If there’s a photographer or content creator on your holiday list this year, here are some great gifts under $300. Get them the gear they’ll use all year!
Epson Expression Photo HD XP-15000 Printer
This affordable compact desktop printer makes it super-easy to create professional-quality images right at home. It uses a six-colour individual ink-cartridge set to achieve a wider gamut and smoother gradations, delivering stunning prints up to 13 inches wide and 44 inches long in sharp high-definition 5760×1440 dpi resolution. For added convenience, it features built-in Wi-Fi, allowing photographers to print photos straight from their wireless devices. This would make a great gift for any serious imagemaker seeking a convenient way to bring their photos to life, rich in detail and vibrant, accurate colour.
Manfrotto Advanced Gear Backpack M III
Cleverly designed to hold just enough gear within its spacious contours, this is clearly the Goldilocks of backpacks. Not too big, not too small, robustly structured and snugly fitting but delightfully comfortable to wear, Manfrotto’s Advanced Gear Backpack M III leaves no stone unturned in its quest for perfection. Unzip the front door and the flap stays neatly wide open, offering instant unobstructed access to the contents in its highly customizable interior. When you zip it back up and rest the flat bottom base on a level surface, the backpack stands up perfectly straight without tumbling over. There’s a side connection for a tripod and a built-in zippered laptop pocket, and it comes with a rain cover. The exterior is made of water- and wear-resistant polyester nylon, and you can grab this backpack by the soft top handle when you’d rather carry it at your side.
MOBIFOTO T1 Pro Portable Teleprompter
Using an 8.5-inch display with beam-splitting glass, this cool teleprompter allows a content creator to record their content with a camera or smartphone positioned directly behind the screen, ensuring that the talent is always looking straight at the camera behind it, appearing natural and relaxed. The high-definition display is easy to read, the font size is adjustable, and the Bluetooth remote control lets you pause, adjust speed and turn pages with incredible ease. It’s compatible with most smartphones and tablets, both iOS and Android, up to 7.9 inches in length, and can be used in either portrait or landscape orientation. It’s also lightweight, foldable, portable and comes with its own custom tote for easy transport between scenes.
Sennheiser MKE 200 Mobile Kit
This complete kit is loaded with everything you need to capture pristine sound for your videos on the go. At its heart, there’s the Sennheiser MKE 200 compact directional on-camera microphone. It’s lightweight, easy to use and designed to deliver both focus and detail to recordings with a level of audio quality that the Sennheiser name is known for. The included windscreen helps to eliminate distracting noise when shooting outdoors in unpredictable weather, and the Manfrotto PIXI mini tripod offers a handy leg-up whenever you need the extra support. The two TRS-to-TRS and TRS-to-TRRS coiled cables offer compatibility with mobile devices and cameras respectively, and the smartphone clamp lets you shoot with a device in portrait or landscape orientation.
DJI Osmo Mobile 6
If you’ve never used one of DJI’s handheld 3-axis smartphone stabilizers before, you won’t believe the difference it makes in your ability to capture super-smooth jitter-free video. When folded down, the Mobile 6 is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, and it’s designed to be deployed in an instant – powering up the moment you unfold it. The built-in extension rod and gesture controls make it easy to shoot selfies, and it’s loaded with other intelligent functions – like timelapse, panorama and dynamic zoom – to put a distinctive spin on anyone’s mobile productions. At its base, the Osmo Mobile 6 sports a 1/4″-20 tripod mounting thread: a grip tripod is included, along with a convenient carrying pouch to keep all the components together.