The Best Accessories for Wildlife Photography

When we head out into the great outdoors, there’s nothing more we need than our camera and lens. So long as you have a charged battery and an empty memory card, there’s little more you could ever need—that is, until that battery dies, it starts to rain, or a bird poops on your lens. How do we prepare for these inevitable conundrums? We bring the pertinent accessories, that’s how.

Smaller accessories don’t make or break a shoot, but they can make your time in the field easier, safer, and free of headaches. In this guide, we’ve put together a list of accessories that have served many photographers well, including the author.

Binoculars

What good is a fancy camera and lens if we can’t find any wildlife? Obviously, there’s more to finding wildlife than just seeing it, but a trusty pair of binoculars can help you find and identify distant subjects, better preparing you for the shot. For wildlife, we’ll want a sturdy, full-sized pair of bins. Don’t panic: these aren’t gigantic and they don’t weigh a ton. Modern binoculars are quite lightweight and travel very well.

One of the most popular pairs for casual use is the Vortex Diamondback 8x42 HD. At 8x magnification, you’ll have plenty of reach to tell what exactly you’re looking at while having the field of view to easily locate it. It’s robust with a magnesium housing, and like many modern bins, the pair is waterproof and fog proof.

Rain Protection

If there’s one thing that will ruin any electronic device, it’s water. Camera manufacturers know this well, and have even gone as far as to design their gear to withstand it with splash and moisture resistance. Notice how the terminology specifically mentions splashes and not submersion. Prolonged exposure to heavy rain will infiltrate even the most advanced weather sealing system out there, so having an extra layer of protection is essential.

Some form of water protective coverage is necessary to keep your gear in tip top shape for the long haul. A simple drawstring rain sleeve like those offered by OP/TECH can go a long way in protecting your gear from rain, snow and even sand for those windy beach days. That said, ThinkTanks’ more durable Emergency Rain Covers use material akin to that on a rain jacket, providing more longevity.

Cleaning Supplies

When water or sand get past our first line of defense, a good cleaning kit can save the day. I also recommend keeping a brush of some sort in your kit for larger particles. This can be a makeup brush or an old paint brush. It’s good practice to give your gear a good cleaning after shooting in harsh conditions like near the beach, as salt and other debris can damage cameras and lenses over time.

Arca-Swiss Compatible Foot

When you buy a long lens, one of the first accessories you’ll likely consider is a tripod. These are essential tools covered in our top gear for wildlife photography guide, but what isn’t is the tripod plate. Sure, tripods come with small camera-ready plates, but these seldom work well with big, bulky super-telephoto lenses and their elongated tripod color feet.

The best course of action is to replace the foot entirely. These replacement collars are typically compatible with the universal Arca-Swiss mounting system. Being one solid piece, they don’t run the risk of loosening over time, which give the photographer some piece of mind when hiking around with their tripod mounted camera rig slung over their shoulder.

Manufacturers like Really Right Stuff, Wimberley, and Kirk Enterprises offer solid lens foot and collar replacements, as well as standard tripod plates in various lengths. These plates can be used, but only if the lenses stock foot has two threaded mounting positions. One can become loose very quickly, so two is a must.

Multi-Tool

All this talk of plates and replacement feet brings us to our next must have accessory, and that’s the multi-tool. We’re not talking about the traditional Leatherman here, rather, a small travel friendly multi-tool for the many plates, brackets, and other bits of gear we rely on in the field.

The SmallRig AAK2213D is one of the most versatile multi-tools for wildlife photographers, as it offers four of the most commonly used Allen key sizes alongside a flat head, Phillips head, and Torx T25 driver. While these other heads are less common, you never know when you’ll need to tighten a component on your tripod or some other device.

Alternative Support

Wildlife photographers may begrudgingly rely on tripods and monopods, but these support systems are often a hassle to lug around, nor are they conducive to every photographic situation. Handholding our gear is the obvious choice but try doing that for extended periods of time and in odd positions, such as when prone on the ground or in a car.

Car-window mounting systems like the Kirk WM-2 Multi-Purpose Window Mount do exist, but the set-up/take-down process can be time-consuming, and if we need to quickly remove our camera for a shot, that delay can cost us the image. The easiest alternative, and the most popular option for those on safari, is a beanbag. These can be placed over a roll cage, car windowsill, or railing to rest your camera or lens on. This is a situation we on the east coast of the U.S. are all too familiar with, whether we driving the 8-mile loop at Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge or looking for black bears in Cades Cove. 

Simply fill the bag and place it over your windowsill as needed, resting your long lens on the bag for support. Need to hop out for a certain composition? Just lift the bag and toss it in the passenger seat, so long as you don’t have a passenger. Beanbags, like the LensCoat LensSack, are also great for travel, as they pack up small and can be filled once you arrive on location with sand, rice, seeds, poly pellets, clothing, and, as you may have guessed, beans.

Lens Wraps

Our cameras, lenses, and other photo tools are exactly that. They’re tools. As we use them, they see wear and tear. Similar to the beanbag, a lens wrap or skin can serve to protect your gear from scuffs and scratches. Additionally, it can preserve resale value of your gear, especially if you’re likely to trade up as soon as the next model comes out.

The original, and probably best known, comes from LensCoat. Their neoprene wraps have long been the go-to protective covers for long lenses, and they have quite the pattern selection from black to woodland and Realtree camo. Newer alternatives began popping up not too long ago, and now vinyl skins with even more patterns to choose from have grown in popularity. All serve the same basic function, though neoprene offers a bit more protection from dings and bumps.

Camouflage Shooting Blinds and Covers

Is camo gear really necessary for wildlife photography? Sometimes, though we can’t really test it in Central Park without the NYPD getting called. All kidding aside, camo can be useful for wildlife that is not accustomed to seeing people such as waterfowl. Not all of us are lucky enough to have pet like wood ducks in an urban park pond, so in many cases, we need to hide our presence.

Pop-up photo blinds are great, although they are bulky and not always easy to discretely set up without making a big ruckus. For that reason, a throw blind like the LensCoat LensHide may be a more practical option. These feature no real structure and are more like a blanket with a pull string opening for a lens, and a mesh window for you to look through.

Gloves

Beyond our photographic needs, there’s reason to invest in certain field accessories more common in hiking and hunting. If it’s cold, some good cold weather gloves that still allow you to access all of your camera’s many buttons and dials are a must. Luckily, there are plenty of gloves designed with photographers in mind, like Vallerret’s many offerings. These feature flappable fingertips on the pointer finger and thumb for all the reasons mentioned above.

For extremely cold outings, the PGYTECH Battery-Heated Master Photography Gloves are more than ideal. These battery-heated mittens ensure your hands stay comfortable while you wait for that decisive moment. Of course, shooting in mittens may not sound all that plausible, but that’s where PGYTECH’s fold-back finger caps come in handy. Each mitten essentially features a glove within, giving you added protection from the elements, as well as the freedom to move your fingers and adjust your settings when the cap is folded back.

First Aid

While we hope you don’t often need one, a good first aid kit with bandages, anti-bacterial ointments, and wound-cleaning supplies is a must. You never know how far down the trail you’ll be when you trip, fall, or scrape your knee. The ability to address a minor wound in the field not only keeps you safe and healthy, but lets you keep shooting until you’re good and ready.

Toiletries

As we endeavor into the great unknown, there’s a chance we’ll end up deep down some seldom driven logging road. As can be one’s luck, it’s often when driving down these desolate trails that nature calls. Unfortunately, there aren’t any pit stops, outhouses or porta-johns off the beaten path, so we need to take matters into our own hands. It’s always handy to keep a roll of TP in the car or bag, as well as a cathole shovel.  

Gear Up and Get Shooting

It’s very easy to get caught up in the gear instead of the photography itself, and to that we say work with what you’ve got. While many of the above accessories are great, they may suit a specific shooting situation that you may not find yourself in often. So long as you have a camera, lens, and the appropriate amount of batteries and memory cards for your needs, the rest can be added as needed.

Of course, having a rain sleeve can’t hurt, especially if you live in a particularly rainy part of the world, but a camouflage lens skin doesn’t automatically raise your street cred, or rather, your trail cred.

As you can see, there’s no shortage of valuable field accessories, and we’ve only scratched the surface. To learn more about bird and wildlife photography, from the basics to more advanced techniques, check out our other guides and articles on the B&H Explora page!