Other Essentials Accessories

The basic essentials are universal items for all photographers to purchase as they work regardless of brand, model, or photographic preference. There are other important accessories that photographers should include in their arsenal depending on the type of subjects you shoot most often.

Remote Shutter Release

A remote shutter release allows the photographer to fire the shutter and capture an image without physically touching the camera. Using a remote release prevents camera shake caused by the physical movement of the camera when the shutter button is pressed. With macro photography, landscape, night photography, or virtually any scenario where the camera is on a sturdy base, it is important to use a remote shutter to ensure the sharpest, shake-free image captured.

Remote shutter releases are also important when slow-shutter speed is required as most remotes allow the photographer to keep the shutter open for an extended period of time without having to hold the button itself as the remote has a shutter lock mechanism.

There are traditional wired shutter releases avaialble that are relatively inexpensive and reliable, while newer infrared wireless remote shutter releases are also available for extended range and wireless triggering. The latter is especially useful for group portraits or self-portraits where the photographer has to stand far from the camera’s position as well.

Dedicated Flash

A dedicated flash gun is probably one of the most important accessory to purchase after the essential items if you spend a lot of time photographing subjects indoors or in the dark. Regardless of how fast your lens may be, if there isn’t enough light available, it will be very difficult to obtain a good exposure without sacrificing motion blur, sensor noise, or camera shake.

A good external flash provides quality light in quick bursts on-the-fly. While most cameras have a built-in flash available, unfortunately, this small flash will not be powerful enough to cover the subject at a distance. In addition, the inability for the built-in flash to rotate and swivel limits the flash use to frontal lighting, which often creates flat, uninteresting photographs.

Having an external flash provides a couple of bonuses as well. The first being able to conserve camera battery power as the external flash will not be sharing its power supply from the camera because it has its own power source; and the second would be the presence of a more powerful auto-focus assist lamp than the one available on the camera. Most flash units emit a large and bright auto-focus assist light pattern that covers a large portion of the camera’s AF sensor, the AF assist light from the flash can increase your focusing speed and accuracy even in pitch-dark locations.

Tripods

The last important situational accessory is the tripod. A tripod helps solve many fundamental photography problems when it comes to issues like camera movement, composition lapses, focus issues, among others.When light levels are low and you’re forced to use a slow shutter speed to get a proper exposure, a tripod is essential as there’s almost no chance for a photographer to hand-hold the camera and still obtain a sharp image. A tripod allows the camera to rest on a stable surface at variable height and angles which may not be available if the camera is merely placed on a ledge or table top.

Some of the benefits of using a tripod include:

• Maximizing sharpness of your image (due to camera shake) – this applies even with high shutter speeds and more pronounced with longer focal length, sharpness is critical for large print works as well.
• Maximize image quality – the ability to stabilize a camera allows the photographer to use lower ISO settings due to the amount of time the camera’s shutter can remain open without bumping up the ISO setting. Lower ISO results to cleaner and sharper images.
• More deliberate framing of a scene. Setting up a tripod requires deliberate efforts, and composing with a tripod allows the photographer to take his time and see everything in a frame before pressing the shutter. A tripod is also a must when bracketing or multiple exposures of the same scene are required. Problems such as tilted horizons and other technical faults are also minimized.
• Ability to increase depth of field (DOF) – Again, due to the ability to use slower shutter speeds, a photographer can reduce the size of the aperture considerably to get increased DOF for the photograph without sacrificing image sharpness due to camera movement resulting from a slow shutter speed.

Types of Tripods

There are many forms of tripod in the market, most of them vary with weight, dimensions, price, load capacity, and flexibility. From mini table-top tripods (Figure 3) to larger studio tripods, each has its own use and purpose.

Tripods basically have two main parts, the legs and the head. The legs are the three legs that extends between the camera and ground, while the head is the actual part where the camera is mounted that allows three-dimentional movement of the camera.

The small table-top tripods are best for light cameras and smaller form factor cameras. These tripods are ideal for casual self-portraits or spur-of-the-moment group shots but these tripods often cannot support heavy loads nor do they offer a lot of stability.

Next in the scale would be light, aluminum, hollow-leg tripods that are often pre-packaged with a consumer level camera and are available in most photo lab shelves. These tripods are light, affordable and adequate for many casual photographers who won’t be subjecting the tripod to hard use such as strong winds, rough grounds, or heavy cameras. Be wary that many tripods at this price points are made with plastic joints and heads, which are not very reliable when dealing with heavier equipment. Make sure that your total camera gears’ weight does not exceed 70% of the claimed weight capacity, especially if the camera is used at an angle not parallel to the ground.

From the cheap tripods, we move on to the more serious photo tripods available in the market. These tripods often are made of thick aluminum, magnesium, or steel legs are much heavier than the previously mentioned aluminum tripods. These tripods often feature welded parts with metal joints and separately available ballheads. The ballheads can be replaced according to the photographer’s preference without changing the tripod legs themselves. Most serious photographers should start looking into this level of tripods when shopping.

The next level would be carbon fiber or composite material tripods. The design of these tripods are very similar to the previous category but utilizes advanced composite materials that weigh substantially less than traditional metals like aluminum or steel. Their lightweight frames are extremely durable and can carry a large load as well, but these tripods are often very costly, oftentimes double the price of an equivalent aluminum or steel tripod.

Last but not least would be the super heavy duty tripods designed to be used in a fixed location such as studio. These tripods are very heavy and very sturdy, so sturdy that even accidental bumps by a person will not move the tripod’s position. These tripods are obviously a poor choice if portability and weight is an issue, but for studio work, these are excellent choices. Unfortunately, we cannot have a affordable, sturdy, and light tripod at this point, it’s simply not available. Pick two among the three tripod criteria to shortlist your options.

Depending on what type of photography you’ll be concentrating on, the accessories listed above are almost always beneficial to any type of shooting conditions, the difference would simply be the level of sophistication, quality, price, and frequency of use that will dictate whether or not any or all of the accessories above should be present in your arsenal.

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