5 ABSOLUTELY MUST HAVE FILMMAKING ACCESSORIES YOU (WILL) NEED
In our popular blog post, 6 Essential Must Have Equipment For The Independent Filmmaker, we highlighted equipment that you should absolutely have before you get started with your film project. The following, 5 Absolutely Must Have Filmmaking Accessories You (Will) Need, won’t keep you from getting started or making your film project. However, there will come a time when you’ll absolutely want to have them, or at the least, wish you had them.
Without further ado, let’s get into what they are.
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1) Camera slider: A camera slider allows you to mount your camera to either a tripod or even to specified light stands. What a slider does is it allows you to shoot smooth and unobtrusive “tracking shots.” A slider will give you the ability to technically execute shots that otherwise are pretty impossible without one.
Perhaps the bigger question is figuring out when to use it to convey meaning in your shot and not gratuitously. But if your question is how and where to get one, check out the affordable and highly reviewed Zecti Slider on Amazon.
2) Prime lens: Most likely your DSLR camera came bundled with a zoom lens. The zoom lens works perfect because it allows you to quickly adjust your focal length, thus your angle view. However, it has limitations. It does not provide the shallow depth of file that you may desire to get in a particular shot.
The lens that does provide that shallow depth of field is a prime lens. Prime lenses only have one focal length. You can’t zoom in and out on them. The beautiful shots with the shallow/blurred background can be obtained with prime lenses because they provide wider aperture settings.
Filmmakers generally desire a lens that provides shallow depth of field to highlight and/or make their subject stand out from their surroundings, among other reasons. The more popular ones are 35mm, 50mm 85mm prime lenses. Review and purchase them according to your needs.
3) Follow Focus: A follow focus is a focus devise used to manually control focus during a shot. You can purchase a follow focus device and incorporate it with your camera. The follow focus is then used by rotating the focus ring on the lens to “pull” the desired focus. This works best as your camera’s auto focus capabilities are limited because its focus mechanism is not smooth to be adjusted while the camera is filming.
And for example, when using a prime lens to film a moving subject a follow focus becomes indispensable. That is because of its wider aperture your subject can quickly be thrown out of focus even with a slight movement.
4) UV protection filter: Whatever size lens you have, whether it’s a zoom, a prime or telephoto lens, you need a UV protective filter for it. A lens is a high cost investment to not be protected with a minuscule cost UV protection filter. The size of you protective lens filter is dependent on the size of your lens itself. Do a Google search for a clear, UV or skylight filter followed by your DSLR lens size.
A UV filter will not effect your image quality, at all! It will only serve to protect you lens incase of mishaps.
5) External camera monitor: There are variations of camera monitors and depending on the bells and whistles that come with them, their prices will vary. However, our primary reason for recommending an external camera monitor is due to the small size LCD screens on DSLR’s.
With an external camera monitor you’ll be able to monitor better what images your camera is capturing. That small intrusive object in the background of your shot will be more visible on a bigger monitors than on your small DSLR’s LCD screen. It could save you countless time in post production attempting to remove it.
DISCLAIMER & CONCLUSION
Some of the recommend accessories here are universal for DSLR’s, though most of the recommended target Canon and Nikon DSLR’s. However, before purchasing check that the recommended are compatible with your DSLR. Also, make your purchased confidently by reading some of the reviews and answered questions by current owners. These are usually located at the bottom of the product’s page.
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