Digital Photography: The Missing Manual

External Flashes and Other Attachments

Most digital camera owners don’t see the need for external flashes, filters, tripods, and other fancy attachments. But if you have a hardcore film photography background, you probably can’t imagine life without your beloved accessories. In general, digital cameras that look like full-size, traditional film cameras can accept all the traditional attachments. Most tiny, sliding-cover, subcompact pocket cameras can’t.

Filters and accessory lenses often mean fitting your camera with a tubular lens adapter (Figure 1-6). Usually the smaller the adapter and the finer the threads, the more patience you’ll need. Nothing is more frustrating than stripping the threads on your camera body because you couldn’t screw in the adapter ring properly.

Figure 1-6. Some digital cameras can accommodate accessory lenses and filters using an optional adapter. You can extend the power of this Olympus, for example, by adding telephoto, wide angle, and macro lenses.

Even if you’re not an accessory kind of person, check out your camera’s tripod mount—a small, threaded hole in the camera base. Nobody likes lugging around a tripod, but there are moments when it’s the only way to get a beautiful artistic shot, like streaking car lights across a bridge, or almost anything at night. Many of the professional techniques in the next two chapters require a tripod. (And if you ...