Everyone has that friend or relative who you never see without a camera. Here are some gift ideas for sure-fire ways into their photo-snapping hearts.
Lomography Smartphone Film Scanner
If your friend or relative was born before about 1987, there is a good chance he or she has shot film at one point. Lomography’s nifty 35mm negative scanner is perfect for quickly sharing those old photos online. It’s a bit tricky with colour film, but totally do-able, and simple with black and white!
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Sony RX100 Mark II
This is THE point and shoot—for newbies and seasoned pros alike. Cameras nerds will be astounded by the great quality in something they can carry around, while beginners will be astounded by the great quality they can’t get with their smartphone.
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Squarespace Subscription
Everybody wants to show off their work, and Squarespace is a great, well-designed way to do so. A subscription will hook somebody up with a customizable website for uploading their photos. The site design templates are really gorgeous, and feature buil-in tools for blogging and great mobile integration.
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VSCO Film Pack for Adobe Lightroom
Color grading has become a huge part of digital photography. VSCO makes wonderful packs of Lightroom presets that apply various film-like styles to your pictures. This is perfect for heavy Instagrammers who want more control and subtlety in their adjustment adventures. You’ll have to choose from 4 different packs, but each of them is great!
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Wacom Intuos Pen and Touch
Photoshop fiends will rejoice at the addition of a stylus into their workflow. This small handy one will make dodging and burning way more enjoyable than fumbling around with a mouse.
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Sony A7/A7r
Not gonna lie, this would be a one humdinger of a gift for any living human. It’s basically the talk of the photo town right now—a full-frame mirrorless camera with outstanding image quality and a compact first-rate body. The A7 is 24 megapixels, and the A7r is a 36 megapixel beast. If your giftee has tons of vintage lenses, this is perfect for them.
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Lacie Rugged 1 TB Thunderbolt / USB 3.0 Hard Drive
Every photographer needs storage—lots of it. Lacie’s newest features the speediest interfaces—Apple’s Thunderbolt as well as USB 3.0, for insane file transfers. It’s great for stuffing in a backpack and heading out the door. 1 TB can hold, like, a bajillion photos, so it should be able to handle any load thrown at it.
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PocketWizard Plus X
For shooters who use a flash, the ability to take the flash off their camera and place it elsewhere is priceless. PocketWizard is a super popular transceiver system for allowing your camera to trigger the flash wirelessly. Just remember, you need to buy the set of 2—1 for the camera, 1 for the flash.
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LowePro Transit 250 AW Sling Bag
It can be hard to find a good camera bag that is functional and not UGLY. This Lowepro sling is both. It’s perfect for a small DSLR or mirrorless camera, suiting travelers or street shooters especially well.
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RODE VideoMic GO
I know, this is a video accessory, But video and photo practices are merging, and chances are, every photographer you know has had to shoot video at some point with their still camera. On-board microphones are usually sub-par, and this super simple shotgun mic will raise the quality of any footage by a mile.
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