What accessory has been unexpectedly useful?

In the context of Hyram's question about the Slik AF2100 ball head for his tripod, it occurs to me that many of us will have bought some accessory or other that has turned out to be far better than we expected.

In my case, the ball head has been fantastic, and at the other end of the spectrum, the best £9 I've spent on camera gear was for the wrist strap I've burbled on about once or twice.

They have in common the fact that the usefulness has been out of all proportion to the expectation.

What have you guys bought that's turned out to be unexpectedly useful?

manfrotto superclamps.

too many uses to list.

An old Starblitz flash gun which I use for macro in low light, hand held and fired, using a 1 second exposure.

Not strictly photographic equipment, but a mountaineering karabiner and 3 foot length of thin mountaineering rope, total cost six pounds. Use as a quick secure method of securing camera bag to table leg or chair etc to prevent snatch a grab merchants.

Apple 30" cinema screen, only had it for a couple of weeks, but it has definately given me another wow factor in my photos.

My most useful accessory is definitely a Kaiser shoulder brace type thing that I picked up for about a fiver. It can be used on top of a monopod (good for macro), but I tend to use it on it's own for low light (theatre) stuff as it gives a lot of flexibility in framing - I recently went back to trying a monopod & found it fairly hard to frame shots quickly enough.

It's so good that I didn't hesitate to pick up another one that I saw going for £10.

Jonathan

My most useful accessory has to be Unlocker's wallet!

Not used as much as it should be but a grey card that I got free with Digital Camera! Sends my white balance problems packing!

Ditto for a gray card. It makes easy work of tricky exposure and takes care of white balance.

My business card. It is so usefull for bouncing the popup flash

hi, curious as to what you mean by the grey card, what it is and how you use it, and what you did with the business card.

My most useful photographic accessory would have to be my backyard

I was given a Photoflex LiteDisc last year and figured I'd never use it.

This spring as I crawled around on the forest floor taking macros of badly lit flora where either the sunlight wasn't cooperating or I was too close for flash, it dawned on me to give this lightweight, silver or gold reflector a try.

Very glad I did - nothing beats naturally reflected sunlight when shooting flowers.

As I don't have three hands, it also makes me use tripods and sand bags to hold the camera while I direct the light. - Not a bad thing!

I heartily recommend looking up information on grey cards - or better yet, buying a good one with instructions from a photoshop.

You will learn a great deal about basic photography, and will use one forever.

If you notice pros, when they set up their gear for photoshoots, almost always employ grey cards.

I'm glad to see that they're as useful today as they were in the days of film.