These items aren't essential, must-have products, but they can definitely make life easier for most photographers, especially those who spend a lot of time behind the lens.

These simple devices — lightproof bags with enough room for your camera and hands — let you open your camera in broad daylight. They can save the day when your film jams or the leader breaks and there's no dark place for you to safely open your camera and see what's going on. They can be one of the handiest things to have around, so buy one before you need it. Many photography stores have changing bags on hand to help photographers in this situation.

Photographers who wear glasses have some special challenges to overcome when taking pictures. If they want to wear their glasses while focusing, they often can't get close enough to the viewfinder to see all four sides of the frame at once. One way to get around this is to use a tripod, which will let you move your head up, down, and sideways in order to see all four edges of the frame.

Some cameras are friendlier than others to wearers of glasses. If you're farsighted, you can find SLR models with built-in, adjustable diopters that will let you see through the viewfinder without your specs. Other camera manufacturers make separate eyepieces with various corrections that can fit into your camera's existing eyepiece.

These handy devices are a photographer's secret weapon when it comes to dealing with tricky lighting situations. They're great for throwing light into shadows, diffusing light, or creating special lighting effects such as back-lighting. Some have special coatings that change the color of light. Portable reflectors are collapsible, making them easy and convenient to carry. There are also umbrella-style reflectors, which are more suited to studio work.

If you're going to invest in reflectors, buying a couple of light stands is a good idea. They can also hold additional lighting or backdrops. A lightstand bag, which should be big enough to hold your tripod and all the light stands you need when shooting on location, is also a good investment.

These devices are great for looking at the details in negatives and prints. All you do is put it directly onto the surface you want to look at. Light coming in from the transparent sides of the loupe illuminates the image when you're looking at prints. It's helpful to have a light box or table when viewing slides or negatives, but you can hold them up to a strong light in a pinch.

A loupe may not seem like an essential piece of equipment, but you'll be surprised at how much you'll use it if you buy one. Never again will you have to squint at a negative to figure out if it's really the one you want to print, and that alone makes it a worthwhile purchase.