A Holiday Gift Guide For Photographers

I’ve compiled a holiday gift guide full of wonderful things that all the photographers in your lives will love. Some things that YOU might want to add to your own Christmas list! The best part is everything is under $100!

1. 50mm f 1.8 lens for Canon or the Nifty Fifty

If you own a Canon, get a 50 1.8 lens! This prime lens is a great investment for $100.

2. Eye-Fi Wireless Flash Memory Card.

This awesome card lets you upload JPEGS and RAW files right from your camera to your computer, smartphone, or tablet using wi-fi. You can even install watch folders in Photoshop and Lightroom to automatically import them into the programs and apply presets.

3. Wacom Intuos Tablet

Great for a first-time tablet user or as the to-go travel tablet, the Wacom Intuos small Creative Touch Tablet will help any photographer with their retouching game. 

4. Lexar Professional Workflow HR1 Hub

The Lexar Professional Workflow HR1 Hub is a modular four-bay reader hub designed to accept up to four optional dedicated card readers. This solution enables quick, USB 3.0-speed transferring of files from up to four memory cards simultaneously.

5. WD My Passport 1TB Portable External Hard Drive

Every photographer needs a place to back up their photos. This drive is sleek with a compact design, automatic backup software, password protection and hardware encryption.

6. Transit Backpack 350 AW

The slate grey Transit Backpack 350 AW from Lowepro is versatile travel bag made of weather-resistant 600D polyester. It can accommodate a DSLR with a 70-200mm f/2.8 or a 300mm f/2.8 lens attached, two additional lenses, a flash and accessories, including a compact tripod. There is also a dedicated compartment at the back of the backpack that will accommodate most 15" laptops.

DISCLAIMER: I was not compensated or gifted any products in exchange for including any of the above items on this list. All opinions are of course my own.

MOO.com - Product Review

I’ve been big fans of digital printing company MOO.COM for some time now. Not only does Moo have one of the easiest web addresses to remember (moo.com) they also have created an assortment of products useful to photographers.

Moo.com is a specialty printer for business cards, minicards, stickers, greeting cards, and postcards that allows customers to print a different photo on each item in an order. This extreme personalization makes Moo.com a unique solution to many photographer's short run photo product needs.

Moo.com certainly isn't the cheapest printing option for business cards but it is their quirky products that really catch a photographer's eye. The minicards are often affectionately called "minimoos" by customers and are the width of a standard business card but 1/2 the height. Photographers are using these cards for everything from give away bookmarks, to short run coupons, to gift tags, and dozens of other uses.

Each Moo product has a recommended size. For instance, the recommendation for business cards is 1039 x 697 pixels at 300DPI, but the minimum accepted is 332 x 223 pixels at 96DPI. The largest recommendation is for greeting cards, which should be uploaded at 1795 x 1287 pixels and 300DPI. They print in CMYK and colors can be proofed using the Coated GRACoL 2006 profile, for those wishing the best color rendition. sRGB and AdobeRGB will be converted automatically and Moo includes a Photo Enhancement feature which can be turned off if images are to be untouched.

Each shipment comes with the Moo Promise; a boilerplate pledge to make sure you love your order or they will do what needs to be done to fix it. I am always pleased with the outcome and im happy how well the color on the products matched what was on my screen (noting it helps to have a calibrated monitor). The stock of the paper is hefty and the business cards are slightly larger than standard, helping them stand out even more in a crowd of average nameplates. The color and clarity of detail on the business and greeting cards is of solid quality. 

These are cards I can hand out and confidently say, “This is my work” because the printing is to my standards. The biggest problem with them is, to be honest, parting with them. 

For more information on their pricing and printing options, go to Moo.com. The ship worldwide and accept major credit cards.

BorrowLenses.com - Product Review

If you are considering purchasing an expensive piece of photography equipment or just need a lens for a few days for a "special" shoot, BorrowLenses.com is a great alternative to spending thousands of dollars blindly. BorrowLenses.com carries an impressive array of Canon and Nikon cameras, lenses, and accessories for rent at reasonable prices.

BorrowLenses has become an essential resource for my photography business over the last couple of years. A great resource for pro photographers! They have awesome customer service and have a very active facebook, Google+ and Twitter page. Someone seems to be online at all times to answer any question you have regarding anything.


I recommend Borrow Lenses to anyone needing a special lens not in their camera bag already. The service and whole process of placing and confirming the order, pickup and return afterward is very easy, and a pleasure to do business with these folks. I give them five stars.

Smugmug.com - Product Review

I have been using the Smugmug Pro account for a little over 4 years now. Smugmug has become one of the fastest growing, most respected photo sharing sites online because of unparalelled quality, security and value. Unlike "free" sites, SmugMug has NO ads, pop-ups or SPAM and your visitors will never have to register to see their photos. Your photos look better at SmugMug!

You can read lots of reviews telling you all about the main highlights of Smugmug, and they really are excellent: unlimited uploads, using your own .com domain name, an excellent interface, lots of privacy, no ads, an excellent community for support, backup DVDs in case you need to recover your photos again later, adding your photos to Google Maps and keeping track of your travels, etc. There is some seriously cool stuff you can do.

The site is super customizable. They have excellent tutorials you can check out and learn how to change everything from colors, to backgrounds, to styles and themes. There are lots of precreated ones, or you can make one yourself. It’s more than just a photo gallery. Smugmug lets you turn your page into a full-fledged website, complete with contact information, info about you, a guestbook, and more. Maybe a great example of a portfolio at MpireMedia.SmugMug.com. Check it out and I think you will like it!

They have awesome customer service and have a very active facebook, Google+ and Twitter page. Someone seems to be online at all times to answer any question you have regarding anything.

For $149.99 a year (Even cheaper with iyICuyYrWye9g SmugMug Coupon), you have all the tools and infrastructure you need to start out!  I give them five stars.

Free Trial: Smugmug offers new customers a 14 day free trial with the link above. No codes are needed! Try their superior photo sharing and storage free for 14 days.

Using a coupon or promotion code
To use a Smugmug coupon, simply create an account and begin your free trial. As the end of the free trial period approaches, log into your account and go to the customization area, where you will see a link called "sold already." Click on that link and enter the coupon code in the "coupon code" field to apply discount. Or, when you are intitially signing up, just type it in the field as shown below: