Whenever I prepare for teaching workshops, one of the issues that kept coming back related to the accessories that you use as a landscape photographer. In fact you realise that like in just about anything, photographers working in a particular niche have fairly specific requirements and tools to address these. I therefore figured that it could be useful for some of you to get a sense of what tools and accessories I use on a regular basis. So without further ado, here is the first instalment of my list:

1- Tripod

This is undoubtedly one of the most underrated, yet most critical tool of all! There is really no sense getting the best cameras and the best lenses if your support system isn’t up to par. Simply put, my camera is pretty much ALWAYS attached on my tripod. As a landscape photographer, sharpness is critical to get all the detail out of a scene. As such, a good tripod is the foundation of your support system and should be adequate to suit your needs. While a bad tripod is better than no tripod at all (…sometimes), you want to make sure that your tripod is at least sturdy enough that your camera/lens combination doesn’t tip over and crash (ah, memories…)! Second, a tripod that stays at home is useless. While this may sound obvious, many people buy large and heavy tripods that end up collecting dust in the back of some forsaken closet. Sturdy but light tripods do come at a premium, but they will at least be used for their intended purpose. Third, centre columns are not your friend. Extending that centre column negates all the benefits of having a tripod in the first place. The stability of the tripod comes from having three points of support; by extending the centre column, you essentially end up with a much less sturdy monopod. My tripod doesn’t even have a centre column anymore, which allows me to set my camera as low as ground level.

As far as brands go, the gold standard for many are the Gitzo tripods, they are solidly built, very practical, very light and sturdy. They are also very expensive. Several other manufacturers offer a good compromise between price and quality. Manfrotto, Induro come to mind. After having used a Feisol 3471 large tripod for a little while, I recently reverted back to my old Gitzo 1228. While the Feisol was pretty light for its size, I never felt it was up to the task in terms of stability and durability. The Gitzo on the other hand, despite its age, is light, compact, flexible and solid enough for all my lens/camera combos.  The Gitzo also underscores an additional point I’d like to make: do not underestimate the used market. A lot of my gear has been purchased second hand. While it’s true you have no guarantees, you can get your hands on some excellent gear at a fraction of the cost.

2- Ballhead

While some tripods come already equipped with a head to which you can attach your camera and lens, most higher grade tripods require the purchase of an additional accessory: the head. There are several types of heads, but suffice it to say that for my needs, a ballhead is the only kind I am willing to consider. Here again, I highly recommend to get the best ballhead you can get. For this you have to budget anywhere from $300-500, but you will have eternal peace of mind. Get a cheap ballhead and be sure it will cause you grief far beyond any savings you will have made. There are several great brand names to choose from. Kirk, Acratech, Really Right Stuff and Markins all have fantastic reputations, to go along equally fantastic customer service (I have personally used both Kirk and Acratech). For ballheads you will have to find the appropriate compromise (for you) between size and stability. The bigger the ballhead, the more stable it is and the more gear it can support. However, trekking through mountain passes with a 2 pound head in your backpack is not for everyone!

3- Gradient Neutral Density filters

A scene having a very bright sky and somewhat dark foreground, as is the case when photographing the magic hour, exposes a significant limitation of any camera system. In these cases your sensor either records the foreground adequately, leaving the sky completely washed-out. Alternatively, the sky may be well exposed, but your foreground completely black and featureless. To get around this limitation, photographers have designed a work-around: the graduated neutral density filter (GND), also known as the split density filter. This is not to be confused with the Neutral Density filter, which is simply a uniformly dark filter that reduces the amount of light reaching the camera. In contrast, part of the GND filter is clear, while the other is darker, and neutral gray so as to not introduce any colour casts to the image. By darkening a portion of the scene, these filters allow the photographer to “compress” the effective dynamic range of the scene to accommodate the sensor’s capabilities. To my knowledge, there are four main brands of GND filters on the market. These are Singh-Ray, Lee, HiTech and Cokin. Singh-Rays are commonly  are recognized as being among the best, but come at a premium. The Cokins are by far the most affordable, and are fairly easy to find anywhere. Unfortunately, with the low price come limitations. The Cokin filters degrade image quality and are not truly colour neutral and often introduce noticeable colour cast, blue or magenta depending on the scene. If colour fidelity is a prime concern on yours, these are not the filters for you. The HiTechs the next in line as far as price goes, and represent in my opinion the best bang for your buck. They are fairly colour neutral and of excellent quality at an affordable price. Lee filters are professional grade filters of excellent quality optically, barely affect your image quality and introduce no colour casts. They are also slightly more affordable than their Singh-Ray counterparts. On the downside, they scratch really easily. Both Singh-Ray and Lee have the distinct advantage in that they come in 6”x4” sizes which allows you to handhold the filters more easily instead of having to use clumsy and impractical adaptors. Ideally, one should have at least a set of 2- and 3-stop filters in soft and hard edge. But if your budget does not allow it, a combination of 2-hard and 3-soft could be sufficient for most uses. Before you go out and spend all your hard-earned money, you should borrow a few, or buy only one, use it for a while and see what you are missing (if anything) before buying the rest.

That’s it for this week. Next week, I will discuss polarizers, ND filters and remote releases.