10 Great Gadgets For Your Digital SLR A collection of compact, modestly priced accessories that enhance your DSLR’s real-world versatility and performance Article rating: 6.58

10 Great Gadgets For Your Digital SLR

A collection of compact, modestly priced accessories that enhance your DSLR’s real-world versatility and performance

By Jason Schneider

Digital SLRs (DSLRs for short) are the most versatile and capable cameras on the planet right out of the box—that’s why they’re steadily increasing in popularity among photo enthusiasts, pros, and just plain folks who want to take better pictures. Everybody knows that acquiring interchangeable lenses like long-range-and wide-angle zooms extends their shooting range, that buying a camera bag to protect your investment also makes it easier to tote your DSLR outfit, and that stowing some extra batteries and high-capacity memory cards in that bag is a pretty good idea too. However, to help you get the most out of your high-performance jewel we’ve gathered a glorious group of gadgets guaranteed to make your DSLR shooting experience even more satisfying. No, you don’t need to run out an buy e ery one of them to experience the joys of using your DSLR, but adding a few of them to your shooting kit is guaranteed to make you a happier camper.

1. Optical Filter kit: The three most popular filters for DSLRs are the Circular Polarizer to enhance clouds and colors and tame reflections on glass or water, the UV protector which protects your lens against impact, dust and sand and cuts the bluishness in distant landscapes and over-water shots, and the warming filter that adds a pleasant touch or warmth to your pictures without having to fiddle with the camera’s white balance settings.

Example shown: Tiffen Photo Essentials Kit (street price, $40-160 depending on filter diameter) that contains a Circular Polarizer, UV Protector and proprietary 812 Warming Filter plus a 4-pocket filter pouch for storage.

2. Lens/LCD Cleaning Kit: Typically they consist of a blower brush, lens cleaning solution, lens tissue, and a small microfiber cloth, all stowed in a convenient plastic pouch or case. These items are also available separately, and there are all kind of fluids and sprays designed specifically for cleaning LCD screens.

Example shown: Hakuba Cleaning Kit (street price, under $5.00), including blower with removable brush, 30cc of lens-cleaning solution, 30 sheets of lens tissue, and a cleaning cloth.

© Hakuba Cleaning Kit

3. LCD Hood: These pop-up hoods protect your camera’s delicate LCD when folded and enhance viewing brightness, contrast, and comfort (especially in bright sunlight) when they’re opened for viewing. Generic ones fit a variety of cameras; dedicated ones match your camera’s contours more closely and provide buttons in the right places.

Example shown: Delkin Pop-Up Professional Shade for Canon 40D (suggested price $39.99).

© Delkin Pop-Up Professional Shade

4. Tabletop tripod: These compact 3-leggers provide a stable shooting platform for shooting in low light or at slow shutter speeds--just place them on any secure surface like a table, bench or window ledge. Light in weight, they fold to fit into practically any gadget bag. Make sure to get a sturdy one of you plan to use it with a long-range zoom or telephoto lens.

Example shown: Davis & Sanford Tabletop Pro (suggested price, $15.99) with 2-section 20mm legs, 3-way friction head with quick release, and bubble level, quick-lift center column, and suction cup. Load capacity: 2.5 lbs.

© Davis & Sanford Tabletop Pro

5. Shoe-mount sensor flash: These compact, lightweight units slide into your DSLR’s accessory shoe and boost the flash output, allowing you to shoot at lower ISOs for better image quality, and increasing your indoor distance range. Their slave trigger sensors automatically fire the flash when your camera’s built-in flash goes off and they can be mounted directly on the camera or on a bracket. Most provide pre-flash options for cameras that employ a pre-flash for auto focus, and many have wide-angle diffusers for better coverage when shooting at wide-angle settings.

Example shown: Sunpak PF20DX (suggested price, $69.95) with ISO 100 guide number of 65, built-in 24mm wide-angle diffuser, 3 triggering options, and 3 auto-flash apertures—f/2.8, f/4, and f/5.6— to control depth of field. It comes with a flash bracket for use with non-hot-shoe cameras, and is powered by two alkaline or NiMH AAA batteries.

© Sunpak

6. LCD Screen Protector: A convenient alternative to the LCD Hood, it mounts directly over the LCD screen with pre-attached double-sided tape and stays permanently in place, providing impact protection while preventing liquid and dust from getting on the delicate LCD. Most are multi-coated and minimize glare and light reflections on the LCD, providing a clearer viewing image as well.

Example shown: Giotto Aegis LCD Screen Protector (Suggested price $30-45 depending on camera model) featuring German Schott glass with 12-layer anti-reflection coating.

© Giotto Aegis LCD Screen Protector

7. Custom White Balance Device: These clever gadgets let you achieve more precise color balance in scenes and portraits by taking an incident reading of the light falling on your subject and using it to set your camera’s custom white balance setting. By mounting the incident dome over your lens and shooting one reference exposure, you can home in on the neutral or warm color balance you want very quickly and conveniently.

Example shown: BRNO baLens Cap (street price $45-60 depending on diameter) that provides the requisite color balance dome and also functions as a secure pinch-and-release lens cap.

© BRNO baLens Cap

8. Image Sensor Cleaning System: Since DSLRs have interchangeable lenses it’s all too easy to get dust and dirt on the image-capture CCD or CMOS sensor when you’re changing lenses. This will cause spots to appear on every image you shoot, and the best remedy is to clean your sensor. Since professional sensor cleaning is quite expensive, there are now a number of sensor-cleaning systems on the market, all of which work quite well in restoring your camera’s delicate sensor to pristine condition without causing damage.

Example shown: Delkin SensorScope Sensor Cleaning System (suggested price $129.99). It includes a SensorScope for inspecting your sensor, wands in 3 sizes to fit most common DSLR sensors, and an ergonomic SensorVac. The system is claimed to remove all types of wet and dry contaminants.

© Delkin SensorScope Sensor Cleaning System

9. Off-camera Flash Bracket: Mounting an auxiliary flash unit off camera to the right or left of the lens will provide more sophisticated, natural looking lighting, adding dimensional modeling to your subject that you can’t get with your DSLR’s built in flash or a shoe-mount accessory unit. The best ones can rotate to optimize the flash pattern for portrait and landscape orientations, and let you place the flash head at a range of distances from the camera lens for maximum lighting flexibility.

Example shown: Stroboframe Quick Flip 350 (street price, $49.95), a sturdy lightweight unit that accepts virtually all consumer 35mm DSLRs without battery packs or motor drives attached.

© Stroboframe Quick Flip 350

Creative Effects Lens: These simple, ingenious optical devices let you control depth of field and achieve an endless variety of controlled sharpness and blur to create an infinite range of special effects. Simply install the flexibly mounted optic on your camera in place of the camera lens, bend the flexible tubing barrel any way you want to, lock it in place when you see the effect you want in your DSLR’s viewfinder, and take the shot. Pros use these gadgets for mighty serious work, but they’re also a heck of a lot of fun.

Example shown: Lensbaby Muse (suggested price $100) complete with 50mm f/2 plastic lens that’s interchangeable using the Optic Swap system, and aperture discs for f/2.0, f/2.8, f/4.0, f/5.6, and f/8. Minimum focus distance is about 12 inches; weight 3.7 oz.