Your most used accessories?

I suspect most of us have a fair selection of accessories in our collections (and I'm not including lenses as accessories) most of which will get used once in a blue moon, but is there anything that you use quite frequently?

I find that I use Auto Extension tubes most weeks, they offer a transformation of my lenses to a different world - the world of close focus and macro! I have a few lenses that I would like to have a slightly closer focus than the designed MFD, so I'll often use a 12mm tube to allow it. They don't suit all lenses, but some really shine when a tube is added.

Anyway - what do you use most often from your accessory extravaganza - is it Filters (Grads, Polarisers, etc.), are you big into Flash, Tubes, Tripods or Monopods? What do you use and how does it improve your output?

For me it's ND filters, I do like that flat water look. That means the long exposure also requires a tripod.

Off to Skye soon so both are packed.

I've got a tiny flash unit (160SA) with a bit of foil stuck on it to direct light upwards at a ceiling. It's probably my most useful accessory other than my tripod.

Brilliant for quick evenly-lit portraits in small rooms.

I'm ND filters also.

Where to start...

An O-ME 53 magnifying eyepiece is permantly on the K3. How does it improve my output? It helps me see more clearly - and with my eyes, every little helps!

For outdoor macro, a right-angled finder is usually in my pocket for low level shots. Not being as flexible as I used to be, low level would be much more difficult, even impossible, without it.

As for desk-top macro, it's almost all accessories . From geared head, through wireless remote, clamps, supports, focus rails and lights to connectors, adapters and DIY bits that have no name, it would be impossible to get far without them. And then, of course, there's the computer and software for focus stacking. A camera almost seems like an afterthought!

Steve

It is my Think Tank Photo Retrospective bag (no. 7). Small enough to be carried without an issue, large enough to carry the camera with one or two lenses, my wallet, house keys and phone. I often use the bag when I do not have the camera with me.

My most used camera accessory are my reading spectacles, be lost without them
Secondly would be a polarising filter

For me my Pentax Spotmeter, invaluable for for getting a reasonably accurate exposure setting when focussing on, say, an insect against a confused background at distance using a long macro eg., my Sigma 180mm.



Roger

Manfrotto geared tripod head. Once you have used one of these those twisty handled pan head things meet instant redundancy. They also don't droop with a heavy lens to hold straight like some ball heads do. Second to that would be an M42 > K mount adapter for my vintage lenses.

I have boxes full of accessories which I've picked up over the years and the vast majority never get any use at all. That's except for necessities like a rocket blower, lens pen and hoods of course. Apart from that, I use my M42 --> K adapter quite a lot. I have a bunch of filters that I really should bother to use, especially the CPLs. I got some black mist filters at christmas and two months later I haven't even opened the box...

ND Filters which I always wish to use more along with the tripod, but laziness often kicks in about lugging them around.

I guess the most used accessory and already mentioned is the Lenspen, perfect for dusting down kit and cleaning the front element.

Oh I forgot to add, my new Peak design hand strap or hand clutch as they like to describe it.
It is great with the K1 and I'm sure any other camera also as it firmly grips and balances the weight of the camera and shakes of my old body. It is my most used accessory as I do not like neck straps.
Brilliant bit of kit that I will never take off and comes with a Swiss Arca base plate as stantard so perfect for my tripod and never needs to be removed.
Beware though Manfrotto tripod owners, the base plate will be some 30 smackers extra.
Yes it is, my most used accessory.

Like Flan above, a hand strap is permanently attached to my camera and qualifies as my most used accessory. I don't like a camera dangling from a neck strap and once you've tried a hand strap there's no going back IMO.

On both systems it's the Lee Filters Circular polariser and Big stopper.

Of course, using them requires my Benro tripod

On my other system - I use the Macro lighting system quite a fair bit (must remember BATTERIES!!)

Tripod for use with the shift lens and a handheld light meter for all my vintage cameras with no meter (or an unreliable one...) Remote control and/or cable release.

Hoods, polarisers, coloured filters for BW work all see some use. Rarely use flash despite having a box of them. Rarely use the motordrives despite having quite a few.