What digital still-camera accessories are essential?

What digital still-camera accessories are essential?

Mark Comon (Vice President, Paul's Photo, Torrance, CA) gives expert video advice on: What digital still-camera accessories are essential?; What are some optional accessories that will help me take better photos with my digital camera? and more...

In my opinion, you need a good carrying case to protect the camera. You need a large memory card to store lots of pictures. You're going to want a card reader to download the picture easily. I never recommend plugging the camera into the computer for download. Card reader: absolutely must accessory. You may want an extra battery so you can charge two batteries and have one in the camera, one in the charger, or double your shooting capacity. So instead of shooting two-hundred pictures a day, you can shoot four-hundred pictures a day. Aside from that, you're good to go. On the digital SLRs when you buy a camera, I recommend a big memory card, a good carrying-case to protect the camera, a UV protective filter for the front of the lens to safeguard the front of the lens, definitely an extra battery - maybe two, so that you have enough battery power to shoot and shoot and shoot. I find that my digital SLR camera users shoot two to three times more pictures than my pocket camera people, so they always need an extra battery. And certainly a two-gig or a four-gig, or maybe even eight-gig memory card. But that's it - I'm very simple. I don't load you up with a lot of accessories when you come to Paul's Photo to buy a camera.