What else but the camera?

[Roverholic]

Hi

I am going to start getting into photography from a complete novice standing. I know a popular question on here is "What camera should I get" etc. Now I am already decided upon the Nikon D3300 and my question is different.

My question therefore is.. What other equipment do I need to consider apart from the camera and lens. I'm guessing a good case/bag, a memory card, a cleaning kit and maybe access to a computer (I have a PC and iPad).

Is there anything I'm missing here and haven't taken into consideration?

 

[john.margetts]

All photographic advice depends on what genre of photography you are interested in. I find my tripod to be essential. Other photographers have no use for a tripod but need their flashguns or filters or many other things.

What photographs are you i tending to take?

Sent from my A1-840 using Tapatalk

 

[Roverholic]

Start off with Landscape and general photos from walks in the country then get a Macro lens to do the whole close ups of flowers and insects

 

[Dave442]

Generally I like a second lens before the flash and tripod (however with a macro lens I would want to have both flash and a tripod available).

At the very start a second battery and a second memory card and small bag and either some lens cleaning tissue or micro-fiber cloth.

When I moved to a DSLR I started using LightRoom, and add some storage for all those pictures and the backup of the same.

 

[Derrel]

As Dave mentioned, a second lens would be nice to have. A nice prime lens (prime meaning single focal length lens, not a zoom) like the 35mm f/1.8 AF-S DX Nikkor would be nice, or the 50mm f/1.8 AF-S G Nikkor, or the wonderful 85mm f/1.8 AF-S Nikkor telephoto priome lens, and of those three spring to mind immediatekly.

Cleaning kit? Ehhhh...for the lens? Not so much...huff some breath on it and use a clean T-shirt to wipe the lens front off--bbut ONLY if it trult needs cleaning, and not more than once a month! OVER-cleaning lenses has ruined many a fine lens!

A GOOD flash unit is a nice thing to have. I'd say Nikon SB-600 or Nikon SB-700 would be the best in a value speedlight from the camera maker, but tyhere are many low,low cost Made in China flashes, for under $70, from Yongnuo or Neewer. I would personally say get a Neewer brand flash if you want to go MIC.

Adobe Lightroom is VERY useful.I use it...have an earlier bought-and-payed-for copy.

 

[photo1x1.com]

Get more than one memory card as Dave already suggested. I never buy the newest and biggest, but rather smaller ones, but therefore more. That's not only cheaper, but also if one card fails you don't lose all of your images.
Buy them from reknown companies. Cards are not expensive anymore, so keep the risk low!

 

[Solarflare]

What gear you need depends upon the field of photography you want to follow. Photography is an extremely wide subject. For many fields you need or it helps to have specialized gear, and you need knowledge and a strategy thats adapted to the field. A sports photographer for example will take a bazillion of pictures to get that one frame that nails it. A landscape photographer on the other hand typically doesnt take many pictures, even might only take one picture in a day and have "nailed" it. Ansel Adams, the most famous landscape photographer, said a good picture per month is a good year. You can also see a skilled landscape photographer in action on YouTube on Thomas Heaton's channel. Especially also the many failures to get a picture and the many cases when a picture was only there for a split second.

Gear you need also varies wildly, for example:

For a landscape photographer: a tripod is a definite musthave, polarizer is an absolute musthave, gradient ND filter is basically a musthave as well, 3 stop and 10 stop ND filters are also musthaves for many possible subjects, and a cable release should be considered as well. And you dont need bright lenses, but you need to cover a wide range of focal lengths, especially wide angle. A wide angle prime of 20mm to 24mm (small format/full frame equivalent) or a wide angle zoom is suggested. You also need good post processing and be able to do HDR, focus stacking, and panorama series.

For a portrait photographer: a HSS capable camera, preferably full frame , flash, light reflectors of various types (white / gold), and at least one bright portrait prime lens in the range of most typically 85 to 135mm, or at least one of the rare bright zooms with good Bokeh, like the AF 80-200mm f2.8. You want at least a flash cable - news reporter keep their flash on their camera, for everybody else flash on the camera is horrible light.

Studio photographer: Obviously you can collect all kinds of gear quickly for that. I would say at least 3 flash units is pretty much mandatory for studio, as well as remote control to change their power settings on the camera without having to run around.

Wildlife photographer: capable sports camera with good high ISO, preferably APS-C for the crop factor and extra range, capable telephoto lenses, possibly a 1.4x exdender on top of that.

Macro photographer: macro lens (duh), macro flash, tripod, cable release (you can use the delayed release instead of course), macro rail, post processing capabilities - especially focus stacking. Did I forget anything ? And that didnt get into the possible subject matters yet.

etc

 

[Designer]

Is there anything I'm missing here and haven't taken into consideration?

As already mentioned, a second lens is usually a good place to start. Your "kit" lens will be your workhorse lens for a long time, but the focal range from 18-55 doesn't give you any long lens capability, so a lens that goes to 200mm might be the thing to consider. Also a somewhat faster lens, such as one of the three that Derrel has listed.

Then, as you start building your kit, consider a speedlight and a tripod. These will help your photography grow by leaps and bounds.

As for a bag, you don't really need to spend a lot on a bag. I use a couple of recycled bags that are very sturdy with heavy-duty zippers. ($5 at the local Salvation Army store.)

 

[TCampbell]

When you buy a new camera as a "kit" (body + lens) it will come with everything you need to start shooting photos EXCEPT a memory card. So that item must be on your list or you can't use the camera.

Everything else is optional.

A kit lens is usually an 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 lens and that's actually pretty good for landscape photography and most "walking around" photography. An argument can be made for having something a bit wider (something that can go shorter than the 18mm end of your kit lens) for landscapes. And for general purpose photography an argument can be made for also having something a bit longer than the 55mm end of the kit lens' zoom range. But I'll leave that up to you.

It is nice to have a lens with a lower focal ratio. This is the ratio of the lens' focal length divided by the diameter of the widest possible clear aperture opening inside the lens. The lower this ratio value is, the more light the lens can collect when the shutter is open. So it's nice to have at least one low-focal ratio lens (something f/2 or lower) for shooting in low light conditions.

But another nice thing with low focal ratio lenses is that these low focal ratios also decrease the "depth of field" (DoF). That's the term we use to describe the range of distances at which a subject will appear to be in acceptable focus. You've undoubtedly seen photos with a nice sharp subject, and a blurry background... they do that using a low-focal ratio lens and positioning the subject reasonably close... but the background much farther away. The "kit" lens will only be able to generate a small amount of blur because it's not a particularly low focal ratio lens.

For macro you have a few choices.

You can get a dedicated macro lens (and that's usually the highest quality) and also usually the most expensive.

You can pick up some "close-up diopters". These are glass lenses that thread onto the front of your camera lens and they allow the camera lens to focus much closer to a subject than would normally be possible. The downside is that they're usually just a single element glass (like a magnifying loupe) and that means objects in the center of your image will look great, but if you inspect the detail near the corners of the frame you may notice some degradation in image quality. The advantage to these is that they're typically very inexpensive.

There is a third option... using "extension tubes". This is a hollow barrel - there is no glass in the tube. You attach it to the camera body (just like a lens), then attach the lens to the extension tube. The tube does have electronic contacts to pass through the signals between lens and camera body (so the lens features still work.) Since there is no glass, it doesn't distort the image like a close-up diopter. Since it positions the lens farther away from the camera body two things happen... one is that it allows the lens to focus at much closer distances than would otherwise be possible and the other is that things are slightly enlarged. You may need to use manual focus because all he focus distances will be off when you use an extension tube. The entire focus range is shifted forward and it won't be possible to focus to infinity with the extension tube in use. But since extension tubes have no glass in them, they're usually not very expensive.

The close-up diopters and extension tubes are both less expensive than a true macro lens. But the macro lenses generally have no shortcomings... they can focus at very close distances and all the way out to infinity, auto-focus works perfectly, and there's no degradation of optics. Their only downside is that they cost more.

However, you could certainly start with close-up diopters or an extension tube... and then buy a true macro lens later.

 

[dennybeall]

Once you have the basic camera you want to be able to see the results. The computer can show the jpg photos as they come out of the camera. If you want to manipulate them you need some software for the computer. You can get as fancy as Lightroom/Photoshop for 10 bucks a month or other less expensive software.

 

[Dikkie]

Once you have the basic camera you want to be able to see the results. The computer can show the jpg photos as they come out of the camera. If you want to manipulate them you need some software for the computer. You can get as fancy as Lightroom/Photoshop for 10 bucks a month or other less expensive software.

I'd advice to shoot in RAW format instead of JPG and learn to work with a RAW converter.

There are a lot of different RAW converters available, not only Lightroom.:
- DxO
- Corel Aftershot
- Phase One Capture One
- Aperture
- ACDSee Pro
- Raw Therapee (free)
- DarkTable (free)
- Affinity
- ...

Try a trial/demo first for a month to check which one you prefer or is the most userfriendly for you before you buy anything.

And when you export your raw image to a .jpg you can edit your photos afterwards in aswel tons of editing programs, like Photoshop, but Gimp is a very suitable free alternative too.

 

[Gary A.]

Motivation.

 

[dunfly]

All of the suggestions above are great, so I will take another tack. Unless you are getting a great deal on a D3300 or have already pulled the trigger, I would seriously suggest you look at the D5500. The sensor is the same and it has a lot of extra features including an articulating screen. Nikon is offering an outrageous discount on it right now with the 18-55 and the 70-300 lenses for about $599. I like the D3300 and it is a good camera, but for $599 for the D5500 kit I just wish I needed another camera.

 

[Derrel]

JUNE has graduation AND Father's Day in it....one of THE single best months in which to buy a new camera or camera outfit!!!!

 

[dasmith232]

... What other equipment do I need...?

An alarm clock!

Many of the best landscape pictures are taken long before most of the hordes of people are awake. The light can be amazing and the people won't be in the frame!