5 Pieces of Kit Every Keen Photographer Using a Digital SLR Needs
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It goes without saying that every photographer needs a camera of some sort. I mean, duh!
But, what else do you need to have in your kit bag to make sure you take the best photos you can, every time. This list is by no means exhaustive. More like an overview of some of the kit you might need.
Tripod
You’ll need a tripod for holding your camera steady during long exposures and to ensure you get nice sharp images. If you want to get into stock photography, you want the main subject of your image to be pin sharp every time.
It’s hard to get pin sharp images when you hold the camera in your hand.
Lens cleaning kit
Lens cleaning kits don’t cost a lot so it’s definitely worth investing in one to keep your lens clean. If you’re the kind of photographer who uses a UV filter to protect your lens from scratches and dust, you can still use a lens cleaning kit on your filter.
If you don’t want to go for a full-on kit, buy a lens cleaning pen instead.
Camera bag
Camera bags are useful for holding all your bits of kit while you’re out and about. You can choose from the older-the-shoulder variety or the full-on-backpack variety.
Personally, I’ve found it better to use a bag designed for camera equipment over a standard bag, simply because camera bags have compartments for all your pieces of equipment.
Your typical holdall just has one space so your gear gets squashed together with little to no support.
If you’re carrying hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of lenses, camera bodies and flashes around, you want to look after them.
Spare batteries
Can you ever have enough batteries and memory cards?
I guess it depends on how many photos you take during a typical day/session and how good you are at emptying your cards and recharging your batteries when you get home.
On a good day, when you’re feeling truly inspired, it’s possible to take thousands of pictures in a short space of time. And if you’re using the RAW file format, which saves photos in file sizes between 20 and 40 MB, your memory cards will soon fill up.
It’s always good to have way more available space then you need. So you could buy lots of cards with a small amount of storage or a few cards with large amounts of storage.
Spreading the risk across multiple cards helps protect you from losing your work, but one or more cards with a large storage capability make life easier.
Cards typically come in the following sizes: 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, 128GB and 256GB but you can get alternative sizes if you shop around.
Spare batteries
Batteries are important too. After all, they’re what powers your camera all the time. If you enjoy landscape photography on cold winter mornings, you’ll find the power from your battery drains quicker than it on a warm summer afternoon.
