ArticlesBuying Guides2012 Holiday Gift Guide

2012 Holiday Gift Guide

By Mike Perlman | Published Dec 1, 2012 | Buying Guides

Tagged with: adobe buying-guide buying-new-gear canon christmas creative-cloud creative-suite gift holiday interfit joby kata lightroom photography photoshop phottix skytop think-tank tiffen velbon western-digital x-rite

GoalZero Guide 10 Plus Adventure Kit

www.goalzero.com

The GoalZero Guide 10 Plus Adventure Kit is a USB Solar Charging station designed to keep your phone, tablet and flash batteries juiced throughout the day.

Sometimes outdoor shoots can last all day, but the average battery can't. Your smartphone, tablet and flash AAs will be hurting halfway into the day. The GoalZero 10 Plus Adventure kit is a green alternative to buying battery extenders and additional batteries.

The GoalZero Guide 10 Plus Adventure kit consists of the Nomad Solar Panel, a 17 x 9 x 0.1 inch (43 x 23 x 0.25 cm) (when unfolded) tri-fold portfolio equipped with two solar panels. The mono-crystalline solar panels are capable of producing 7 watts of power each. Devices can be plugged into the USB solar hub to charge them as you play in the sun and the panels can deliver enough juice to fully charge the included AA battery pack in 3-4 hours. This battery pack holds four rechargeable AA or AAA batteries - common in devices like flashes or wireless transmitters. 4x AA batteries are included with the kit.

A zippered pouch is available for storing cables and other small items, and the GoalZero 10 Plus kit also includes a built-in LED flashlight.

Key Features/Specifications

Recharge your batteries and peripheral devices using the sun
Small and compact enough to carry anywhere
Handy built-in LED flashlight to help you search in your dark backpack or purse
AA rechargeable batteries included

What we like - Juice throughout the day, courtesy of the sun

What we don't like - This isn't a fast-charger, and you'll need to find a suitable place to set the kit up for a few hours.

Adobe Creative Suite 6 / Photoshop Elements 11

www.adobe.com

Adobe's Creative Suite comprises a large number of programs from specialist web development and design tools to the latest versions of Photoshop and Lightroom.

If you're shopping for a photography student this holiday season, or someone who's new to digital imaging, the latest version of Photoshop Elements - Elements 11 - would make a great gift. Aimed at novice users, Elements isn't part of Adobe's Creative Suite and at $99 it's one of the most affordable programs of its kind, but packed with features nonetheless. Elements started out as a very limited, extremely cut-down piece of software, but it has since evolved into a powerful image manipulation and organizing platform, available for Windows and Mac.

Photoshop Lightroom 4 is aimed at enthusiasts and professionals that need to edit and organise large numbers of Raw images quickly (although you can also work on JPEGs and there's limited support for video editing, too). A powerful organization and editing tool, at its heart is the same raw demosaicing algorithm that powers Adobe's Camera Raw plugin in Photoshop. Compared to 'full strength' Photoshop though, Lightroom is intended to satisfy photographers who need to do a small number of things, but fast and frequently. At $149, it's great value. Click here to read our review.

Another option, if the photographer in your life is an imaging professional, is Adobe Creative Cloud. Creative Cloud is a membership program offered by Adobe that offers users instant downloads of any Adobe CS software as soon as they become available in any available language. Members also get access to the Creative Cloud website, which serves as a hub where you can explore, create, publish, and share your work. Online storage of 20GB will let you share and sync your pictures wherever you are in the world.

Existing CS customers qualify for Creative Cloud membership at a reduced price of up for $30 per month (for the first year), but if you or your loved one is new to the suite, you'll be looking at $50 per month, which works out at $600 per year. A serious chunk of change, but of course far less expensive than paying for the programs (and their eventual upgrades) separately.

What we like - Elements is great for beginners, Lightroom is quick, powerful and great value for enthusiasts, and Creative Cloud puts every CS program and future update in any language right at your fingertips (but at a cost).

What we don't like - We wish Elements worked a little more like Photoshop CS6 and Lightroom, to ease the transition for upgraders, and we wish there was a cheaper version of Creative Cloud covering only Adobe's more photo-centric programs (do you really need Flash Builder?)

Canon Pixma Pro-10 Printer

www.canon.com

The Canon Pixma Pro-10 inkjet printer uses 10 individual inks and prints 4800 DPI on up to 13" x 19" media.

Arguably, after camera and lenses, your next purchase should be a high quality printer to reproduce your digital photographs. There are plenty of printers out there, but the one we've selected here is the Canon Pixma Pro-10, a professional inkjet model that replaces the highly acclaimed Pixma Pro9500 Mark II.

The Pixma Pro-10 features Canon's newest Optimum Image Generating (OIG) System, which is found in the more expensive Pixma Pro-1. This system helps determine what ink combinations are best for the type of paper used, as well as the balancing of color reproduction, tonal gradations, and uniform glossiness. The Pixma Pro-10 uses 10 individual inks with three of them devoted to true monochrome prints.

Speed has also been enhanced on the new Pixma Pro-10, as the printer can churn out an 11 x 14 in (27.94 x 35.56cm) print in 5 minutes and 20 seconds, compared to the Pixma Pro9500's 7 minute and 55 second time. The Pixma Pro-10 can handle borderless prints on up to 13 x 19 inch (33.02 x 48.26cm) paper, prints at 4800 DPI and even supports WiFi and mobile device printing. It has high-speed USB and is PictBridge and AirPrint compatible.

If $700 is too much, Canon also makes the excellent Pixma Pro-100, which features dye-based inks at a lower pricepoint of around $500. Also consider Epson's Stylus Photo R2880, which like the Pixma Pro-10 features three monochrome inks and gives excellent results for a street price of around $550.

Key Features/Specifications

Print on media up to 13 x 19in (33.02 x 48.26cm)
Maximum 4800 DPI
10 individual 'Lucia' ink cartridges, including three monochrome inks
Built-in WiFi

What we like - Faster than predecessors, WiFi enabled, equipped with latest OIG system

What we don't like - Pricey (but you get what you pay for) and high running cost - 10 individual ink cartridges can get very expensive over time...

WD MyBook Studio USB 3.0 1/2/3/4TB Hard Drive

www.westerndigital.com

The Western Digital My Book Studio USB 3.0 external hard drive offers up to three times faster connectivity than its USB 2.0 predecessor.

RAW and HD video files are large and can eat up your computer's native hard drive storage capacity before you know it. An external hard drive is an essential tool for any avid digital photographer. The great thing about shopping for external hard drives is that units are getting faster all the time, and offering more and more storage for less and less cost. I remember dropping $300 on a 300GB hard drive back in 2002 that I had to assemble and configure myself...

The Western Digital MyBook Studio USB 3 external hard drive family is a prime example of the progress in consumer-level storage technology. For $190, you can pick up the 2TB MyBook Studio with a new high-speed USB 3.0 interface. For many of us, that's enough capacity for a years' shooting at least. Western Digital also offers the MyBook Studio USB 3.0 in 3TB and 4TB iterations for MSRPs of $240 and $300, respectively, and if you just don't need the space, there's a 1TB version for $160. If you shop around though, you can find all of them for less than their recommended retail price.

In addition to offering three times faster data transfer speeds than older USB 2.0 drives, the alumiunium-encased Western Digital MyBook Studio USB 3.0 can be password protected, and can be used with Windows or Mac Computers (the drive is formatted for Mac by default), and supports Apple's Time Machine automatic backup technology.

If you need storage on the move, we recommend you check out LaCie's Rugged USB 3.0 Thunderbolt Series mobile hard drive. This portable drive measures a mere 89 x 140 x 24 mm / 3.5 x 5.5 x 0.97 inches and comes in two SSD versions (120GB and 256GB), as well as a standard 1TB 'spinning disk' variant. The LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt series offers a high-speed Thunderbolt connection for use with Apple's newest computers, in addition to USB 3.0, which are both capable of achieving up to 385MB/s file transfer speeds. I own the 500GB FireWire 800/USB 3.0 - also a member of LaCie's Rugged family - and have been very impressed by its ability to handle rough handling. In theory, the solid state drive of the newer model should be even tougher.

Key Features/Specifications

Available in capacities up to 4TB
USB 3.0 interface
Heat dissipating aluminum enclosure
Compatible with Apple Time Machine
Mac ready, but can be Windows formatted
Password protection

What we like: - Lightning fast, tons of storage, Mac-friendly but will also play with Windows, password protected, great value (especially if you shop around)

What we don't like: - 3-year warranty is great, but it's limited

Click here to go to page 4 of our 2012 Holiday Gift Guide

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The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions held by dpreview.com or any affiliated companies.

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Total comments: 59

It is now 2013, in case you did not notice.

0 upvotes

Avoid Seagate drives get WDs

0 upvotes

Totally avoid Western Digital hard drives! Get Lacie which is mostly using Seagate drives!

0 upvotes

No it ain't holiday season. Summer is a long way off.

1 upvote

The Phottix Aion is a nice one :)

0 upvotes

What accessory do you need for Pana GF1 w/20mm lens?

But of course, a nice blazer jacket.

0 upvotes

Having worked at a place that was cheap enough to think tungsten garden lights would do for studio work [thankfully objects, not people], I can vouch that the things get hot as hades - pretty uncomfortable over an extended period.

The colour is also absolutely awful and although you can of course custom white balance for them, the light is very, very cool. So while the Interfix does look like a lot of kit for the money, I'm fairly surprised you're recommending it. I'd say for beginners who want to set up a home studio, a couple of lower-powered [adjustable] daylight heads would represent a far more sensible investment for about the same money...

1 upvote

All your points are valid (and we also recommend an entry-level calumet strobe kit) but tungsten kits are traditionally good entry-points into studio photography because the metering is so much simpler for a beginner to grasp. The heads are their own modelling lights, after all. But yes - not as versatile, and hot.

0 upvotes

Fair enough - you do have to trial and error the exposures and shoot manually with strobes, whereas you can let the camera [or light meter] work out exposure for you in continuous lighting - which is of course also better for motion film. But I'm not sure manual exposure setup is much more of a challenge than setting a correct custom white balance for cool lighting.

I can remember getting very hot BEHIND the tungsten lights after only a few minutes. I imagine you could melt a model in a couple of hours ;)

A good list and article overall, btw.

0 upvotes

Thanks for reminding us non-pros how huge (and costly) the world of photography accessories can be.

That said, two really good tips here for me (not as a gift, but to buy for myself at some point): Gorillapod Focus & the Colourmunki.

Cheers and happy hollidays!

0 upvotes

Actually, I thought it was Christmas time.

1 upvote

More clutter in the apartment, yay!
I'm still trying to save money to own the new MKIII (donations are welcome).

0 upvotes

Retrospective 7 is uncomfortable even there is nothing inside. The bag weighs a ton. One of their key features: "Business card slot under the front flap for identification" itself may weigh more than a pancake lens.

Comment edited 4 minutes after posting

1 upvote

Most things weigh more than a pancake lens.

1 upvote

I can confirm that the business card pocket doesn't weigh more than my pancake lens... mmm... pancakes...

Sime - thinkTank

0 upvotes

I know that photography is expensive, whether a profession or a hobby, but DPReview live in a different world to me if these qualify as 'gifts'!

I think, though, this is probably a true reflection of the vile, consumerist spectacle that Christmas has become with adverts on television and signs appearing in shops, etc. by early October trying to get you to spend on these 'ideal presents'.

It's no wonder the world has got itself into an almighty money tangle and we need to take a cold, hard look at ourselves in terms of what is really important (and before you jump to conclusions, I'm an atheist).

7 upvotes

Then why celebrate Christmas at all? It is a (theoretically) religious holiday, after all.

0 upvotes

I think you'll find the tradition of a mid-winter feast is fairly universal and variations can be traced back far further than the origins of Christianity.

Indeed, I have no problems at all with having a special time to remind ourselves of our humanity, together with the spirits of kindness and decency, and expressing it with small thoughtful gifts.

Unfortunately, these days, there seems to be little consideration of the 'thoughtful' but rather an emphasis on the cost, the latest 'must-have' and bragging rights.

This is just one more expression of all that is wrong and it saddens me greatly.

6 upvotes

I actually think that is quite well said. Anyway....

2 upvotes

Well, isn't everyone in the holiday spirit this year!

1 upvote

Those peeling stickers get old very quickly. Too much peel. Also odd to put your logo next to street price which is clearly not owned by anyone.

0 upvotes

Oh, grow up. So, by your logic, I demand you call this time of year Hanukkah and you say Happy Hanukkah to everyone, even people who you know are not Jewish.

1 upvote

I think they mean "Christmas Gift Guide"

5 upvotes

Christmas is one event in 'holiday season'. Others include thanksgiving, Hanukkah, New Year...

9 upvotes

+1!

0 upvotes

Barney, you also forgot the atheists, in which case it is 'Happy Christmyth'!

;-)

4 upvotes

Hope I get the Think Tank bag for Saturnalia.

0 upvotes

It's fun... The "Sound Silencers", that's a good one. :)

0 upvotes

To truly get the best from the sound silencers, you need to empty your bag on the footpath and shove it over your head : )

Sime - thinkTank

0 upvotes

In general variable ND filters are pretty useless, combination of two polarising filters creates undesirable patterns in the field of view and creates more problems than it solves....

6 upvotes

One could make the same complaint about marriage, business, gardening, or sports. As equine photogs used to say, "Never snark a gift filter with your mouth."

3 upvotes

Dear Gentlemen,
the Interfit SXT3200 3 Head Tungsten kit is not a “strobe kit”, as you state, but a continuous light kit. As such the heads do not “fire” as you state, but are always on: the modelling light you invented are therefore non existing.
The inability to separate flash light from continuous light makes me think the author does not know much about lighting, and makes me doubt also of the knowledge about photography in general.
The Interfit site clearly distinguishes flash light and continuous light of various kinds. I think it's the biggest flaw I ever read on a photographic site.

9 upvotes

Fabio is right. The SXT3200 is a continuous light kit and doesn't have strobes nor do they fire.

2 upvotes

Quite right, sorry about that. The text has now been edited to make that clear.

1 upvote

A holiday gift guide with no cameras or lenses? Have you lost your minds?

5 upvotes

I agree to that! And by the way, what about some cool software like Oloneo Photoengine and the like? Isn't the holiday/Xmas season a good time to have a little fun using creative tools and explore new styles in photography?

1 upvote

As we said in the article, feel free to leave suggestions (and links to product information) in the comments :)

1 upvote

They would have had to suggest at least one camera per brand, or it would have been the start of a heated discussion among fanboys.
Also true had they chosen, say, a Nikon DSLR and a Canon P&S.
IMHO how they did it is just about right.

5 upvotes

P&S cameras were gifts in years past, but are buy now superflouous, like a third Barbie, or displaced by phone cameras. System cameras are unsuitable as gifts, since they are very expensive, can be demanding to use, and brand and model choice is highly controversial. Lenses are even more difficult to select. Arranged marriage is less complicated. Enthusiasts have trouble enough picking equipment (or partners) for themselves.

4 upvotes

Brand choice isn't highly controversial. Olympus is the best,followed by Panasonic and Sony. Everyone else is tied for last place.

2 upvotes

Just stay away from Lacie: unreliable where it matters: your data.

2 upvotes

A great read and a great reminder of the holidays.

0 upvotes

Dear Santa,

I have been VVVEEERRRRRRYYYY good this year.

0 upvotes

The Tiffen Variable ND looks good, but I've read reports of issues past 2 stops on FF (Something about an X), and magenta color shifts. For something like this, it often makes sense to just spend a bit more the Singh-Ray.

For video, variable NDs like the Lightcraft are popular. The cheap ones definitely degrade IQ so avoid them.

The Velbon tripod I would almost certainly pass on for the Benro Travel Angel, which solid, lightweight, also folds down to 15", but holds over 26 lbs (11.7 kg). Nice list. Merry holidays.

1 upvote

The X effect you describe happens on either FF or Crop when you get past about 28mm equivalent. It's pretty ugly.

0 upvotes

It would be ineresting to know where the Tiffen comes from. Truly neutral polarizers (or ND filters) don't seem very common.

0 upvotes

the KATA and Gorilla pod a must for any DSLR user who like to travel safe and light.

0 upvotes

And know all the best places to find tafoni.

0 upvotes

Interesting article. I just wish there's a view-all-pages button.

8 upvotes

It's something we're considering but honestly, in one long page, this thing is pretty hard to read!

0 upvotes

+1 for read all.

And something about text entry in the forums is really funky on an iPad.

4 upvotes

View all = Less ads displayed.

0 upvotes

@David - well yes, but you'd be surprised how much difference that doesn't make to our revenue. At all.

The real reason is that a single page would be well over a meter long, which isn't great for readability. Links are provided to go directly to any of the products covered, it's really very minimal effort on the part of the reader.

Comment edited 2 times, last edit 7 minutes after posting

0 upvotes

Here's my 2 cents,...
A single page is just one click and everything loads all in one go. Easy to then scroll up and down and find what you want. even if it is 2 meters long!
With several pages you have to find the "next page" button several times and click and wait each time for the next page to load. Then after a a quick read you might want to go back to some part to read it in more detail, ...but wait, what page was it on??. Now you have to click each page again to find it :-(

With one page you can also jump immediately to anything you search for with say crtl-F

In a list like this it might also help if the quick "index" at the top remains , but has links to each new article further down on the same page.

Comment edited 3 minutes after posting

10 upvotes

@ fireplace - permalinks to the other products in the roundup is a good suggestion, thanks. I'll try that for future content.,

0 upvotes

@Barney: What fireplace33 said. Plus if you're arriving here from Google (other search engines are available...) and the result Google is pointing to is several pages in*, you have to do the scroll-page-scroll-page thing to find what you're looking for. Just hitting the "Show All" button and using Control-F in the browser would make that a whole lot easier. I've used that technique on other websites like the Guardian, Salon and Creative Cow and believe me, it's like rollerskating compared to slogging through mud.

Not sure how necessary it would be on camera/lens reviews - the section headings here at DPR are pretty intuitive - but for forum threads and articles without page headings (*cough* Connect *cough*...), it's a boon.

* For some reason, Google seems able to index multi-page articles/forum threads as a single page even if they're displayed as multiples.

2 upvotes

Oh, and while I have(?) your attention, thanks for the article. Some very interesting ideas there. Even if I do voice a heartfelt "Bah, Humbug" to the whole Xmas/"Holidays" thing. :-)

0 upvotes

Barnie: You want readability you should lose the reverse type for text.

1 upvote

Chicken! ;-)

Comment edited 31 seconds after posting

2 upvotes

Total comments: 59