#1 – Light Diffuser
Uses:
1. Use the diffusion panel to reduce harsh light and shadows by placing it between the sun (lightsource) and your subject
2. Use the the Gold Panel to bounce some warm tones onto the sunject and fill in unwanted shadows
3. Use the Black Panel to subtract or block unwanted light
4. Use the Silver Panel to add a punch of contrast by bouncing cool tones onto the subject and filling in unwanted shadows.
#2 – Remote Shutter Release
The remote shutter release keeps your finger from having to press down on the shutter button which can add a little shake just enough to blur your image.Most cameras have a built in 5sec or 10 sec self timer. However you have to dig through the camera menu to find them or wait those 10 seconds each time you want to take an image. Using either a cable realese or an Infra Red version keeps your camera still and you can fire off more images faster.
#3 – Macro Lens
Macro photography or micro photography is the form of extreme close-up photography, usually of
very small subjects such as insects or interior of flower pedals. There are a number of specialized lens that allow for a reproduction ratio of 1:1 between subject and camera sensor. These lenses have a closer focusing distance between subject and camera than traditional kit lenses and have very sharp optics.
Using a regular zoom lens you might have to be at least 5' to 7' feet away for the lens to focus on a subject. Where as with a dedicated macro lens you can be much closer to your subjects sometimes as close as 8" to 10". Thus filling the frame with your crepy crawler insect or looking deep into a flower. Because of the sharp details a macro lens is able to capture some photographers grab a macro lens for portrait images as well. If capturing the "small world" is of keen interest to your photography you might benefit from having a dedicated macro lens in your bag.
Macro lenses come in various focal lengths, to find out which price point and features can grow with you, you should borrow a macro lens from a friend or borrowlenses.com over the weekend and see if the small world is something for you.
#4 –Extension Tubes
An alternative to purchasing a Macro Lens are Extension Tubes. A Extension Tube is a hollow tube with no optical elements that you mount between your lens and camera body. Increasing the distance between the back of your lens and the camera sensor results in magnification of the image.Extension tubes without electrical contacts will not allow an electronic automatic camera to control the lens, thus disabling auto-focus and in some cases forcing a user to shoot wide open unless the lens offers manual aperture control. More expensive extension tubes contain electrical contacts allowing the user to use auto-focus and electronically control the aperture of the attached lens. An advantage to the non-electrical tubes is their lower price.
#5 Close-Up Lens
Close-up lenses are special lenses that screw onto the front of your lens like an ordinary camera lens filter such as Polarizer or UV filter. They're basically just a sophisticated magnifying glass that's placed between your lens and the subject. It's for this reason that they're also often called "close-up filters."A close-up filter works by decreasing the effective focal length of whatever lens they're used on. This decrease in focal length means that the extension has to increase correspondingly — which ends up magnifying the image similar to if one were to have used an extension tube.
#6 – Tripod
Keeping your camera steady during the shot will ensure you get the sharpest photo possible. And, nothing will do that better than a tripod. Yeah, they’re heavy and take a lot of time to setup, but you’ll be happy you used one when you’re back home admiring your super sharp photos.#7 Mini Tripods
Some of the most interesting subjects in nature are found so low to the ground that a standard tripod won’t work. A few of the high end +$300 tripods do fold flat and have a removable center column but this can take up time. Instead of transforming your tripod it makes sense to pick up a simple compact mini tripod you can keep in your camera bag or in your jacket.#8 – Slider Plate
When shooting subjects with a wide aperture and a narrow depth of field it can be very difficult to find focus. Sometimes your camera's auto-focus is unable to lock focus, so you will have to resort to manual focus. Trying to compose your shot and getting the right focus plane using a smaller focus ring commonly found on zoom lenses is a difficult challenge. An option is to move the camera plane itself to and from your subject in mini increments. Lifting or nudging your tripod is not very accurate however. The option would be to attach a sliding focus rail to your tripod.Sliding focus rails come in 2 or 4 way movement directions. The smooth rack and pinion movement provide extremely fine focusing adjustments and positive locking knobs to assure steady focus.
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