Double Bubble Spirit Level (also known as a 2 axis spirit level)

Cost: Approx £5 on Ebay
Purpose: Ensuring your photographs are level

Ever got home thinking you had a wonderful shot, you couldn’t wait to fire up the computer to upload and see it on the big screen? It’s only then you realise that your horizon was off or all the verticals in an image are leaning one way. It’s not that much of a problem as most of the time you can rotate and crop to good effect. Of course cropping means you lose some of the photo and so have less resolution to play with if you are upsizing for printing for example. There have been occasions in my experience where the loss from rotation and cropping has seriously compromised my captured image.

Like a lot of things in photography it’s easier to get it right in camera rather than take post-capture measures. It’s all to easy to get a wonky horizon when you have the tripod low and you are kneeling down and looking trough the view finder with your head cocked to one side. The easy way to get around this is to fit a double bubble spirit level in the hot shoe slot of the camera. It’s then a very simple matter to compose through the viewfinder, look at the level, make some adjustments and then re-check the composition.

Don’t buy this item from the big camera stores. They often charge a small fortune for them – I have seen them for over £20. Get from Ebay and don’t forget to factor in the cost of shipping.

(Also available are 3 axis levels: these are great too…but 2 axes is all you really need)