped into shooting 2 weddings this year and both times the triggers failed completely and I had to switch to a 285HV on-camera with a diffuser to get through the formals.

I ordered a set of CyberSyncs this morning. They're $200 for a transmitter and two receivers but for me the peace of mind is well worth it. And that's still one-third the price of going with Pocket Wizards.

[PentHassyKon]

Is there a local pro shop that rents lighting equipment?
I'd recommend you go rent studio strobes (speedotron, novatron, etc...). You can connect your camera to the 1 powerpack and won't have to worry about wireless triggers, photo slaves, etc....

Explain the situation to them and get the shop to recommend what to rent to you

[JCSullivan]

Ask for a student or education discount - you might get lucky.