5 Upgrades You Can Make To Your Photo Gear That Will Make Your Life Better

5 Upgrades You Can Make To Your Photo Gear That Will Make Your Life Better

I can see it in your eyes! Excitement is brewing for some sort of fancy new lens or the latest camera body that breaks all the megapixel records. I know because I do the same thing! Surprisingly, though, in my experience it isn't the latest, fancy, glass that truly improves my photography, rather, I've found that making the right small upgrades tend to have a much more profound impact as they make the act of doing photography so much less of a hassle. Which, in turn, frees more of my focus to attend to the images I'm creating rather than fighting with gear which is refusing to perform.

1. Use Good Batteries

Good batteries changed my life. I had always hated working with speedlights because they always seemed to be problematic when in use. It didn't matter if I was using name brand or third party I experienced an endless flow of problems such as lights recharging slowly, randomly turning off, etc. I thought I was using good batteries. I spent the extra money on the upgraded name brand Duracell or Energizer batteries as Costco, I figured my problems were just a symptom of small lights being asked to work too hard. As a result, I used large strobes most of the time unless I absolutely needed portability. That is, until I gave high quality rechargeable batteries a try. Personally, I tried Eneloop Pro, however, I expect virtually any high quality battery would reproduce my experience. All of a sudden all my speedlights stopped having problems. I was amazed, I went from hating my speedlights to preferring them. I almost never use full size strobes anymore. High quality batteries changed everything for me.

2. Magnify Your Viewfinder

I've always had very poor vision, and as a result, always struggled to manual focus, even when looking through big full frame viewfinders. The problem is that I simply am not able to perceive when a sharp image actually is sharp by looking through a lens. Even after diopter calibration and a trip to the optometrist to make sure that my glasses were precise to my prescription I struggled with manual focus to the point that it was effectively unusable. The only thing that has helped was when I invested in an upgraded, magnifying, eye piece for my D800. I love it. No, it didn't make my manual focus problems completely go away but now I can actually manual focus with a hope of actually succeeding. I also love the shape of the larger eyepiece as it fits more comfortably against the eye.

3. Arm Yourself With A LCD Hood

Bright sun is the bane of LCD displays. While shooting in bright conditions the photo on the back of your camera becomes almost invisible which makes reviewing your images incredibly difficult while shooting. The addition of a simple LCD hood hanging around your neck completely solves this problem at a very reasonable cost.  Most of the good ones also conveniently magnify the image as well to make evaluation much easier, even when you don't need the hood to block sunlight.

4. Get A Mini Boom For Your C-Stand

C-Stands often come with an extension arm that we tend to use as a boom when we need to extend the light away from the stand. The problem with extension arms is that they are quite weak and have a tendency to rotate within the grip making a photographer's life extremely difficult when trying to boom a large, heavy, modifier regardless of how well the extension arm is counter-weighted. The Mini Boom solves this problem, it is designed to replace the default C-Stand extension arm with a much stronger, much sturdier, arm that has longer range and is more easily counter weighted. By upgrading your C-Stand to have a mini boom you will eliminate many of your grip headaches that extension arms create. 

5. Get A Wireless Commander For Your Lights

Il admit it, a wireless commander capable of controlling the power levels of your lights, from your camera, is pretty lazy. It allows you to adjust without needing to upgrade to voice activated lightstands (assistants) or fight with line of sight transmission that is built into speedlights. More importantly, though, a wireless commander allows you to make subtle adjustments to your light power without needing to disrupt the flow of the shoot, which, in my opinion makes these devices priceless. Personally, I use a Yungnuo YN-622C which works perfectly for my use.

Conclusion

Sometimes the smallest upgrades can have the biggest impact on your life. I'd argue that each of the above has had a greater positive impact on my photography than any expensive lens or camera body ever could. When considering investing in your photography your first instinct will be that new, fancy, lens on the market but, in reality, it is the little things that often have the most tremendous impact (Even if they aren't as exciting).

Ryan Cooper's picture

Ryan is an mildly maniacal portrait/cosplay photographer from glorious Vancouver, Canada.

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32 Comments

Is there a Magnifying Eyepiece for Canon (6D). Can't find any..

I also have a 6D....let me know if you find one.

theyre everywhere you can buy camera accessories
http://www.dx.com/p/1-08x-1-58x-eyecup-magnifying-eyepiece-viewfinder-se...

great thx! didn't find one in my favourite (EU) stores. This one on eBay seems really good: http://www.ebay.com/itm/SMDV-E-02-1-35x-Magnifying-Eyepiece-Eyecup-for-C...

or this one: http://www.ebay.nl/itm/1-08x-1-60x-Zoom-Viewfinder-Eyepiece-Magnifier-4-...

All good stuff advice....and nice coming from someone who's shooting all the time vs. a salesperson.

If you use canon and primarily fast prime lenses. The eg-s precision matte focusing screen is a must. Ive always had one installed but tried a friends 5d3 without one a few months ago. Horrible experience.

Agree it's the one thing I really miss moving from the 5D II to the III.

From Amazon reviews I've heard that it works in the Mark III as well. I just have a 6D and can't live without the EG-S anymore.

It's 'compatible' but requires you voiding your warranty to do so.

Well, it's easily reversible: https://vimeo.com/83843427

Also, there are actually plenty of reasons why you might want the "standard" ENELOOP batteries. In fact, they have a decent comparison that shows you all the benefits of each battery. And unless you're shooting flashes specifically, you're probably better off without the Pros, since you can recharge the standard ones more times than the Pro version. Just FYI for those looking (and yes, ENELOOPs are pretty much the best around...slightly different voltage than most AAs, but just about every electronic gadget is just fine with that in this case).

some versions of the Amazon basics rechargeable batteries are known to be rebranded Eneloops at a significant discount.

You know, I was actually wondering about that and totally forgot to look into it. Of course, it would be silly if just "some" were eneloops and some were not. How confusing if so. But still...interesting idea.

There are like 3 different varieties of the Amazon Basics AA rechargeables. I have 2000mAh (gloss black with green stripe) and 2400mAh (flat black with no stripe). The 2400mAh variety is very, very good.

FWIW:
2000mAh made in China
2400mAh made in Japan

Let's face it in real world, pro or black eneloops can be recharged at least 500 times and white ~1500 if i remmeber good. 500 times it's more than enough if you will recharge every day in one year! If you will recharge twice a week for example, it will work at least for a 5 years :) do you really recharge so often? They often will get too old just and you won't use all that 500 times :)

Going from dumb radio triggers to ones that let me remotely adjust the output of my off-camera flashes made my life as an event photographer much easier. No more running up three flights of stairs to adjust the power on a flash in a balcony!
Also, using speedlights that have internal (swappable) li-ion batteries gave me fast recycle and all-night power with no external batt packs hanging and clanging on stands, and no more recharging 24 AA batteries at a time. Yay!

Investing in speedlights that use Li-On batteries is a better "upgrade" than using rechargeable AA's. They not only last longer per charge, but keep full speed recycle times all the way to the end. AA-based units slow down to a crawl way too quickly.

could you please tell some brand or type of these Li-On speedlights? thx

I'm using Godox V850 manual speedlights for off-camera flash to light rooms and podiums at events. The swappable internal li-ion batteries are good for 650 full-power pops, and the V850s recycle in 1.5 seconds at full power. I've never killed a battery during a full day of shooting. These flashes are sold in the US by B&H, Adorama and CheetahStand under their "Bolt", "Flashpoint" and "CheetahLight" brands.

thx! :-) I'm in Europe, so B&H doesn't play for me, ebay is okay, I can find the V850 there. the only problem, that I cannot put another speedlight on camera, if I use it's transreciever system.

That was true with the original V850 and FT-16 triggers, but the new X1 transmitter has a pass-through hotshoe on top, allowing you to mount a flash on top of it on the camera. The pass-through hotshoe is only compatible with Nikon, Canon and Sony, so far, so this doesn't help me with my MFT kit. My solution is to hold my "on-camera" flash in my left hand, set to auto and optical slave. This works well for the sort of situations where I typically use on-camera flash - dance floors, wedding receptions, and cocktail hours.

I use Canon. ok, I will look after it, thx for the info!

Also note that the new V850II offers HSS.

Like Jacques, I use the Godox re-branded Adorama Flashpoint manual speedlights. There are also versions with TTL capability for Canon, Nikon, and Sony if that's your thing. I just need manual lights. They also have their own radio system, although it's low frequency (433 MHz) but fairly comprehensive.

Another thing I like about this system is the chargers. They have a four segment LED array that shows 20, 50, 80 and 100% charge levels, so if you need to replace the battery in your flash, while having another battery charging that isn't fully charged yet, not only can you see how charged the battery is, but you can speculate how many flashes you might get from your partially charged battery. This is far more useful than looking at a charger that just lists "charging", or "fully charged".

Here's the available Adorama Li-On Speedlights and accessories line if you're interested:
http://www.adorama.com/searchsite/default.aspx?searchinfo=flashpoint+zoo...

thank you! this brand is only in the US I think, so like I wrote to Jacques, Godox V850 is the option for me from ebay. :-)

Ture. But Eneloops (especially the pro ones) supposedly hold that voltage much more consistently than standard AAs. That's the nice part.

If you've invested in AA-dependent speedlights, I'm sure it helps. But really, just scrap them and get Li-On units. You'll never look back.

I love my Li-On speedlights. So much better than dealing with AA batteries.

So true.
One smallest/greatest upgrade to my gear was $8 Double 5/8" Baby Pin. Heavy light modifiers would rotate entire light head around the boom. Now I use grip head with Baby pin to position light upright in every situation. Life changer.

You have to make it clear regarding the Yongnuo YN-622C/N that they'll need the YN-622 TX to have the ability to control the power of the flashes.

"voice activated lightstands (assistants)"

Brilliant haha

If you have a Nikon that uses rectangular eyeshades (D90, D300, D7000, etc) and want to use the pictured magnifying eyepiece (D17M), there's an adapter that comes as part of a round rubber eyecup that fits on your camera and has the right diameter/thread for the D17. Costs a whole $9.00 I don't know if the rubber part fits in the groove on the D17M. It does with the D17C...
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B016F01M0K/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s...