SLR camera essentials

[kopite]

Hey everybody,

Im just wondering what you would all consider the essential purchases to go with an SLR camera.

My brother and my girlfriend want to know what I`d like for christmas so i thought it would be a good time to get the essentials to go with my new DSLR.

I am gonna get a spare battery and 2 memory cards but just wondering what other purchases everyone would consider essentials.

Also is any particular memory maker better than the others for compact flash cards?

Thanks fro your help

[unreal]

Personally I find the battery on mine is good enough to last me a few days of frequent shooting/reviewing, but I still know people who somehow lose all their battery power.

Perhaps a spare lens cap off dealextreme, they got loads of other cool shiz there like a flash muffler etc. Some sort of tripod would be good, even if it's one of those tiny customizable ones (can't remember what they're called). Also try and get an LCD protector for the actual screen of your camera (also cheap from dealextreme). A polarization lens is nice but it acts a bit like sunglasses in your shots, so best with day shots of course - but try and get some sort of lens filter as it also acts as a lens protector... UV filters are far cheaper than new lenses!

I always try to keep it to a minimum anyway. Whenever I'm in the mind to shoot, I always have my shoulder camera bag, a spare memory card, and my two lenses. I hate flash so I almost never use my external flash unless I'm strictly going to some sort of night event, which I tend to avoid lol.

Make sure to use the latest and greatest Picasa on the comp aswell! Not strictly an accessory but I find it's necessary for image organization.

[Funkstar]

what kind of memory card do you currently have?

I'm really fussy about what I use, SanDisk Extreme series CompactFlash all the way for my SLR and Ultra II SD cards for my compact

A good fast card makes a huge difference over a basic cheap one, specially if you take bursts of short.

[HSK]

^ agreeed, sandisk extreme cards are great.

A rocket dust blower, pec pads and eclipse lens cleaning solution. in fact warehouse express sell those items as a bundle:-

http://www.warehouseexpress.com/prod...x?sku=10000288

I have that dust blower, its very good. That's some essential cleaning items out the way.

[kopite]

I`ll get a couple of sandisk extreme cards then

That cleaning pack looks pretty cool too so i`ll get that on the list for santa.

I'm gonna get a bag and was looking at the sony bags for the camera. The basic one has enough room for the body and 1 lens. i`m thinking though that if i`m going to upgrade to a new lens down the line it might be better to get a bigger bag to start with. any recomendations on bags?

[RinSewand]

The Lowpro bags are great imo, Nice and padded in all the right places and not too heavy on the wallet. I'd also reccomend looking into a monopod or a tripod, I notice the lack of one hugely when I shoot, I'd deem this as absolutely necessary if you shoot in low light conditions, like at night...

Filters can sometimes do more harm than good, they protect against scratches but if you drop the lense the likelyhood of the filter damaaging the lense in a more terminal way than the surface being dropped on to is there.

Another vote for the Sandisk cards here, though I did have quite a bit of success with the Veho (i think?) Class 6 cards, very good value.

RwD

[Virtual Monkey]

A tripod! Doesn't have to be massively expensive, but you will need one if you plan on taking landscape shots or any portraits in natural light.

[kopite]

any reccomendations for a tripod? Any good value ones or models i should steer clear of?

[Bobster]

A tripod! Doesn't have to be massively expensive, but you will need one if you plan on taking landscape shots or any portraits in natural light.

the heavier the better (keeps your camera more stable), tho' if you plan on hiking places a lighter but strong is recommended.. look at spending £80+

[Saracen]

Well, my first essential would be a lens.

That might be a kit lens, but personally, I think if you've got the need and budget for an SLR, the main point is versatility in lenses. So you need to think whether a standard kit lens is good value or not? Some are better than others, and some users won't outgrow them for a while (if ever).

But .... if you do outgrow it, once you've upgraded, the kit lens will quite possibly never get used again. So, is it £50-£70 well-spent to get you going, or is it £50-£70 wasted because you outgrow it and move on pretty quickly?

For me, it'd be wasted money. I'd rather hunt out a better quality lens and out that £50-£70 towards the cost of it. A really good standard (17-50mm or 28-75mm sort of range) might be £250, but if you knock £50-70 off that, it starts to look more like £180-£200, and a GOOD lens can make a VERY big difference to your image quality. After all, any camera is only as good as the images you can get out of it, and they're more dependent on lens quality than anything else (excepting perhaps the photographers skill and ability).

After that ... it depends what you'll be doing. The on-camera flash will show it's limitations pretty quickly. A decent bag is a necessity, IMHO. Filters? A bit more contentious, especially if you slap a cheap filter on a really good lens (where you might as well not bother with the really good lens), but sometimes, filters are worth their weight in gold, and that includes a good circ. polariser when circumstances dictate it's use.

Tripod? Absolutely crucial for best results again, IF you use it. There's no point buying one if you leave it at home every time you go out to take pictures. So buy one you'll use .... and if weight is an issue, look at carbon fibre/mag fibre .... if you can afford one.

Oh, and cleaning kit. Lens cloth, maybe sensor cleaner.

Don't get too carried away by SanDisk for memory cards. I use them, including the Ducati series, but Transend's 133x cards are pretty good too, and only high-end cameras really push transfer rates hard enough to demand ultra-fast cards. Check out 7dayshop for their 8GB card. Very good value.

[Saracen]

the heavier the better (keeps your camera more stable), tho' if you plan on hiking places a lighter but strong is recommended.. look at spending £80+

I agree completely .... providing it's not so heavy you end up not using it, because you won't/can't carry it about.


Oh, and don't get a really heavy studio design, if you're planning on trekking up the approaches to Everest with it. Horses for course .... within your budget.

[Bobster]

>> excellent price on SanDisk 4GB <<

[Bobster]

the heavier the better (keeps your camera more stable), tho' if you plan on hiking places a lighter but strong is recommended.. look at spending £80+

I agree completely .... providing it's not so heavy you end up not using it, because you won't/can't carry it about.


Oh, and don't get a really heavy studio design, if you're planning on trekking up the approaches to Everest with it. Horses for course .... within your budget.

skimming?

[brammers]

Assuming you've got a bag, lens, memory card and battery the only absolute essential for me would be a decent rocket blower.

I'd then quickly add a 2nd battery, probably generic, a basic cleaning kit including fluid and enough memory to keep me going for a while.

Then in no particular order:

Tripod & cable release
Hand strap - really adds to handling of some cameras
Battery/Portrait grip - brilliant if you do a lot of portrait orientation shooting
Spare lens caps - ever lost a lenscap in the middle of a desert?
NDs, CPL filters for all lenses, UV filters for those expensive enough for me to worry about nicks in the front element.
Wallets for CF + filters - keep it nice and tidy
Different bags - I only have 2 (medium and big) but it's easy to get a lot more.
Lots and lots of decent cleaning cloths

And then we're into really specialised stuff like:

Flash setups - I use the bucket'o'vivitars method - you'll be amazed how much goes with this - cables, cable converters, flash feet, peanuts, gels...
Studio kit - seamless paper, diffusers, light stands, umbrellas, softboxes, snoots, clamps, a room...
Software - noise reduction program, panorama program, HDR program, archival program + basic developer, advanced developer, PC to run it all on
Insurance!
Portable backups - some kind of external HDD
A complementary film body + film + scanner? Can be fun sometimes, frustrating others!
Learning - books, courses, 1-1 sessions, workshops, online subscription based learning

And that's without even starting on lenses, fully ETTL flash systems and body upgrades! You don't need all of that by a LONG way, but maybe it'll give you some ideas as to stuff you might like to expand into

As to CF - Sandisk are great but not the only option. You have to remember that your SLR can only write to the card so fast, so anything faster is a waste. But then again you'll probably upgrade in the future, and if you bought cards with no extra speed you'll probably be throwing them out when your new camera makes using them frustrating! On my 7D Extreme III was great, on my a900 ExtremeIV Ducati is literally twice as fast. With the prices atm I wouldn't go for anything less than an ExtremeIII unless it was a huuuuuge card - 7dayshop is usually great. Lexar 300x pro usually come out at near-enough the same speed as Extreme IV, sometimes even a touch faster. I've also heard good things from Transcend for slower, larger cards.

[Bobster]

a nice fast USB2 card reader, Lexar do a pretty good one for about 20 quid, thats when your nice fast cards will really come into play when you're downloading your GB worth of photos and don't want to wait upto 40 minutes for a 4GB card to copy

[colmo]

As we head into the dark winter months of the holiday season, I'd recommend a flash - ideally, one that can be wirelessly triggered by the on-board flash (dependant on camera system and flashgun).

A tripod is dependant on what you want to use it for, and how far you need to carry it. The former determines the kind of head and max height you need, and if the latter is "a long way", then consider the extra expense of carbon fibre (stiff, but light - often, you can add weight by hanging your pack on a hook between the legs of the 'pod).