Essential Accessories

Okay... now you got your first DSLR, DSLT, mirrorless, GXR, PnS and even rangefinder or medium format... what next?
 
Most of these cameras came with a kit lens (except for the non-changeable lens cameras - they already have a lense)... and many would have asked if they should change lenses, upgrade lenses or whatever. My answer is... NO! why the hell do you need to change lenses when you are not even familiar with your camera... and heck... many are still on Auto Mode and they already wanted to change lenses? I mean, many, many people thought that having a new lens (an upgrade according to many of them) would give them much better picture then their crappy kit lenses. I would laugh right into their face... heck, I can use my 18-55mm lens and shoot more interesting picture then an idiot with a EF 24-70mm f2.8L lens.
 
If you didn't improve on your shooting techniques, know the limitation of the lens on hand and know what is your shooting style, genre and stuff like that, you will only be wasting money and going into a photography forum to complain that your camera is no good, the lens is not good enough even when you are using a freaking L lenses or professional grade camera and that you wanted to jump ship to another brand.
 
So if you are not going to upgrade your lens, what other alternative are you looking at... when you have extra cash? Well... there are a couple of items that you need...
 
1) Dry Cabinet : This is different from the cheapo dry box that was normally given free. Dry cabinet run on electricity and normally uses temperature to control humidity in an enclosed environment (within itself). For people with camera in a humid area (humidity more than 60 to 70%) this is an investment that you need to spent. Why? Well... the bane your camera equipment is fungus. And in humid and warm area, there are good possibility of fungus growth. Fungus would destroy your lens' coating, so even when they are killed and washed off... there are a good chance that the multi-coating on your lens element are gone. It will also kill off your sensor too... not literally, but your sensor is a single most important and expensive component in your camera, when fungus grew on your sensor, it is very difficult to remove... plus it will show on all your pics taken at f8 and above. So don't be a cheapskate - get yourself a S$150 (onward) dry cabinet.
 
2) External Flash : This is an important investment, but was a stage up. Photography is about lighting... and how you manipulate light. Flash is important in the sense that it provide artificial light to an area that are otherwise too dim for your sensor. You might be able to capture still or moving object without flash, but it would mean, shooting at wide open aperture, high ISO and stuff like that. Well... if you don't mind noisy picture, then fine, go ahead without external flash. Of course there are other methods too, but it is more direct to just buy a good external flash and use it fully. Well... flash photography is not easy by any means (I am still a noob here and is learning hard too). There are a couple of techniques there... but you need to know the basic of lighting first (I am not going too deep here though.).
 
3) Tripod : In the order of 1 to 10, this would be the second or first most important accessory that one should consider buying and using. Tripod came in all size and cost... don't be a cheapskate and get a good one... most decent tripods cost in the range of S$150 to S$200+... there are very expensive one which can go past S$1k. The few brand that you would consider is:
 
 a) Sirui
 b) Benro
 c) Manfrotto
 d) Hercules
 e) Fotopro
 f) Gitzo (the most expensive in the group)
 
Of course there are other brands out there that are pretty good too... just make sure that they are stable. Tripod came in a number of different material - Wood, Aluminium alloy, Magnesium Alloy, Carbon Fibre, stainless steel and Titanium. Well, the most common ones are aluminum alloy and carbon fibre. Aluminium alloy tripod are cheap but very heavy as compared to carbon fibre one. Both can be very stable, but carbon fibre tripod could dampen shocks more (which is very desirable). I have read that wooden tripod had the best dampening effect... but was also one of the heaviest around.
 
So which tripod to choose? Like all photography question on which to choose, the answer would still be - it depends (I know you all hated me for that). Anyway, you need to know the weigh of your heaviest setup, then multiply by a safety factor of 3, to know what is the maximum load your tripod should withstand.
 
Why do we need a safety factor? Well... you don't just shoot your photo perpenticular to your tripod legs, sometime and infact most of the time, your camera might be in a strange angle or position while mounted on your tripod, thus you need to take that into consideration. From personal experience, a safety factor of 3 is pretty safe.
 
By selecting a tripod is not enough, you need a tripod head to go with it...
 
4) Tripod Head : this accessory shared the same importance as the tripod itself. Well... there are a couple of different type of tripod heads in the market. The most common one (not including the cheapo freebies given out by your camera shops), are the ballhead tripodhead. It is by far the most flexible one around and can be used to do alot of thing, but it is not the only head around. We have the panning head too. Well the panhead is a good tripod head that you might want when you are shooting landscape or using a lot of panning shots of moving object (in straight line). Next came the Gimbal head - this is a favourite head for people with very heavy lens (500mm and above or weighing more than 1.7kg). Of course there are others like the pistol grip and stuff like that (which I don't use at all, so don't know). The selection of which type of tripodhead to use is the same as selection of the tripod itself... or selection of the camera itself. You must know what you want to make use of the head. If I want to go birding and I have a very heavy lens, I would go for a Gimbal head, if I want a general purpose and very flexible setup, I would select a ballhead, and if I want to shoot panning shots, I would go for a panhead.
 
5) Monopod : this is optional... and many people do not have one. Well... I have two... this is a good equipment for me to stabilise my camera. Monopod is like a one legged tripod, it is lighter than a normal tripod, it can be deployed faster, but it is never as stable as a real tripod. How to choose then... unlike tripod, which you want it to be able to extend to as tall as possible (without compromising the overall stability) a monopod only need to reach the height of around your face, and this is for good reason. For tripod, you can raise the center column to its maximum and still the camera would maintain rather stabilise posture. But for a monopod, it is impossible... remember it only had 1 leg.
 
6) Bean bags: This is the cheapest thing around... it cost almost nothing. You just need an old shirt or pants or socks that you cannot wear anymore... fill it up with sand, soil, rice or beans (I would not suggest the last two as they are food and you don't want to waste food), then tied the open end and you have it. You can rest your sandbags to the ground or wall or anywhere and they will provide you with a great and comfortable support for your camera and lens... and hands. Another use was for you to pile these sand bags at the legs of your tripod or light stand to give you a better stability.
 
7) Filters for your lens: There are a couple of different type of filters around - namely, CPL, ND, IR, UV, gradual ND, color filters, etc. Well, I am only going to touch on UV filter here. All other filters are very specialise, and if you don't know them, you don't need them. UV filter came from film camera era. Film are very sensitive to UV rays... thus if nothing protected them, the photo that you took will have a hazy look in them. However in modern day's digital sensor, the sensor is not as sensitive to UV ray as the film... in fact you don't get to see any or much of the haze (unless it is real haze) in your photo. So have the UV filter lost its use? Not necessary, well... it could help to protect your lens' front element from knocks or scratches... and if you are shooting near a sea or with salt water spraying all over the place, it is probably a good idea to have a cheap UV filter attached to protected your lens element (especially to protect the multi-coating on it).
 
8) Lens Hood: some lens don't come with this. Well... lens hood is important as it cut down stray bit of light falling on the front element and result in flare. And other than this, it help to protect the front element of the lens from bumps and knocks. But you have to becareful, because some of the lens hood, if not designed for your wide angle lens will cause vignetting issues.
 
9) Remote Shutter release: Another important addition to your arsenal and very very cheap too (third party shutter release might only cost you S$6 - 2 plates of chicken rice).
 
Well... you thought that when you mount your camera on a one thousand dollar tripod with a six hundred dollar ballhead, that can take up to twenty kilogram of maximum load and your overall set up is only five hundred grams, you can have a super sharp picture... then you go and shoot a long exposure (30sec) shot... after waiting for 1 minute plus, a look at your pic... damn! there are plenty of shakes... so the next thing is... you throw your tripod, ballhead and camera into the sea and curse them for eternalty.
 
Well... that is abit exaggerating though, but you will feel very frustrated, after spending your entire month of salary and still couldn't get a crisp picture.... well... let take a look on why?
 
For long exposure, when your shutter is open, any slight movement to your camera will be devastating to your image. However when you press down on the shutter button, there are some movement on the camera, you might not detect it, but there is... this can cost you your picture. So how? Get a remote shutter release. It was wired to your camera (physical wire, or connected through IR or wireless radio frequency). Anyway, when you press the button on your remote, it will not cause any slight movement on your camera.
 
Of course there are other methods that you need to practice (but I will not touch them here).
  
So there you have it... these are the nine items that you might want to have instead of buying a extremely expensive lens and in the end, took shitty pics and you end up throwing your camera and your expensive lens into the dustbin (but if really you choose to do it, please notify me where you throw your camera and lens, huh?)