These seven photography accessories will make your life much easier

Each of us has our favorite set of photography accessories we can’t imagine our life without. In this video, Manny Ortiz shares with you seven of his absolutely favorite items. Not all of these are essential for photography, but they will make your life and work a lot easier.

1. A charging station

With a charging station, you can have all your batteries charging in one place. This will keep you better organized, and not to mention that you won’t don’t use all the sockets in the house to charge batteries. Manny uses this one and it costs $35.

2. Portable hard drive

A proper storage is a must if you take lots of photos and videos. Manny uses a 2TB USB-C portable drive from Lacie and even edits the images directly from it. This will keep your computer’s memory free and make it run better and faster.

3. Slide camera strap

Manny recommends Peak Design slide strap because it’s versatile and has a quick release to remove the strap from the camera, giving you more flexibility while shooting.

4. Wacom tablet

Manny admits it takes some time to get used to using a Wacom tablet after editing with a mouse for years. However, it’s easy to use and after a little time, you’ll get more precise and much faster than editing with a mouse. He recommends buying a small one for travel, and a medium one for editing at home.

5. Good backpack

There’s no universal solution when it comes to choosing the best camera bag. You gotta work out what works best for you (and here are some ideas here and here). But as for Manny, he uses a Think Thank Urban Approach 15 and Everyday Backpack 30.

6. Good SD cards

If you invest money in your cameras and lenses, there’s no point in buying cheap cards. You need good memory cards, especially for shooting video. Manny uses Sony 64GB, which have a really fast writing speed.

7.Bluetooth speaker

Okay, this definitely isn’t photography related, but it can make a huge difference at a photo shoot. If you like photographing to music, this is something you gotta have with you. It makes the vibe of the shoot a lot better, and if you photograph people, it helps them relax. Manny uses JBL Flip 3: it fits in a camera bag and has a good bass.

So, these were Manny’s favorite photography accessories that help him be faster, better organized, and enjoy photo shoots more. I believe you should consider investing in some of these as well. Personally, I’d buy that charging station, a speaker, and a Wacom tablet is something I’ve been wanting for a while. And what are your favorite photography accessories?

[7 PHOTOGRAPHY ACCESSORIES I can’t live without! |Manny Ortiz]