Comments on: five photo gift ideas under $50

By: Links - Holiday Gift Guides for the Digital Photographer | User 40.0

Links - Holiday Gift Guides for the Digital Photographer | User 40.0 — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 21:59:59 +0000

[...] pro photo life - five photo gift ideas under $50 [...]

By: Link Roundup 11-29-2008

Link Roundup 11-29-2008 — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 06:59:51 +0000

[...] five photo gift ideas under $50 Pro Photo Life More stuff for the holiday shoppers — all of it under a very reasonable $50. [...]

By: JasonP

JasonP — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 17:47:49 +0000

The cleaning kit is one of the best investments I think. When I was looking to buy my first DSLR I saw many comments in blogs about NEVER touching the sensor, always send it off to the manufacturer. What a complete rip off. For the price of shipping to a service center you can have a cleaning kit that will do the same thing (and you can GUARANTEE it will be clean, something the service center won’t do) and you lose the ability to take photos for 10 minutes instead of days to weeks! A local shop in Boise quoted me $50 for ONLY the sensor, the focus screen and general camera cleaning was extra.

I will say though to spend the extra and get the Sensor Wand version. The swabs/pads are one-time use, and I would have been through the swabs in a couple months max. With the wand you just wrap it with a new Pec-Pad (from the $7/100 count pack) and clean as needed. It took over 2.5 years to use up the pads (I use them for lenses too) and the bottle of fluid is still half full.

By: Craig

Craig — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 17:51:03 +0000

Jim, you get an A+

Always considering your target audience so thoughtfully.

From “stick in a bucket” to “the $50 gift ideas”, I appreciate how you are a pro but never exclude those without a pro budget

Keep up the good work!
Craig

By: DIY Grey Card — DiyPhotoBits.com — A few bits and pieces about photography

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 05:15:22 +0000

[...] was checking out Profotolife’s list of cheapo photo gifts and one of the suggestions was a set of grey cards, and that reminded me I always wanted to do a [...]

By: Craig Lee

Craig Lee — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 04:32:35 +0000

Looks like it is time for the lightstand, clamp and umbrella. You link for the multiclamp has them plus a white umbrella with removable backing all together for about $65ish. Thanks for the links, Jim.

By: John Brainard

John Brainard — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 23:11:46 +0000

I’ve been preoccupied with my career lately, trying to update my skill set. One result of that is I managed to get a major computer upgrade which is a major benefit to my photography hobby. I went from an Athlon XP 2700+ w/ 1Gb RAM to a Core 2 Quad (2.33Ghz) and 4Gb RAM. It’s a very nice change.

With memory prices the way they are now, a 2 to 4Gb memory upgrade fits nicely in the $50 range.

I’ve thought about those kinds of gloves too. You can probably find them in your favorite hunting/shooting supply store.

By: Jim Talkington

Jim Talkington — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 22:49:42 +0000

Karsten, memory tells me you’re definitely right when it comes to polarizing unfinished metal / speculars / reflected light sources. They work more like a mirror but, I must say, I couldn’t have come up with your great technical reference. I should have said “painted” or “finished” metal surfaces and will make that update.

Looking at your lists I now understand why we had so much stuff when packing the studio. I really like wandering Big Lots and the other discount stores for clamps, cords, tape and little stuff. I always spend a couple of bucks each trip.

Hey, John, it’s good to hear from you. I second your notion on warm outdoor clothing. It has me thinking about gloves with fingers that pull down for the shutter and dials.

And no, no cutbacks from Calumet. I just did a little comparison with Amazon since they pull together so many vendors (Calumet Photographic actually sells through Amazon, also). In the overall scheme of things it’s pretty tiny but I found the Holga for a couple of bucks less on Amazon and they had better stock on one of the other small items. Once you start digging around the massive Amazon.com catalog it’s hard to pull away!

By: John Brainard

John Brainard — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 21:01:07 +0000

Calumet cut back on their sponsorship, or don’t they stock those items? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a link to Amazon.com here before for products.

A few other things that could be useful… Memory cards, LED flashlight for the camera bag and gift certificates. I like to shoot outdoors a lot, so I’d welcome any kind of warm clothing for going out in the snow to shoot.

The light stand and clamp you have in your entry would be extremely useful as would any convertible umbrellas. I still haven’t bought a radio trigger for my flash yet. I’m still leaning toward the Skyports.

By: lee

lee — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 17:27:45 +0000

How about one of those awesome beanbag tripods that work anywhere? As an outdoors and street photographer, I would be lost without it. There is even one variety that fits over your car window…and I bet it is something that would be a pleasant surprise.