Thanks to advice on an earlier thread (thanks all)

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/another-camera-thread-bridge-vs-dslr/page/2

I just bought myself a new pentax k-R kit for £400.

Went for that one mainly because of the weatherproof design and video capability.

So, what else do I need?

sd card? What size? Class 10?
Camera bag
Lens hood, filters?
Mini tripod
Cleaning kit

Any recommendations?

7dayshop seems wonderfully cheap for all the above

Nice, welcome to the fringes of photography (ie not Canon or Nikon 😉 )

They look good cameras, I would have definitely considered one.

Card – as fast as you can afford

Bag – can be a lot more complex of a question than you think. Given you can only take photos when you have your camera with you, you want to make it as easy to possible to ensure you have yours. I have a big bag to store all my lenses and crap; as small a case as I could find for popping in a camelbak/rucksac; and I also want a casual bag (man bag?) that’s got a camera compartment like a Lowepro Passport. If your bag is cumbersome or annoying you won’t want to be lumbered with it and will hence not have your camera to get that vital opp.

Mini tripod – why? People seem to want one just because they are there. Decide what you are actually going to do with it. If I were you I’d not get one then every time you think ‘oh I wish I had a tripod’ make a mental note. If the tally gets to a predetermined number then get one 🙂

Have a dig and see if you can find the camera’s write speed. No point buying a card that’s faster than the camera. The only time card speed matters is when the camera clears the cache, so it’s worth checking cache size too. You may find unless you plan on holding the shutter release down for ten seconds at a time it won’t matter.

A sensor cleaning kit is worth getting at some point. I use an Arctic Butterfly which works very well.

Holster style bags are good for walking/bike use. Either on a belt or chest harness.

And lenses. At least 10 😉

Just picked up an old miranda 70-210mm lens on ebay for £10!

pretty basic, f4.5-5.6 and manual focus, but should do nicely for practising on for now. Plus I won’t be bothered when I inevitably drop it!

Don’t expect too much from that old zoom straight out of the camera.

But… if you sharpen the pictures heavily and apply a contrast curve in Elements (or whatever) you should find you can get some good results for web-size images (or small prints).

SD card- 16G is (round here) the current sweet spot in terms of storage per money. I use the cheapest SanDisk ones as I dont have a big need for very rapid shooting.

Mini-tripod – I have carried mine across the globe, and never used it once. I have, however, used my ****-off big tripod lots of times.

Filters – polarising: yes, UV: no (but opinions differ)

Lens hood – absolutely, but didn’t you get one with the lens?

Bags – photographers are all big girls when it comes to bags. After a year or so you will have a cupboard full of bags and not one of them is EXACTLY what you want. Live with it 🙁

Cleaning kit – rocket blower is essential, sensor cleaning kit less so.

My 2 pence 🙂

You may find unless you plan on holding the shutter release down for ten seconds at a time it won’t matter

A fast card helps when flicking through images on the camera though too.

UV filter – many people use them for protecting the lens and leave them on all the time. This is debatable. However they are useful when used for what they are actually made for ie improving distant mountain skylines and so on.

However they are useful when used for what they are actually made for ie improving distant mountain skylines and so on.

Mmmm …. I am not convinced that this is the case for digital sensors, which, according to what I read, rather insensitive to UV.

However they are useful when used for what they are actually made for ie improving distant mountain skylines and so on.

That’s just for film isn’t it? I thought sensors didn’t pick up UV?

Oh.. well I did see some bloke showing pics with and without – I thought I was reading about digital cameras..

*toddles off to google*

Incidentally – I have noticed my polarising filter makes way less difference on my DSLR than it did on my SLR.

http://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/2262/are-digital-sensors-sensitive-to-uv

I read that too, but for practical purposes I don’t believe that UV is a problem with DSLR cameras. For example, if you WANT to record a UV picture, you have to go to a LOT of trouble, see http://www.naturfotograf.com/index2.html

Anyway – this is one of those discussions that runs and runs 🙂

In terms of ‘stuff you need’…

SD card – they are so cheap now that I would go for a nice, fast card. You don’t need to go for the real high end ones, but don’t get the cheapest ones either.
I prefer to have a few smaller capacity cards, than one massive one.

Camera bag – you need to try a few out and see what you like. I’ve got a LowePro Slingshot and it’s OK, but doesn’t hold as much as advertised and the back of it is quite squishy so you get quite bad ‘sweaty back’ syndrome with it.
Think Tank make some well made stuff & for the quality they are good value (compared to manufacturers like Kata).

Filters – I use a UV filter on both my lenses all the time as insurance against it getting whacked. I know that I might lose a bit of sharpness, but I wouldn’t be able to afford to replace one just because I’d pranged it into something. A scratched filter would be a lot less painful.
I also have a polariser (circular) and use it a fair amount.

Mini tripod – if you can get a really compact one cheap, then it might be worth having to just chuck in your bag and leave it. Before I got my Nikon D80, I had a mini tripod that was always in my bag with my DimageZ3 & it got used on several occasions when I wanted to get a night shot, but didn’t want the object I was resting the camera on to appear in the bottom of the frame.

Cleaning kit – my bag has a microfibre cloth sown into it that I use, but apart from that I don’t use anything. I keep meaning to get one of those Rocket Blower things, but never get round to it.

If you are shooting lots, it might be worth getting a 2nd battery. If you look on the Premier Ink Supplies website, they do Hahnel batteries that are a lot cheaper than the original ones, but work well.

SD card – can’t believe no-one’s said this yet, but priority one when buing any SD should be to get a good branded card from a reputable supplier. Sandisk are pretty much market leaders here, and other major electronics manufacturers (Toshiba, Samsung etc) are generally decent too. Avoid “too good to be true” prices on eBay, there’s a huge amount of counterfeit cards out there. It doesn’t matter how big or fast your card is if it’s blank at the end of your shoot.

I’ve got a LowePro Slingshot

I’ve aquired of these too. My biggest complaint with it is, as a sinister freak, it’s wrong-handed for me. Other than that I’m really liking it. It’s got enough space for the camera and a couple of spare lenses, a general purpose compartment which is big enough to accomodate a second body and smallish lens (my 450D fits in there which the kit lens attached) or an amount of assorted gubbins, and has mount points to attach more pouches and stuff. I think that, for me, if they just made a left-handed / reversable one, it’d be perfect.

Hijack – Cougar I have that bag today in a box ready to take to the post office.. 🙂

For a mini-tripod you can get a gorillapod SLR clone from Dealextreme – pretty much identical to the real thing. Will hold my 5D and 17-40L. Pretty good for a cheapo thing imo.