Camera accessories
These can get pretty pricey! So here is my top 5 camera accessories which shouldn’t break the bank (well not too much)!
We’ve all been there, the light is perfect and you are taking some amazing shots, your battery dies, you reach into your kit bag only to pull out a dead battery, that’s the end of those pictures then! You aren’t alone if you have made this mistake, we have all been here just take it as a learning curve and not to make this potentially costly mistake again.
To avoid this or any other problems along the way my kit bag has evolved over the years and there are a few things which are permanent fixtures I recommend you keeping with you when going out to shoot. These camera accessories are;
- Tripod
- Lens cloth/Rocket blower
- Spare charged batteries
- Extra memory cards
- Polarising filter
These are just a few things I try and keep with me when I’m going out to shoot for the day. I have found that when I ever forgot to pack any of these guess what? I needed them! Typical!
A tripod which is a must (if you don’t have one stop reading and get on Amazon! lol), is usually left in the boot of the car as it is easy to forget and without it so many pictures couldn’t be captured. I have bought cheap tripods in the past and they didn’t serve me well. In the end I opted for this Manfrotto here.
Spare batteries and memory cards are pretty self explanatory, as is the lens cloth.
The rocket blower can be extremely useful, especially when you just want to knock off a bit of dust from the front of your lens without touching it. These can be bought pretty much anywhere and not very little money and are worth every penny!
All the items on the list have there uses but the polarising filter has to be one of the most useful tools a photographer can carry with them. A polariser can help to cut down glare in your image, take out reflections from non metallic items such as water, as well as saturate and enrich colours. Polarising filters are like sunglasses for your lens. They are dark so naturally cut out a little bit of light (just like an ND filter would), which is so useful especially when wanting to slow down your shutter speed for some creative shooting shown in the image below.
I was shooting in a river and my shutter speed just wasn’t slow enough to make the water all smooth and silky, so I slapped on the polarising filter and voilà! Here is the one I use, very reasonably price compared to some of the higher end ones and does the job beautifully!
Used the polariser to slow the exposure time down to 1 second
Regardless of how long you have been shooting this little check list of camera accessories should come in handy and hopefully help you capture those all important photos.
The items on the list might not apply to everyone but I remember what it was like when going from a mechanical film camera to digital and remembering things like spare batteries wasn’t always second nature!
Sometimes its easy to forget about anything other than your camera and lens when first shooting. If you keep these few camera accessories in your bag with you then it will help you be more creative and adapt your photographic techniques to keep you shooting when circumstances and light change around you.
Just remember there are so many ways that you and your camera can capture light and you will define your own style so get out there and get shooting!
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