First DSLR, Essential items?

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Got my first DSLR for my Birthday, a Canon EOS 1300D and looking for a list of essentials that you would buy/carry with a camera

So far I've already ordered:
Carry bag (Just a cheap one off Amazon)
58mm Hoya UK filter for the kit lens
Canon EFS 50mm 1.8STM + 49mm Hoya UV Filter

Other than a second battery is there anything else I should consider as an amateur to either make life easier or prolong the life of my kit
 
Rocket blower

personally I keep pec-pads and eclipse fluid around as well for cleaning every so often

If you get tired of carrying a camera round your neck then a good shoulder / sling strap, but that can wait...
 
Don't bother with the UV filters (they don't do anything for DSLR, they were useful on film which were sensitive to UV light). Instead get a circular polarizer for he kit lens, this lets you increase contrast and color saturation, reduce reflections, deepen blue sky, increase blue color of water, enhance rainbows and reduce some haze. When outside a CPL lives on my lens.



You probably also want some software to process, get the lightroom trial and see how you get on.


The rest mostly depends on what you will want to shoot. A decent tripod and ball head are important for landscape/still life, macro/architecture/night and telephoto work, but aren't needed for casual street photography, candid portraiture etc.



personally I wouldn't buy the 50mm prime until you have had a goo play with the kit lens and understand what the different focal lengths look like. 50mm is too long for a crop camera IMO.
 
Lightroom is a good shout - processing RAW files will let you get more out of your shots but also helps you spot where you went wrong.

A 50mm lens can be useful but as DP mentioned, it's quite long for a crop sensor camera. Unless you take a long of portraits or something then it's difficult to get to use it a lot. A better recommendation might be the EF-S 24mm STM lens. It has an F2.8 aperture instead of the F1.8 on the 50mm but the focal length is a lot more useful and the tiny size makes your camera even more portable. It's a good lens to throw on there so you can take your camera with you 'just in case'.
 
Got my first DSLR for my Birthday, a Canon EOS 1300D and looking for a list of essentials that you would buy/carry with a camera

So far I've already ordered:
Carry bag (Just a cheap one off Amazon)
58mm Hoya UK filter for the kit lens
Canon EFS 50mm 1.8STM + 49mm Hoya UV Filter

Other than a second battery is there anything else I should consider as an amateur to either make life easier or prolong the life of my kit

A Spudz lens cloth.
Lots of memory cards.

Also, moving forward, get the best you can afford and not half arsed mid tier product. Get a good tripod like from Manfrotto and not one out of the Argos catalogue. Good decent gear lasts a life time, I still have my first tripod from 15 years ago.

I also have a camera bag from Crumpler that I bought back 10 years ago.
 
Thanka for the suggestions, some food for though too.

Especially the divided opinion on my choice of buying a prime lens off the bat.

I bought a 128gb card off the bat and will buy another, along with a spare battery or two as well
 
Thanka for the suggestions, some food for though too.

Especially the divided opinion on my choice of buying a prime lens off the bat.

I bought a 128gb card off the bat and will buy another, along with a spare battery or two as well

When you buy your next cards I wouldn't bother with anything over 32GB. More but smaller cards is always better than fewer bigger cards.
 
I wouldn't bother with the prime lens either.

You may prefer something else once you get some experience.

I bought a nikon 35mm 1.8 early in my dslr photography.
Is handy on rare occasions but I much prefer to use a zoom.
Should have waited till I knew a bit more.

I would start with the camera and kit lens.
I like lightroom and would recommend trying the trial version.

There is nothing wrong with using the kit lens.
They are very good, and you will get good results with it.

The most essential thing is taking lots of photos .
1000 photos with the kit lens will give you much better results than 100 photos with an expensive prime.
 
On the contrary, I loved the 35mm on my crop cameras, and a 50mm is almost nearly always on my full frame camera, despite owning the 24-70 and 70-200 too.

I find 50mm too long on crop, it loses the 'view of the world' quality and gets a bit to tele. 85mm is great on ff as a portrait lens, but I wouldn't wander around with one on, not without a wide lens as well.
 
50mm too long for a crop?

How popular is 85mm focal length on full frame...

There is a reasonably big difference between 70mm and 85mm and 85mm is not exactly ideal either, 105mm tends to work better on FF fpr the given purpose IMO.
 
Absolutely echo buying the best kit in all areas that you can. I also still have my first Manfrotto tripod i bought when starting out, over 10 years ago, I have only just replaced it for a carbon fibre Gitzo.

Memory cards, multiple smaller rather that one or two really big ones. A 128gb card is a lot of images to loose if the card becomes corrupt.

Thinks such as lens clothes, rocket blower, nice comfortable knock strap such as a padded optech one or peak design/blackrapid should strap allows you to hand the camera from your neck/shoulder and frees up both hands if you need.

I wouldn't bother with uv filters as above, waster of time. The quality of glass in your lenses will be superior to that in a uv filter. Just make sure you pop on the lens hood and that along with being careful will be enough.

To start with if I am honest, if budget is limited, get the newest version of the 18-55 or 18-135 lens and just learn your camera, learn about photography, enjoy taking pictures and start to find and get an idea of what you enjoy taking pictures of. Then you can begin to think, well, if I like landscapes I want a good quality wide-angle, or if you like wildlife you want a good quality zoom lens like a 70-300 or better. But if you are just starting out don't go crazy straight away.

As a general rule lenses will always outlast bodies, so always invest in good glass, bodies will come and go but glass lasts a lot longer.

No real harm in having a prime lens early on, it will let you play with shallow DOF and also teach you about taking things steady and composing carefully, if you need more or less in the frame you get to use gods zoom to do so (your feet, walking forwards or backwards) and a 50mm is cheap enough, STM is most recent and can be had for about £95 quid or so.

Main thing is to get the best bits you can right now, enjoy it and get out there and take pictures and learn! :)
 
I'm a beginner 3 years in lol, I have a shoulder bag with a blower and some lens cleaning gear. A spare battery, card and Joby Gorillapod.

A UV filter stays on my lens all the time just for protection really and also I use a CIR PL pretty much all the time out doors. I'm still using my kit lens but have been looking at 35mm primes
 
On the contrary, I loved the 35mm on my crop cameras, and a 50mm is almost nearly always on my full frame camera, despite owning the 24-70 and 70-200 too.

I find 50mm too long on crop, it loses the 'view of the world' quality and gets a bit to tele. 85mm is great on ff as a portrait lens, but I wouldn't wander around with one on, not without a wide lens as well.

35mm on a crop is a "nice" view, and on a Nikon it's a 52.5mm FF equivalent, so is effectively the nifty fifty for crops. I've got the Nikon 35mm f/1.8 for use with my D7200, but I really, really wish Nikon would make a 22/24mm f/1.8 that is as cost effective as the 35mm (less than £150). That way we could have a lovely 35mm FF equivalent too.
 
As this has been bumped I thought I'd update.

UV filters replaced with circular polarising and 4x32gb cards ordered both upon recommendations.

I went ahead and bought the 50mm as its a cheap way experimenting with one. I spent a couple of days shooting with the kit lens last week while we spent a couple of days in Cromer, and took both the 50mm and the 18-55mm to Santa Pod for fireworks frenzy last weekend.

Feel like I learnt a lot, the 50mm definitely isn't something I'd carry as an only lens as I found the 50mm wasn't always wide enough.
 
Yea, 50mm on the Canon is an 80mm full-frame equivalent so likely to feel very tight. You need 30-32mm on the Canon to get a 50mm equivalent.
 
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