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I'm sure this will have made an appearance on the forums before, but I am terrible for buying photography stuff and then not using it, and I wondered if people had their own 'useless bit of kit'? Mine is software rather than physical kit, but I bought PhotoMatix to do some HDR work, used it about three times, produced truly dreadful results and now it sits blinking at me on my desktop, silently reprimanding me for wasting money. I don't even like most of the HDR pix on the site. What possessed me?
James, James, James... photomatix is a fabulous bit of digital jiggery pokery.. I urge you to give it another go. Please feel free to PM me if you want some help with it. I have a hunch that you are not tonemapping after you have blended (which is pretty horrendous).
Here's a challenge for you, go to my PF and PM me with the ones that you think are HDR. You may be very surprised.
As for useless bits of kit...so far I've kept it down to a blue grad screw in filter which cost 7 quid. The rest I do use. Oh no, I'm fibbing, I bought a gorilla pod which is an ornament on my camera bag...(but i Neeeeeded it).
Mand.
Quote: Oh no, I'm fibbing, I bought a gorilla pod which is an ornament on my camera bag.
You can use that as a stress toy...just get it out and bend it.
Not useless but just totally underused - 85mm Shift lens. I bought it with lots of ideas in mind but just haven't gone out to do those ideas yet.
Quote: it sits blinking at me on my desktop, silently reprimanding me for wasting money
Best place for it. 
My Depssi card - sunrise/sunset/DoF indicator. Never used... even once. Fortunately it cost less than £3.
There is much other stuff in my camera bag which, whilst I wouldn't say I have never used it, I do wonder whether it was cost-effective to buy it!
I have some filters that do not get used much, like a 0.9 ND Grad, but I would not say they are useless because if needed I have them !
Possibly my darkroom enlarger / lenses fall into the "useless" category as I cannot envisage me going back to printing again, one reason of course being that the paper I used has been discontinued !
Quote: Perhaps I could use those clay models under the wheels to get the car moving!
A couple of coconut mats might help!
On lenses - my Canon EF 75-300mm f4-5.6 III USM lens has only been used once - when I first tested it out. Was part of the kit bundle I bought.
Quote: A couple of coconut mats might help!
I've some old carpet lying around - might give that a try. 
Quote: Canon EF 75-300mm f4-5.6 III USM lens
Interestingly, one of my hardest photographic decisions I've had to make recently was to sell my 70-200L. An excellent lens but so rarely used that I couldn't stand it looking at me, accusingly, every time I opened the camera bag. 
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