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Essential Landscape Accessories

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Filters, tripods and other extras will help you find and capture the perfect landscape


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Packing the right photo equipment is just as important as finding the right place at the right time. With landscape photography, that isn’t always easy to do. When planning a photo expedition, whether it’s a day hike or an extended road trip, consider these essentials the next time you head out.

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Singh-Ray LB Warming Polarizer
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B+W Circular Polarizer

Filters
If there’s one filter a landscape photographer needs, it’s a polarizer. It saturates color and contrast by reducing atmospheric haze and reflected sunlight. As a result, skies in landscapes become bluer and clouds and colors stand out more. B+W’s circular polarizing filters work with TTL exposure metering and autofocus lenses. Exposure reduction varies between 2.3 and 2.8 stops relative to positioning and the sun. This also makes it a good neutral-density filter. List Price: Starts at $77.

The Singh-Ray LB Warming Polarizer provides all of the advantages of a circular polarizer but with a warm tinge, adding the feel of sunlight to your images. The LB stands for “lighter, brighter” and there’s only a 11⁄3 ƒ-stop reduction for faster shutter speeds and larger depths of field. The lower density provides a brighter viewfinder image, improving image previews and placement of stacked graduated filters. List Price: $210 to $280.

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Brunton Eterna Binoculars

Binoculars
Seeing what’s ahead is helpful when you’re out on a long hike searching for the perfect view. Weighing less than two pounds, the Brunton Eterna Full Size binoculars provide high magnification in a body light enough to carry comfortably in your pack. Available in three strengths—8x, 11x and 15x—the magnified view is sharp, thanks to BaK-4 prism glass along with state-of-the-art phase, AL reflective and Emerald Fire coatings. The Eterna binoculars are waterproof and fog-proof and use a multistep eye-relief system that works with eyeglasses. List Price: Starts at $374.


6 Comments

  1. Stacy Niedzwiecki makes this comment

    An LED headlamp is a great accessory - I LOVE mine (I have one from Petzl - a Zipka Plus model). It frees up your hands and allows you to work in your camera bag and with other items. The Zipka can even go around your arm, a tripod, or other item if you need to strategically place the light in a fixed spot for awhile.

    Sat Nov 1 04:08:29 2008

  2. Kenn Goutal makes this comment

    Maureen (and Pablo), I believe that the reason the article mentioned TTL metering is that there are two different kinds of polarizing filters: regular, and circularly-polarizing. As you might expect, regular polarizing filters are (on average) cheaper than circularly-polarizing ones. However, you need to be sure that you have the circularly-polarizing type if you are going to depend on your camera's TTL metering. (I believe I'm correct in saying that if you use a handheld meter, and do the numbers yourself, it's not an issue.) For reasons too obscure to go into here, a non-circularly-polarizing filter will "confuse" your camera's TTL metering. So the article just wants to make sure that you get one of those -- independent of whether you get an an "entry-level" one or a "high-end" model.

    Sat Sep 27 04:19:24 2008

  3. Dave makes this comment

    Pablo... B+W's entry-level CPL (circular polarizer) is more than adequate, and they offer several quality steps above that. Singh-Ray's products are marvelous, but the difference in image quality is exceedingly fine, and may only be of use to extreme hobbyists and pros. More important is to have a strategy for equipping yourself with filters: think about the lens(es) you have and those you want, and buy filters to fit the largest lenses first (usually 77mm). Then you can use step-up rings to mount those filters on your smaller-diameter lenses before deciding if you need to invest in a whole series of different diameter CPLs and neutral gradient filters.

    Tue Sep 2 23:52:00 2008

  4. Pablo makes this comment

    Should a begginer start with the $77 one, or the $210 is the one that really makes the difference?

    Thu Aug 7 20:26:01 2008

  5. Jeanne makes this comment

    Maureen, yes, you should absolutely get a polarizer and it will work great with your DSLR. You will love what it does--in my opinion, a polarizer is close to indispensable. TTL stands for through the lens--just means that your camera will still meter correctly and autofocus even with the polarizer on.

    Sun Aug 3 10:49:11 2008

  6. Maureen makes this comment

    eing new to SLR's, Digital SLR in particular, I'm interested in a polarizer. But your short description mentions that this filter is for TTL exposure metering and autofocus lenses. So, I guess this lens would not be for a Digital SLR, correct? We just purchased our first ever Digital SLR and we have never had a SLR, so most all of the abbreviations are unknown. Thanks for all the great information.

    Fri Aug 1 10:38:30 2008

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