Whats your favorite photography Gadget and why

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Andy
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What your favourite photography gadget and why?

Mine so far is my peak designs Capture clip... means I can slot my camera on my bag strap, belt or anything I can attach it to for quick access whilst I'm walking around. doesn't need to be a camera either. works with binoculars or lenses etc too.
 
PhotoPills not just for astrophotography!
 
Weston Master II exposure meter - a roughly 70 year old piece of electro-mechanical technology that miraculously (or perhaps thanks to a service or two sometime in its history) works and gives reasonably accurate results:

http://www.westonmeter.org.uk/westontwo.html

My digital Gossen Sixtomat Flash is a lot more practical, though:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/95742794@N05/16452973574

The Leitz tabletop tripod and ballhead is another favourite, pretty much indestructible, and reasonably priced (by Leica standards) secondhand. And with This One Weird Trick you can shoot like a Pulitzer Prize winning photographer!:

http://www.ronmartblog.com/2014/01/drastically-improve-your-handheld-shots.html
 
Weston Master II exposure meter - a roughly 70 year old piece of electro-mechanical technology that miraculously (or perhaps thanks to a service or two sometime in its history) works and gives reasonably accurate results:

http://www.westonmeter.org.uk/westontwo.html

Not favourite kit but I have somewhere my old Weston Master V and it's invercone & leather zip case.................lovely bit of kit, no batteries :) Not 100% sure when I got it but did use it with my Rollei T, ah! medium format film back in the day (but which day I cannot now recall.....:LOL: )

As for my favourite gadget, well not a gadget/accessory but my most recent camera ~ the Olympus O-MD EM1 mk2 :D
 
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The later versions are more practical, though I've seen it claimed that the older ones have better sealed light cells that have been known to outlast those in much more recent selenium meters. The Master II is so old that it doesn't take the familiar Invercone, but an earlier and more fiddly version you have to use with the baffle open, in combination with a special neutral density filter. It's also calibrated for 'Weston stops' (ISO 100 = Weston 80).
 
I'm not sure I'd refer to it as a gadget, more an add-on maybe, but my Raynox 250 - improves the CFD of just about any lens, either using the spring clips for filter threads between 52 and 67mm or screwing direct to the threads using additional step up/down rings
 
Not sure if it counts as a gadget, but its my Benbo mk1 tripod, totally solid, tough as nails (Its from the 90s, you can get spares so it may last forever.) Its only downside it the sheer weight of it.
 
Probably the red Pod. Basically a small, round beanbag that screws into the tripod thread on the base of most cameras.
 
My right hand index finger , Its worked great for 63 years on all cameras I have owned :D
 
Jetboil camping stove. Not much bigger than a 70-200 lens so fits in my bag & means i can have a hot drink anywhere :)
 
My right hand index finger , Its worked great for 63 years on all cameras I have owned :D

I’ve got one of those but can’t get it to work properly. Results are dreadful!

Mine would be the smart phone. Apps like TPE, PhotoPills, weather, google earth, OS etc all at your finger tips even when miles from anywhere. Amazing!

Though since I’m in the arctic circle at present, I’ll also throw in a token nomination for hand warmers.
 
'Gadget' has to be my new DJI Osmo Mobile 2 ... opens up a new world of alternative photography & video. :)
 
What your favourite photography gadget and why?

Mine so far is my peak designs Capture clip... means I can slot my camera on my bag strap, belt or anything I can attach it to for quick access whilst I'm walking around.

Ditto, absolute revelation when I picked one up a couple of months ago. Attached to the strap of my hiking rucksack it's a complete game changer for me in terms of travel photography.

Happily it came along around the same time that I discovered the Jack Wolfskin rucksack, which spreads weight like nothing I've ever experienced. I've gone through tens of setups for hiking and travel and it feels amazing to have struck gold. Walked 70 miles in a few days in Hong Kong this month with two Sigma Art primes, Sony a7RII and all my walking gear and it was genuinely unnoticeable.
 
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Never seen this before but looks very interesting


What your favourite photography gadget and why?

Mine so far is my peak designs Capture clip... means I can slot my camera on my bag strap, belt or anything I can attach it to for quick access whilst I'm walking around. doesn't need to be a camera either. works with binoculars or lenses etc too.
 
Too many to choose from! Most recent addition has been a long plate to use with gimbal for panoramas with no parallax issues.
 
My car , it gets me to far away places , it’s a mobile hide , and I can relax in comfort while waiting
 
Eye-controlled focus point selection. Yes, that really did exist on some of the last of the high-spec Canon 35mm film SLRs. Once set up, you just looked at the focus point you wanted, pressed the shutter button half way (as you normally do to obtain focus) and it would lock on to the point you were looking at and focus as normal. So much easier than using a joystick, etc. and it was instant.

By the time of the last of the film SLRs, Canon had got this gadget to work almost faultlessly, as long as people learnt how to calibrate it and use it (because it tracked eye movement, looking away at the last moment before pressing the shutter half way to lock focus wasn't a good idea!). Apparently not everyone could get it to work for them (some spec-wearers for instance) and they moaned about it (despite the fact it could easily be switched off and the camera could be used absolutely normally without it).

Apparently, as it was expensive to include and had met a mixed reception (a noisy minority?), Canon didn't carry it forward to DSLRs when they started making them and this amazingly useful gadget was lost. I really wish they'd bring it back as an option on the 5D range, and I'd buy one immediately as I find it so useful when I'm using my EOS-3 and EOS 30 film cameras and really miss it when I pick up my DSLR afterwards.

Bearing in mind this gadget was 1990s technology, and they could get it to work on the 45 focus points of the EOS-3, imagine how good it might be these days? So there you go, eye-controlled focus point selection, it's probably the best gadget you've never had! :)
 
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Blimey, sounds like James Bond style technology does that.

Would that be something similar to what fighter pilots do in hi-tech jets perhaps ?
 
+1 for PhotoPills - a superb photography app, and I've even found it helpful in other contexts as well
 
Eye-controlled focus point selection. Yes, that really did exist on some of the last of the high-spec Canon 35mm film SLRs. Once set up, you just looked at the focus point you wanted, pressed the shutter button half way (as you normally do to obtain focus) and it would lock on to the point you were looking at and focus as normal. So much easier than using a joystick, etc. and it was instant.

By the time of the last of the film SLRs, Canon had got this gadget to work almost faultlessly, as long as people learnt how to calibrate it and use it (because it tracked eye movement, looking away at the last moment before pressing the shutter half way to lock focus wasn't a good idea!). Apparently not everyone could get it to work for them (some spec-wearers for instance) and they moaned about it (despite the fact it could easily be switched off and the camera could be used absolutely normally without it).

Apparently, as it was expensive to include and had met a mixed reception (a noisy minority?), Canon didn't carry it forward to DSLRs when they started making them and this amazingly useful gadget was lost. I really wish they'd bring it back as an option on the 5D range, and I'd buy one immediately as I find it so useful when I'm using my EOS-3 and EOS 30 film cameras and really miss it when I pick up my DSLR afterwards.

Bearing in mind this gadget was 1990s technology, and they could get it to work on the 45 focus points of the EOS-3, imagine how good it might be these days? So there you go, eye-controlled focus point selection, it's probably the best gadget you've never had! :)

I bought an EOS 5 a couple of years ago as I wanted a film camera that could still use my Canon L glass. When I found out I could just look at something and the camera would track my eye and select a focus point, it blew my mind. :jawdrop: Even 30 years after that camera was made it still sounds really high tech, and I never understood why it never made it into DSLRs!
 
My beanbag cheapest thing in my photo bag and probably the most useful, certainly gets a lot more use than my tripod.

Ha! ... a small square of bubble wrap for me. :)
 
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