[photopress:m_527.jpg,full,alignright] ( before we get started, let’s first congratulate our weekly giveaway winners from last week.Krissy W. of NY,NY will be getting the ShootSac, and Ella M. from Maple Falls, Washington asked “what else is there?” and she’ll find out when she gets a copy of The Photographers Eye)

We’ve been looking around, trying stuff out, and hitting the trade shows to see what may be of interest to you to add to your shopping list for the photographically minded. Yep, good for gifts to give or maybe, just maybe, suggestions for the folks getting you a nice little something.

Totally Free:
To the first 10 people – a photoinduced.com lens cloth and T-shirt.Just send an email to damonw@photoinduced.com, put “free” in the subject line. If you’d like a T, say S-M-L-XL-XXL, for size. then add a shipping address. Anywhere in the world.

Under $20[photopress:51V47H2RS8L._SS400_.jpg,thumb,alignright]
For just a few dollars you can gift someone with some cool stuff; great book that can inspire, teach, or entertain or maybe a useful tool that everyone can use.
Family Of Man – must have book in everyone’s library. trust us on this one.
Woman – A Celebration: a beautifully printed collection of some of the classic photographs of women
Digital Photography for Busy Women – plain talk about your favorite subject.
SanDisk MobileMateâ„¢ SDâ„¢ Plus Reader: a portable card reader that’ll take care of your SD cards, cell phone cards, in all sizes. you will need a separate one for memory sticks. ( yeah, Sony likes that proprietary card)

Under $50
Driven: The Motorsport Photography of Jesse Alexander, 1954-1962
Personal Exposures : Classic book by Elliott Erwitt, looks like Amazon has a few copies left at a right price. This one is out of print.
A custom photo book created by you with blurb.com or a gift project.
Paris-New York-Shanghai: one of our new favorite books exploring the power culture cities of the past, present and future. Brilliant in content and design.

Magazines:
On the magazines a great way to do it is to get a copy of the mag, and let the giftee know that there is a sub coming their way with a card. From $12-$60 USD.
PDN
American Photo
Popular Photography
Aperture (now with a 50% off offer!)

Under $75:
[photopress:Twin_with_Plate_Behind_07.jpg,full,centered] Hahnel battery charger– outstanding fast charger. Took this unit on an international trip and every night had the D200 batteries charged fast AND the video camera’s batts charged too. With a meter to let me know how much juice was left in the battery, my time time resetting for the next day was a breeze.
Just needed a plug adapter different countries and it comes with a cigarette lighter adapter for charging on the road. Folds flat, packs small, it’s a new permanent part of the kit.
Adobe Photoshop Elements – perfect for the photographer who wants to start in on making more of their digital imagery, but don;t need all of the tools in Photoshop CS3. VERY user friendly.

Under $100:
Huey Pro Color Calibration Tool: Have a serious printer on your list? If they haven’t been calibrating their monitor to get the most accurate color in their prints, here is a powerful, easy to use tool that’ll make all of the difference.

For the gadget-y person that you want to spend some dough on, check out Eye-fi, a 2gb wi-fi card.
Basically you can upload to 14 different share sites wirelessly. It does keep your images private till you decide on which ones to go public. OK, it’s a cool idea, great package.

For 3D in a digital world Loreo has a cool lens that, coupled with a printer, will get you want you want. It fits on a variety of DSLR’s, and produces 2 images on one frame, with a parallax shift, which can be viewed using a stereopticon, or a simple viewer.

Speaking of which, Epson printers are perfect for making up your 4×6 prints for 3D or giving out,and they are blowing out an older version for about $60.

In point and shoot land:This’ll kick it up a notch or two ( around the $300-$400 range)
Sony T200 – check out the Smile detection feature. Fun deal. Conversation starter. Needs a bit of light to work right, but overall solid unit.
Nikon S51c: great little unit with email capabilities, and a “wheel” system to help you adjust what you want to control, easily.
Canon PowerShot SD870 IS
Panasonic – Lumix: only point and shoot that does RAW plus manual exposure. Leica lens.

In the world of camera bags, utility, stealth, and comfort are some of the lead requirements.
[photopress:ArprtInlGly1.jpg,full,alignright] For the past 12 months, we’ve been on the road at various times, flying all over the place.
There has been nothing like our ThinkTank Airport International. Fits where we need it, holds a DLSR, video camera, mics,lenses, hard drives, flash, cables, batts and most importantly, a 15″ MacBook Pro. FLAT. yep, they designed the dividers to be low enough for a laptop to sit in the case, not on the outside in a pouch. Very protected and comes out easily at the security points. You may not need it for that, but on a trade show floor, my back is thankful for the wheels.

[photopress:Slingshot_in_use_tif2_N.jpg,full,alignright]
On the street, we dig the LowePro SlingShot 300AW. Reads like a backpack with real good zippers.
Saw 3 today in NYC and they just looked like backpacks, not repositories of $3k worth of gear or more.

Now at the holidays you want to see someone’s eyes open wide when they open the package. Oh you’ll know if you did well. It’s in their eyes. So make sure you get some fun, boxed stuff. The hard-core stuff that takes a lot to deal with must be accompanied with fun stuff.
Be it a lens, easy printer, book, viewer, photo vest, camera back, or camera or printer.
Make sure the eyes light up.

On the book front, I’ll never forget giving someone a copy of the family of man and 3 months later I get a phone call with a story of looking at the photos with their daughter and were brought to tears.

Money well spent.

Frames are always good.

Digital frames?
Maybe the ones that will let you put a card in it to set a slide show in motion. Quality is getting there, but see for yourself. We’re not happy yet. Take a media card with pics on it and see how it looks. In the store. Only way to tell.

Now the shooters on your list always dig a flash, camera bag, tripod, lenses, but be careful here, make sure you know what they have already.
We’re not going to touch this area, as it is a big broad animal, and everyone has product needs that you have to stay loyal to.

A perfect solution would be to go to your local camera store, like Samy’s or internet server like B&H and they can handle a gift card for the hard to buy for shooter.

Wait a minute….are these some good ideas to let folks know what you may like???
Of course it is.
Remember the folks at photoinduced.com are just like you.
Heck,they are you.

And as we see some other goodies out there ( we’re still looking) we’ll give you a heads up.

There was a ton of stuff at Paris-Photo we want to share with you, but you let us know it was time to shop a little. Cool.
We’ll continue the fair coverage shortly.

Cheers!
Damon Webster