Camera Accessories

You are going to need camera accessories to be able to use your camera, at least a memory card and a lens, preferably a couple of lenses. Many of the Canon lenses and Nikon lenses are of excellent quality.

There are also many good lenses from third party manufacturers like Sigma, Tamron and others.

Some cameras comes with...
...a built in flash, which can come in handy, I use it sometimes on my Nikon D300 but you should absolutely get an external flash unit.

The best Canon flash unit are the Canon Speedlite 580EX II. If you want a lower cost you can spring for the Speedlite 430EX II or 430EX.

The top of the line Nikon flash is SB-900 AF Speedlight and the SB-800 AF Speedlight. Another good flash unit is the SB-600 AF Speedlight. Other flashes to consider is Quantum and Metz for example. Other camera accessories to consider is something to clean the sensor with, you can also send it to the manufacturer and have them clean it, if you are not comfortable to do it yourself.

Click here for Camera Cleaning Supplies

Support

You should get a sturdy tripod, a monopod can be good to have when hiking and even a mini tripod can be very useful.

It's easy to carry, it lacks height but you can usually find somewhere to put it, like on your cars hood or a car roof. A technique I use sometime is to press it against a tree or a wall.

With the tripod you should get a ball head or a pan-tilt head. For macro or close-ups, the pan-tilt head is great. For just about everything else,the ball head is my choice.

Get a Grip

Some high end dslr cameras comes with a vertical grip, like Canons 1 series cameras and Nikon's D3. depending on your needs you might want to get a battery grip for your camera if it doesn't have it "built in".

Consider how often you will shoot vertically, as the grip will make it much more convenient if you do.

Battery grips usually have shutter release button, a main dial, AE lock/FE lock and AF point selection controls.

The grip adds weight to the camera, which can be good or bad. If you are strong enough I strongly recommend a battery grip, especially if you are using heavier, faster lenses.

With the cameras I use, like the Nikon D300, I always have the battery grip attached.

Better ergonomics and better balance, in addition to increased battery life makes this a no brainer for me. Many battery grips enables you to use AA batteries instead of the manufacturers battery.

In the case of the Nikon D300 I use rechargeable AA batteries which also pushes the fps to 8 instead of 6.

I will expand this page with more camera accessories over time.