Which extra bits to buy?

I’m on the brink of buying a K20D and have a question. There have been others, over the months I’ve been lurking here, but generally searching has found the answer. Now this is partly an excuse to say hello, and thank everyone for the things I’ve learnt here.

My question is, which extras do you wish you’d bought when you bought your camera? I thought as I’m going to be spending a chunk of money, if there are a few other things I could get at the same time that I’d appreciate later I might as well. The obvious things are a spare battery, memory cards, filters, etc. What would you suggest?

Robert.

with one or two exceptions, camera shops are expensive for accessories.

When you go to buy, make sure you know what you're going to want and what you can get it for, so that if you are offered a deal you know if it's a good one.

I presume you're just starting out in photography? if so you're going to have a lot to learn and I would keep the kit simple to start with. This way you can add to it as you figure out what interests you. No sense spending money on things you end up not using.

Here are some things you will want, whatever you are into.

1. a spare battery. I use off brand ones from 7dayshop.com and have had no problems with them at all. Some people like to stick to the Pentax branded ones, which are more expensive. You pays your money and takes your choice.

2. At least 2 memory cards, at least 2GB each. Also make them fast ones like Sandisk Extreme series cards. I have a couple of fast cards and a couple of slow ones and the slow ones really annoy me.

Hi Rob, welcome to the forum

You've mentioned most. For me it was:

Spare battery
Spare memory cards (SanDisk Extreme. For the K20D I'd recommend the 4GB SDHC cards as they fill up quickly otherwise if you decide to shoot raw)
Memory card reader if you need one
Lens cleaning cloths
Rocket blower
Camera bag
Monopod with ball head (it's become an essential piece of kit for me)
Spare plate for the ball head (if you're going to use more than one lens on it)

ahh rocket blower, I knew there was a 3rd one!

Hi Rob, welcome to the forum!

Apart from the obvious (memory cards, batteries, cleaning items), I would recommend that you order the body with the kit lens first, use it for a while, then, when you know what kind of subjects you like to shoot, start looking then.

Before making any purchase, don't be afraid to spend more than your initial budget as you will find in this hobby that it can be a false economy! In the few short months that we've been into photography, we have found that quality counts, and is worth spending out for. As soon as you have bought your first DA* or Limited lens, you will be wondering why you didn't save up and just buy them in the first place! Where possible do try and test lenses out before you buy, then you will see what I mean, and thats a lesson I learnt from the more experienced voices on the forum here!

Same goes for tripods and bags too. Don't buy what you think will do for now, as you will always be buying more kit to put in your bag, and will always want a sturdier tripod! (Again, go out of your way to test / check as many as possible before buying!)

As for filters, still haven't bought any myself yet, because I am still working out for myself what I would need! Would leave that until you know exactly what you want to do, as when you know your style, you will get a better lens for it, which will probably need a different size filter anyway!

The other thing I would recommend is getting to know your local dealer (if you have one, we don't know where you are!), as they are normally very knowledgeable and most have decent prices (I'm spoilt by having SRS half an hour away!).

Hope I made sense, enjoy your K20D!

Can I suggest that if you're serious about learning photography, that a grey card and the "M" setting on your dial, will get you farther, faster?

Not sure about a grey card when starting out - it depends a bit what you want to achieve I think. If you want technically perfect shots then yes but if you want to use your camera for more artistic shots (yes that sounds pompous) then I'd say get taking them. Then when you get frustrated by your results you'll be driven to learning the technicalities required for what you want to do.

Don't spend money - spend time taking zillions of photographs and probably chuck zillions minus 5 of them away!

I'm betting Cartier Bresson never touched a grey card and I wonder if Ansel Adams did. Then again maybe they didn't need to so much with teh technology they used.

Mike

With HCB you could be right. But you are way off with Ansel Adams. Ever heard of the Zone System?
And the one who preached it, until the day he died? Take a guess where Zone V (18% grey) came from.
Martin.

That doesn't necessarily mean that he used one though (I don't know whether he did or didn't).

The zone system is all about placing the different tones in the landscape within the zones from black to white, and doesn't bear much relation to 18% grey at the scene. You could be metering a polar bear and decide to place it in zone 3, the zone system just tells you how much compensation you need to apply to your meter reading.

Dan

I recall several book, dvd, and online courses on the zone system came complete with FREE greycard.
Ansel Adams, many have debated weather he invented it, (I don't think so), but he certianly advocated it!

Fair enough! Never did much B+W stuff myself. However, I understood that the point was you metered from a particular area of your subject, decided zone you wanted to put that in, and adjusted your exposure accordingly. That's not the same as using a grey card, so I don't see how the two relate.

Dan

Filters: It is highly probable that you will use only one filter, a circular polarizer. It's less probable that you'll use coloured filters of any kind, except maybe Graduated Neutral Density (ND Grads) filters of varying strengths.

Be careful with your lenses and you willl not need to degrade your images at the point of capture by obscuring the lens with cheap glass UV/Skylight filters.

Look at it this way. Why pay, say £500.00 - £1000.00, for a lens made using precision optics and state of the art coatings, then spend a much smaller amount on a less than precise piece of glass to cover it up.

IMHO, the main use for a grey card today is to help with colour balance.

G

A coloured neutral filter? Where can I get one of those?

Dan

Absolutely.