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submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by sunspider@lemmy.world to c/photography@lemmy.world

I've decided to get into photography, and I just impulse bought my first camera, a Pentax Q10:

Yes that's Evangelion themed. No I don't want to talk about how much I paid.

I'm really excited for it to arrive. What kind of kit should I get to take care of it? I'm assuming some kind of carry case, but I've no idea if I need something specialised or generic. Have you got any other tips for taking care of it?

Many thanks!

EDIT: Thanks so much for everyone's advice! It sounds like I shouldn't get anything too prematurely, but there's also a lot stuff I should consider early on once I've got a feel for the camera.

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[-] tankplanker@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

A small camera bag, or at least a camera cube you can fit into an existing bag that you like, the idea is its as portable as possible so you take it with you as there is no substitute for shooting as much as you can. There is no such thing as the perfect camera bag, they are all a compromise one way or another and I would be surprised if you end up with just one if you end up with a lot of gear, I have five ranging from a handful of liters to 70 liters and I use them all regularly.

Filters, either dont bother with a wide range of them, or if you are going to commit then go one brand of fully magnetic and use step up rings so you can use the same filters on all your lenses. Magnetic is so much easier to use than screw on if you are swapping them all the time. Its also considerably cheaper if you can use the same filters on all your lenses. It is however a big investment, I have a lot of lenses so thats a lot of step up rings and caps I had to buy, but then I have about 18 filters so its a fraction of what I spent on those as I can use that on any lens I own, even the lenses for my film camera.

As you can probably tell I like using filters, mostly as I prefer to get it right in camera, but you can fix/change most things in post if you shoot raw or use exposure bracketing. Main exception is a good polarizer, thats best as a filter, as is a ND for (very) long exposures.

Dont forget to get some editing software, open source like dark table or raw therapee are very good, but they simply do not have the tutorial saturation of lightroom, tutorials are very useful when starting out. Personally I prefer DXO Photolab, its in the middle for tutorials but its noise reduction when shooting high ISO is insane. The latest depth masking is also pretty bonkers when you want to adjust an image level by level. Make sure to use the free trials to find the one you like. Shoot in JPG if you prefer, its a lot quicker, but you missing a lot of options by not editing in raw.

Only essential things, are plenty of batteries and memory cards, you want more than you need to get through a days shooting.

this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2026
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