New Camera accessories useful?

[Kriekira]

About to purchase a camera (Panasonic FZ35).
Are any of the following highly recommended?

UV filter (20 USD)
IR filter
Polarizing filter
Extra battery (4-hr) (50 USD)

Also memory card Q's:
What's best and fastest? (Don't expect to take video often.)
Abe's of Maine reported that the Sandisk Extreme III cards would not work well with the FZ-35. Recommended Transcend instead, said to be the same speed/throughput.
Sandisk Extreme III 4G (20 USD after 10 USD mfr rebate)
Transcend 4G high-speed (35 USD)
Sandisk 4G, not high-speed (14 USD)

Thanks!

[mtclimber]

kriekira-

I always use a UV filter to protect the camera's lens. Personally I would rather have two 2gb chips than a single 4gb chip. It is sort of insurance against chip or card failure.

I have never had a Sandisk chip fail, but I have had two Transcend chips fail. They were replaced under warranty, but they can fail at a crucial point in taking photos.

Have a great day.

Sarah Joyce

[Kriekira]

Hi Sarah,

Thanks for the good suggestion.

Is there any speed gain in burst or continuous mode (still shots, not video) with high-speed cards? (High-speed cards seem to be c. 2x as costly.)

[TCav]

It depends on what you shoot and how you shoot, but I would never not have a spare battery. For my old camera I had one battery in the camera plus two spares in two chargers. If I was going out to do a lot of shooting, or was going to be gone for a few days, I always had three fully charged batteries to take with me. I just bought a new camera and haven't caught up to that yet, but I will.

UV filters are ok to protect the lens, and can reduce haze and even purple fringing. IR filters are rarely useful. Polarizing filters can reduce glare, but also reduce the amount of light, so aren't very useful on a dim lens except when used in direct sunlight.

Spare flash memory cards are always a good idea, and fast cards not only mean faster continuous shooting, but faster uploading of photos and videos to your computer as well.