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Friday, August 1, 2008

Essential Landscape Accessories


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

This Article Features Photo Zoom

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Giottos Rocket Air Blower

Cleaning
Dust on a lens or a sensor means more time on the computer later fixing image blotches. The Giottos Rocket Air Blower is an inexpensive way to prevent this problem. Made from nontoxic, environmentally friendly materials, the Rocket Air Blower is tear-proof and resistant to high or low temperatures. It also works well on computer keyboards and other gadgets. The design features a powerful air nozzle and includes an intake valve that prevents dust from going back into the blower. Estimated Street Price: $11.

Memory Cards

Fortunately for landscape photographers, the capacities and write speeds of memory cards are ever increasing. The bigger the capacity, the longer you can stay in the field shooting. And prices continue to come down. ATP, Kingston, Lexar, PNY and SanDisk produce a variety of sizes, with the most popular in the 4 GB to 16 GB range.

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ABOVE, LEFT TO RIGHT:
Lexar Professional 8 GB CF ; Kingston 16 GB CF ;
SanDisk Extreme III 12 GB CF
;
PNY Optima Pro 16 GB CF
.

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Western Digital My Passport
Storage
Remote locations mean better landscapes, but less accessibility to desktops. About the size of a paperback, the Western Digital My Passport Studio offers storage capacities of 160 GB, 250 GB and 320 GB—lots of portable storage space for downloading images while out in the field. My Passport Studio is equipped with FireWire 400 and USB 2.0 interfaces for fast and easy data transfers between computers. It’s compatible with Macs. List Price: $129 (160 GB); $159 (250 GB); $219 (320 GB).

11 Comments

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  1. Gitzo carbon fiber sticks and Arca-Swiss Z1 with a Kirk QR (the Arca QR releases too easily). Both will set you back a bunch, but you won't ever need another tripod. Also a Hoodman Loupe--makes a HUGE difference in looking at your in-camera images.
  2. It’s pretty helpful!! Thanks.Taking a snap of a landscape is not a typical job if you have enough patience and creativity with in you.
  3. Ditch the backpack!!! I only use a backpack for carrying stuff on board a plane, train, in the car, etc. Once I'm where I need to go, out comes the vest. The vest is SOOOOO much faster and easier to quickly grab whatever you need for the shot.
  4. I have started using the Cokin P-series filter system for my Nikon. They have square filters of all types such as graduated neutral density and a circular polarizer. The beauty of this system is that for each new lens diameter I only have to buy an adapter plate. For the P-series, the adapter rings will go to 82mm and cost approx. $15.
  5. A tip I've learned about buying a polarizing filter is to buy a very high-quality filter (e.g. ultra-thin, multicoated) at the largest diameter of your lens collection. In my case that is 77mm. Then simply get step-up rings in order to fit the filter to your various lenses.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. Should a begginer start with the $77 one, or the $210 is the one that really makes the difference?
  10. 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.
  11. 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.

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