Digital Camera Accessories
What digital still-camera accessories are essential?
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.
What are some optional accessories that will help me take better photos with my digital camera?
With digital camera accessories, for most digital photographers' with landscape outdoor photography, the number one accessory to help you take better photos with your digital camera would be a polarizing filter. A polarizing filter makes amazing pictures in landscape and bright sunshine outdoor. You'll never get that effect digitally, you'll never get that effect in the computer, and I'll tell you that virtually every picture you see landscape scenic-wise, National Geographic or any magazine, is using a polarizing filter. Therefore the number one useful accessory for taking better photos with your cameras is a polarizing filter. The second most useful accessory would be a tripod. A tripod allows you to get in your own picture and to give you more stability for low-light picture. The third most useful camera accessory for taking better photos would be either a remote release or a wired remote. This will give you more stability or allow you to wirelessly get into the picture. These are all three cool accessories for your digital camera.
Do I need a "telephoto" or "wide-angle attachment" for my digital camera?
In the early days of compact digital cameras, telephoto and wide-angle attachments were common accessories. Today, they're not so common because most of the cameras today don't take telephoto and wide-angle attachments. The lenses are built into the camera or the cameras are too small to take an attachment. If your camera does take a wide-angle or telephoto attachment, you need to add the lens adapter to the camera and then the telephoto or wide-angle lens attachment. The telephoto lens will bring you in closer. The wide-angle attachment will give you a broader field of view. In today's market, though, most people who are looking for that kind of adaptability opt for the SLR camera instead of the compact camera because the telephoto lens adapter, the lens and the wide-angle lens adapter and the wide-angle adapter, if added to your compact camera, will cost more than if you bought a digital SLR to begin with that already has the interchangeable lenses.
What is an "LCD shade" and why would I use it?
When you're using your digital camera outside it is sometimes difficult to see the LCD viewfinder. So what we want to do is add an accessory to the camera. This would be an LCD shade that would clip over the camera and allow us to see, by flipping up the shade it would now cover. This is old technology. A better technology is the new LCD Loops. This device is carried around your neck or in your pocket, so when you're outside you can bring your eye right to it, and not only see better, but magnify the image, allowing you to shoot outside. I even use the LCD Loop when using a compact camera outside where I can't see, and I recommend this for customers all the time. You just shoot your pictures just like this, and it's like having the old-fashioned viewfinder, but a much bigger and easier way to shoot.
