Arca lens plates are really convenient for quickly and reliably connecting and disconnecting a large lens or camera to a tripod. While there are other effective/versitile lens/camera plates none are as universally accepted. Hence, Arca lens plates are the standard. I'll get more in to how these work in a separate article. What do you need? You need a lens/camera plate for each of your cameras and lenses and they cost between $50 and $100 dollars. These aren't cheap but they do the job. Actually, in my book they do the job better than any other product out there. Just one free-fall experience falling off your tripod will probably pay for the cost of all your lens plates. It's good insurance.

Synopsis - Tripod, tripod head, Arca style lens/camera plates...

So ends step 2.

Step 3 - Landscape or Wildlife photographer.

With steps 1 and 2 we've gotten the basics for any nature photographer. I'm guessing you're shooting landscapes and are wishing to expand your vision more intently into landscapes or you want to start thinking about wildlife photography. Either avenue means you have to get more equipment.

Let's look at building your equipment list for more versatile landscape photography. By far, the most important thing to get for any landscape photographer is a wide-angle lens. I'm talking something that's 24mm or wider for 35mm sized film. For you digital Nikon shooters out there that means an 18mm or wider lens. What you're getting to do with a lens like this is capturing more of a scene in a single shot, Getting more is a double edged sword because along with getting more of what you want, there's always the danger you're getting more of what you don't want. I personally like wide-angle zoom lenses. Nikon makes a great, low cost 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5 zoom lens for less than $500 dollars. I think it works wonderfully for most landscape applications. On the other end of the price scale you can get the 17-35mm f/2.8 lens for almost $1500 dollars new that's considerably more expensive and larger but is much faster. While speed is less of an issue for landscape photographers, speed can be incredibly useful when you need to stop motion in less than satisfactory lightening conditions. Of course, you can go wider but that starts entering the domain of speciality lenses that are extremely expensive and honestly fairly limited in their over-all utility when compared to a wide-angled zoom lens.

What else do you need at this stage? A series of good graduated split neutral density filters and a polarizer. Let's talk about the filter system. First, there's the most ubiquitous filter system in the photography world that's made by Cokin. While this system is especially comprehensive the optical quality is reputed to be less than perfect. I personally like the Cokin system because it's readily accepted by other manufactures as a standard allowing you to mix and match filters. Also with a simple lens adapter, you can connect the same filter holder to all lenses of various widths without batting an eye. It sound flexible because it is flexible. As for filters, let's look at split neutral density filters. As a minimum, every landscape photographer should have a hard and soft edge 2-stop neutral density filter. I can't get into why I recommend these over any others but let me just say they're a good middle of the road compromise useful on many, many different situations. The other filter you need is a polarizer. I'd pick one that fits the Cokin filter holder like the split neutral density filters do. Between these three filters you'll be able to deal with 98% of all high contrast lighting challenges out in the field.

How about the recommendation for the budding wildlife photographer? His first and foremost task is to get a long lens--a medium telephoto. It's the only way to get those frame filling shots. Now, I'm not going to recommend one of those super huge super telephotos--that'd be incredibly expensive for the serious but new photographer--but I am recommending something that'll be useful down the road. I suggest either a 300mm f/4 or 400mm f/5.6 lens. Either can get you moderately close while introducing your to the new and different world of long lens photography. I won't get into the why long lens photography is different here but let it be known it's a totally different animal requirement special techniques to really make sharp images. While these lenses aren't the fastest out there or even the cheapest, they're usually extremely sharp and will fill a niche for every wildlife nature photographer.

Do not be enticed by those 50 to 500mm f/6.3 or smaller zoom lenses that cost less and look like incredible deals. It's my experience there are no free lunches with long lens equipment. You get what you pay for meaning if you pay less you get less. In our case, that super long zoom--the 50-500mm f/6.3--won't be very sharp and will be disappointing. Likely, once you get serious with your images, you'll become entirely unsatisfied with the image quality of a lens like that. Stay with the best zooms available or prime long lenses. Usually your camera makers lenses are great. Go with a third party lens only after an extensive review and after consulting others with broad first hand experience. Give the most weight to those that make great images and specifically use the equipment you're interested in. These are the only sure ways keep you from wasting money on equipment that won't meet your standards in the long run.

Oh, don't forget to get a Arca style lens plate for that new long lens just like you did for your camera. If the tripod foot on your lens is removable there's the possibility a specially made, sturdier foot is available as a replacement. I recommend one of those as well.

One last thing, since you'll be shooting subjects further away from you with this new long lens, you're flash will be sorely tasked to illuminate things as well as it would if the subject was closer. Thankfully there's a solution. Since the long lens field of view is so much smaller than what a flash is designed to support there are tools available like a Better Beamer frensel lens that magnifies/concentrates the flash energy into a tighter beam of light. This significantly improves the effective power of your flash without over extending the power of your batteries.

Landscape photographers synopsis - Wide-angle lens, 2 stop hard and soft edged neutral density filters, polarizer filter, Cokin filter holder...

Wildlife photographers synopsis - Medium telephoto lens, Arca style lens plate, Better Beamer...

So ends step 3.