Beyond tripods, the array of other equipment that you can add stretches as far as your love of gadgetry-and as far as your wallet allows.

Accessories are addictive because they can all be justified, but it’s best to distinguish between what is essential to your way of shooting and what only might be useful. If you’re going to be on foot as opposed to being in a studio or working out of a vehicle, the general idea is to keep it lean and to the minimum.

One advantage of digital is that functions that used to need an accessory are increasingly being built into cameras. A spirit level, for example, is replaced by a virtual horizon, and a pocket flashlight for checking settings in darkness has been replaced by backlit display screens. Nevertheless, the various ports on a digital camera, from USB to HDMI, are an open invitation to third party manufacturers to make bolt-ons that (sometimes) you never knew you needed.

Do We Still Need Light Meters?

Given the effort that all camera manufacturers have put into guaranteeing a good exposure, you might wonder why anyone would bother any more with a handheld light meter (which, way back, all professionals used). The reason is that only one of these can measure incident light readings, meaning the light that falls on a scene or subject regardless of how light or dark they are. Camera meters measure the light reflected from a scene (entering the lens, in other words). That nuns into difficulties when the subject is much lighter or darker than average (black cats and snowdriftsi Smart metering (see page 20) solves this in clever but complicated ways, but the simplest answer is to ignore the brightness of the subject and just measure the light. Fitting a translucent plastic dome to the handheld meter and pointing this at the camera gives you a substitute reading that will ignore variations in scene brightness, In short, yes, light meters are still an essential part of any photographer’s toolkit.

Opposite & left: 1. A dual-battery charger literally halves the time spent charging batteries, allowing you to leave them charging without having to swap one out for the next. 2. A light meter makes flash-output calculations a cinch. 3. A portable battery pack can charge smaller cameras anywhere, anytime. 4. The Eye-Fi card broadcasts a wifi signal that allows easy transfer of images to your smartphone or tablet. 5. A hoodman loupe fits over the LCD to make it visible in direct sunlight. 6. A simple microfiber cloth ensures you can keep your lenses clean and unscratched. 7. Step-up filters allow you to fit larger filters onto lenses with smaller filter threads, saving time and money. 8. A variable ND filter can cover a range of ND strengths in a single package.