What your new digital camera doesn’t have in the box

Memory Card

While most cameras do include some type of starter card or  internal memory this usually only gets you a few dozen pictures. So before you leave the store go ahead and pick up a decent sized card. A 2-4GB card will work fine for picture only shooting and a 4GB or more card will serve you well if you’ll also be taking video clips on your camera. Cards are cheap, much cheaper in fact than film. Remember you’ll use a $20 card for the life of camera so do yourself a favor and pick one up.

Extra Battery

Do not leave yourself hanging with a dead camera because your battery’s used up. An extra battery may seem like an expensive add-on but I’m willing to bet that price pales in comparison to what you’d pay to recapture a missed memory. An extra battery will run you around $25-$50 dollars.

Camera Case

Believe it or not you will find no camera case in the box. You may find a protective sleeve but that’s about it. Cameras do not like sliding around in your glove compartment or fighting off purse clutter. Do your Camera a solid and get it a case. It should go with out saying, but a case will keep your extra battery, memory card and camera cable in a safe place as well.

Memory card reader

Yes, Cameras do include a some type of USB cable in the box and yes, most computers now do come with memory card readers built-in but hear me out…What if you lose your camera cable? What if your computer does not have a memory card reader? Memory card readers do a couple of things you may like. For one thing, a card reader is relatively cheap at around $10-$20 bucks. Not to mention they’re available just about anywhere you can buy cameras, making them a quick fix if you misplace your proprietary camera cable. This is the case for Point and Shoot Cameras like Panasonic, Olympus, Sony, Nikon and Samsung. Also, if your computer is for whatever reason not recognizing your camera, most all computers will recognize the card reader. To a computer they look like a thumb drive. Making it very easy to add or remove pictures from your card.