5 Christmas Gift Ideas for Photographers in the making

If you have a friend of family member who can be difficult to buy gifts for but is showing an interest in photography here are a few gifts that you might like to consider:

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Digital Photographer's Handbook - A Book by Tom Ang

One of the best gifts you can buy someone who is interested in photography is one that will help them develop their skills. Tom Ang's Digital Photographer's Handbook is a detailed but easy to read introduction to digital photography. It covers camera mechanics (how your camera works), image composition (techniques that will help make your images more pleasing to the eye), visual effects, and even includes projects to help develop photographic skills. In fact it even goes beyond cameras taking in film scanners, lighting set ups and more. While the title suggests that it focuses solely on digital photography if your friend or family member is more interested in film most of the lessons contained in the book will still apply. In fact the section on Film scanning is targeted specifically at film shooters. As an added bonus it even includes some photos taken in little old New Zealand. Awesome!

A Tripod

Blurry photos should be a pet peeve for photographers in the making. A tripod is a great tool that can be used to reduce the odds of encountering this problem. It also has the added benefit of making night-time landscape photos possible. If you live near a road a tripod will help your photographer in the making take photos with blurred lights passing through. Focus on getting the sturdiest tripod you can for your money. If the tripod is likely to shake or wobble under the weight of the camera it is not worth paying for. As it is best to test tripods out in person I have not provided a link here. Instead pop down to your local camera shop (NB:// by this I mean a shop that specialises in selling camera equipment - I would advise against visiting a chain store that does not specialise in photography equipment as, chances are, the salesperson will not be able to give you the information you require to make the best decision).

Shutter Release Cable

If your friend or family member already has a tripod a shutter release cable is another tool that can help photographers reduce the chances of taking blurry photos. By taking photos by pressing something that is not part of the camera the odds of producing camera shake are greatly reduced. These are also usually fairly affordable.

Prints or a Print Voucher
In the age of digital cameras we often forget that photos are things that used to be printed an hung on a wall. You can remind your friend or family member of this by organising to have one of their favourite images printed to a large scale or getting them a voucher to enable them to do this themselves. 

A Film Camera
This is the option that I would most and least recommend. I strongly recommend film here as it will force them to shoot differently. If they use the film camera they will have to slow down and think about their shots a lot more. Raising the stakes in this way will highlight the importance of pre-visualising images. Try to purchase one of the same brand as the odds of knowledge around layout transferring from their digital camera to the film camera will be higher. The odds of them being able to use lenses across systems will also increase. The key reason to avoid this option is the fact that you will be introducing an ongoing cost to your friend or family member. Additionally as film photography differs from digital photography in the delay between shooting an image and seeing an image the film camera may end up being left on the shelf.