18 Gift Ideas for Photographers for All Budgets

The holiday season is not far off, and photographers may be thinking about what they want as a gift. Here are some gift ideas for photographers of all levels of experience and budgets.

If your loved ones are organized, then they are probably already thinking about what gift to buy you. Their budget will determine what they choose. Therefore, here are some practical gifts that many photographers would appreciate. Tell them to keep a close eye on special offers in the run-up to the holiday season, especially on Black Friday, 28th November.

Like all electronic and plastic equipment, cameras collect dust. Therefore, a cleaning kit can be an invaluable gift for a photographer. With specialist tools for cleaning lens glass, camera bodies, and even sensors, a cleaning kit is an affordable gift that will be genuinely appreciated.

The straps that come with cameras are okay, but not great. Fortunately, there are better options out there that perform more effectively.

The Peak Design Slide, Slide Lite, and Leash securely attach to the camera but can be easily removed. Removing a strap is essential because, in strong winds, if the camera is tripod-mounted, the strap will flap about, causing vibrations and even appearing in the shot. Furthermore, unlike standard straps, adjusting their length is quick and easy, allowing you to carry the camera around your neck, over your shoulder, or across your body.

The Anchors that attach to the camera or lens are buttons, each about the size of a flattened M&M. They feature an extremely strong, two-layer, anti-abrasion, woven thermoplastic cord that connects to the camera. The underlayers are coloured yellow and then red to indicate whether they are worn or damaged. The anchors fit into a glass-reinforced nylon holder with carbon steel springs. The larger straps are double-sided, with one side grippy to prevent unwanted movement.

The Peak Design Slide is designed for larger camera and lens combinations. The Slide Light will suit mid-sized cameras, whereas the leash is perfect for more compact bodies.

Vintage lenses can be easily adapted to most cameras. They have a completely different feel compared to contemporary digital lenses. The lenses can be bought for a song, and they open up a host of creative opportunities.

Fortunately, it is possible to get adapters for the old mounts that fit most mirrorless and some DSLR cameras. It takes a little bit of research to find which adapters are available for your camera mount, and I suggest looking at those options first. Different manufacturers make these adaptors, which are available on online marketplaces. You get what you pay for, and the cheap versions can sit loosely on the bayonet mount. It’s worth spending a little more for the build quality, and the Urth models are outstandingly good.

It wasn’t that long ago when there was only one microphone brand that videographers, vloggers, and podcasters considered. Times have changed. Now, many high-quality microphones are available at affordable prices, making high-quality sound recordings more accessible. A few brands are producing high-quality, relatively inexpensive models.

For example, whether mounted on the boom arm or used with a desk stand, it is perfect for delivering online training and for meetings. It records crisp, clear sound, which can be adjusted via the mic and an app.

Transferring data from a memory card to a computer can be a slow and laborious task. The Pro Grade boasts fast transfer speeds up to 1.25 GB/s. It reads SD cards. (Including UHS-II), CFExpress and Type B. Its solid body is robust and is small enough to fit in a pocket.

Most photographers want to back up their photos to the cloud these days. However, there is still a place for portable external hard drives. Increasingly, people are using small but powerful laptops and storing their photos externally because the internal drives are too small to hold their raw files.

One that I have found very effective is the TEAMGROUP T-Create P31 External SSD. It is small, robust, shock-resistant, and waterproof to IP67. Being mainly designed for cinematic use, it has 1/4-inch screw holes, meaning it can be fitted to a cage. Plus, it has a 2 GB/s data backup speed via its USB-C 3.2 Gen 2×2 interface connection. That means its lightning-fast read/write speed is capable of recording 8K video. The 2TB version costs just over $200, and the 4TB version is available at B&H for around $400.

For those with high-end cameras, memory cards are not cheap. SDXC and CFexpress cards sell for seemingly ridiculous prices, considering they are plastic wafers with a chip inside. research.

I’ve been using Exascend intensively in extreme conditions for a couple of years, and they have not let me down. You may pay a little more than you will for some other brands, but the quality and longevity of their products are excellent. OWC, ProGrade Digital, and Lexar are also great choices that have been vetted by the PetaPixel team.

An ND1000, or 10-stop, filter reduces the amount of light passing through a lens to 1/1000 of its original brightness, allowing you to take long exposures. So, if your initial exposure was 1/1000th of a second, after fitting the filter, it would be one second. Starting at 1/15th of a second, you will achieve an exposure of approximately 67 seconds.

Again, I’m going to recommend Urth. Their Plus + magnetic filters click into place and deliver excellent image quality thanks to Schott glass. Although the filters are available singly, you can also buy them as part of a kit, which is a better value. The price varies depending on the lens size.

The market is flooded with power banks, and increasingly, cameras can be powered by external supplies. The Neewer PS099E is a V-mount battery that, via a V-mount bracket, can attach to a tripod and power a camera, lights, powered microphones, and so forth, via a range of different terminal types, including USB-S and D Tap.It currently retails at just under $120.

A good quality flash makes all the difference in photography. With a powerful 76 Watts and a wide range of accessories available, the Godox V1 Pro is an excellent choice for serious photographers who need to use flash. Be sure to choose the right version for the camera’s brand.

The Godox V1 Pro flash retails at around $330.

Although designed for video, this powerful LED Light that generates up to 29,000 lux works for photography too. It has RGB as well as white balance settings, making it a versatile light for a small studio setting. The NEEWER FS300C LED Mono Video Light sells at around $320.

ON1 is an all-in-one application that combines a catalog, raw development, and non-destructive image editing with AI masks all in one place. It’s more cost-effective than the Adobe Photographer’s Plan, gives fabulous results, and is available as a perpetual licence or as a subscription. There are several options for buying this software.

For the ultimate in image quality, DxO Photolab is a digital asset management and raw processing software that takes image development to a whole new level. The Deep Prime XD noise reduction is second to none, allowing 3 extra stops of ISO without significant quality loss, and its massive database of camera and lens profiles offers superior optical corrections. A range of plugins is available from DxO, including the excellent Nik software.

Most areas have professional photographers who run workshops for photographers of different levels of experience. You can also book yourself on photographic experiences around the world. One such provider is Finnature, which runs fabulous wildlife photography expeditions around the globe.

The Benro Tortoise is a column-less, carbon-fibre tripod. It’s light but robust and designed for stability. It comes in various sizes. It’s commonly supplied with a dual panoramic ball head. That allows the camera to be rotated above the ball. Consequently, even if the tripod is set unevenly, the camera can be rotated, and the horizon will remain level. The tripod is available in a range of sizes.

Do you ever look at your photos in print? If so, are the colors off? Is the image too dark or bright on your phone compared to your computer? Do you use two screens, and does everything look different on one than on the other? Although you can’t do much about how others see your photos on their devices, you can ensure your own are correct and that your prints match what you see on your screen. The Datacolor Spyder is an excellent way of ensuring your screen is calibrated and your photos look the way you intend. The basic model is $119, but for more sophisticated setups, there are higher-end models.

Photographers wanting to get their exposure correct can find a gray card incredibly useful. Taking a test shot of the card can help set the exposure correctly. It is also useful for checking the white balance. Priced around $12, you can find one that easily fits in a pocket.

For those doing precise selections and edits on photos, a pen tablet can be a real boon. Besides working with operating systems later than Windows 7 and macOS 10.12, different versions of the Huion drawing tablet will also work with Android phones and tablets (USB3.1 DP 1.2) and/or Linux. With 16.7 million colors – a gamut of 120% of sRGB – on its full HD display and a pen having 8192 pressure levels, it and its larger-sized siblings are a boon for photographers.