Indispensible accessories in your bag

[Dinobe]

I just wonder what other items are indispensable to you and keep with you on your photo outings? This can be camera-oriented gear or other stuff.
This might be small and unnoticeable items, but if you don't have them with you, it might ruin your day out.

Apart from the essential camera, lenses, memory cards and batteries I love to bring following with me:
- lenspen
- microfiber cloth (in a zip lock bag)
- Peak Design Capture clip
- allen key (to tighten the tripod plate)

If I don't forget to take it with me: my Garmin GPS device, to geotag my images but also to hike routes or keep track what hikes are worth doing.

What do you bring with you?

 

[algold]

In addition to your list:
- a few strips of band-aid
- leatherman or a small multi tool
- my old trusty klean kanteen water bottle
- small 10000 mah powerbank with cable for my phone.
If I take an iPad with me, then an SD card reader for it.

 

[PhotoCal]

It really depends on the objective.
My Mindshift Ultralight bag has a LensPen, my lucky orange writing pen, small notepad.
Given my decades in photography I always have a clean handkerchief with me. Wiping my gear or eyeglasses. I've even used it for putting pressure on a cut.
Not sure what a microfiber cloth would be used for.

If I'm hiking (or walking more than 1/2 mile then I will have a water bottle and a whistle.

I will often walk or hike with binoculars. I have a few pair that I use depending on how much weight I want to carry.

Of course I always have a hat, either baseball cap or Tilley knock-off. I like hats with a stampede strap. If you are going off trail you can lash it to a spot on the trail to help you find your way back (or rescuers can locate where you went off trail).

I once was lost on a trail clearing and couldn't find the direction that I came from. Fortunately, I had a waist pack, and my orange pen and notepad were in an outside pocket.
When I was trying to retrace my steps I spotted my orange pen had been snagged by the brush I was hiking through. So I was able to find the direction I came from. Hence, my lucky pen.

 

[Aristophanes]

Spare rear lens cap and body cap.
Always.

 

[retiredfromlife]

Spare rear lens cap and body cap.
Always.

I also keep a set in my camera bag

 

[ac12]

The camera manual, for when you have to do something that you rarely do, and can't remember how to do it.
Been there, done that . . . several times.

As opposed to a film camera, today's digital cameras are COMPLEX.
I can never remember how to do EVERYTHING that the camera can do.
It is the old 80/20 rule, 80% of the time, I use only 20% of the functionality of the gear.

 

[Acraftman]

I have started walking again daily usually 11/2 to 3 hrs a day, since I am doing it for exercise I load my pack full trying to keep it over 25 lbs, (12kg) I carry a extra charger for my phone ,a lot of rubber bands, I like to secure my lenses, fiber cloths I use the softer ones for my glass and think there great.
I carry a tripod just for the weight unless I see something really interesting and I want to use my 40-150 with the 2x, but I also carry a rifle mono pod that has a Y and opens very quickly I like it because it extends close to 72"and can double as a walking stick in tricky terrain.

 

[Bushboy]

I have a little led flashlight/torch that runs on a single AA battery.
I think it saved my life once....

 

[piggsy]

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https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/30W-Out...oodlight-Spotlight-Camping-Lamps/353228472883

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http://www.raynox.co.jp/english/35mmacc/egcm2000.htm

Sadly discontinued now, but the DCR-150 and DCR-250 are the same if you can find them.

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https://photographyandcinema.com/products/pnc-pistol-grip-camera-handle

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https://www.blackrapid.com/cross-shot/

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https://www.custombrackets.com/products/cb-digital-sb

 

[gnarlydog australia]

Bug juice, always there in any of my bags.
Since I like to go bush or at least visit the local sticks (aka out-of-doors) there are many biting critters that seem to like me, especially in the evening hours
I have a little bottle of pump-spray of the non DEET type, since that stuff melts plastic and rubber
I have great success with the ones with Picaridin active ingredient

 

[Macroramphosis]

During Covid times, a bean bag. Turns the car into a great shooting platform. Use it on the roof, bonnet, door, window etc etc. Very useful for the window half-down in places where you're not allowed out the car.

Before Covid times, an extendable paint-roller stick. Great as a walking stick, or a monopod (with a MacGyvered roller-handle+bolt), or a Mark Berkery sliding stick, or as a means of defence against goats, farmyard dogs, nettles and French housewives out collecting mushrooms.

Oh, and a pair of serrated braid scissors. Good for cutting small items of vegetation out of a macro scene - but also great for cutting nails. Obviously

 

[Mike Wingate]

If I dont have it. I need it.
If I have it, it is like insurance and never gets used.
Essentials for me are extra batteries and SD cards.

 

[gnarlydog australia]

and French housewives out collecting mushrooms.

that could be interpreted in more than one way....

 

[Macroramphosis]

that could be interpreted in more than one way....

No! LOL. Think more along the lines of a bloke crawling around after a beetle in the undergrowth when a woman comes in sight with a cloak and a bag, muttering chanterelle recipes. Just imagine whatever conversation that takes place next and you'll be along the right lines

 

[Macroramphosis]

If I dont have it. I need it.
If I have it, it is like insurance and never gets used.
Essentials for me are extra batteries and SD cards.

I need an SD Card in my bag for one important reason - I leave the other one in the computer too often, sigh.

 

[Biswajit Sharma]

In the late 1990s I was carrying bear repellent. I forgot to take it out of the bag on an overseas trip and airport security confiscated it. They were that proud of finding the bear repellent that they missed the Swiss Army knife and multi-tool in the bag.

 

[billca]

I need an SD Card in my bag for one important reason - I leave the other one in the computer too often, sigh.

I've done that too many times. I have old small GB cards laying around that I don't use much. I stash them in various bags I use. At least I'll get something when I arrive at the destination I've just spent a couple of hours walking or biking to.
Won't be as Peed off either.

 

[PhotoCal]

Oh, and a pair of serrated braid scissors. Good for cutting small items of vegetation out of a macro scene - but also great for cutting nails. Obviously

As an ethical nature photographer, I would never cut, move or destroy anything just to get a picture. Where does one draw the line?

Why not carry a small bit of twine to carefully tie things out of your way?

I've carried rope (helps when scrambling into or frjording a creek) and, on at least two occasions briefly pulled a limb slightly out of a shot.

But the thread is about indispensable items I carry, and I don't consider it something I carry because it's in my trunk.

Regarding memory cards:
My camera has dual card slots, both of which I use.
There have been times when a shooting companion forgot/ran out of memory, and I've lent my second card.

 

[Bushboy]

I guess one draws the line at climate change emergency.
As planet earth goes into runaway warming and the prospect of a planet with no life at all in 500 years or so, I think snipping away a few distracting twigs and leaves, which will grow back next week, ain’t something to be too ethical about....
I watched a documentary about the northern permafrost fields warming and releasing untold billions of tons of methane, and the certain outcome of this. We’re killing this planet.

 

[Macroramphosis]

As an ethical nature photographer, I would never cut, move or destroy anything just to get a picture. Where does one draw the line?

Hmm - perhaps if you're truly so ethical that you complain at me cutting a blade of grass out of a shot, or a leaf (very rarely), then you should give up photography and start railing against the lithium battery industry. Or at least watch a video about lithium mining and weep for a while. And then sell your camera gear because you're a part of the industrial pollution that is causing the planet's demise.

Perhaps you should give up fording creeks, for surely each time you do so, you surely destroy several footprint sized habitats of fresh-water diversity. Each time you precariously balance on a rock, for example, you're probably crushing the life out of several lives beneath your foot.

And perhaps, getting to those creeks in your vehicle, you're destroying far more than I am when I cut a blade of grass on my lawn, which is probably going to be mowed soon anyway?

Heck, if you drive off-road a lot and destroy habitat in your gas-guzzling vehicle you may well go straight to ethical-photography-hell. Be warned.

I mean, it sounds as if this is the sort of person you are, carrying rope and all in your car.

But then, perhaps my assumption about you and your beliefs is as wild a guess as is your assumption about me?